Do You Realize?

You Learn Something New Every Day

While considering plants for our large outdoor pots, we were thinking sago palms in one set and replacement Rum Runner hibiscus in the others. Then we remembered Marshmallow's tendency to snack on everything she can get her teeth on (yesterday she ate cotton burr compost like it was cereal) and decided maybe(!) it would be a good idea to check toxicity of these plants for dogs.

A quick Internet search ruled out sago palm; even a small amount of this plant will cause swift renal failure in dogs. But hibiscus is a different story. There are conflicting reports. Some lists of poisonous plants have hibiscus included on them, some don't.  And so it was that I sat on the phone for fifteen minutes with the ASPCA Poison Control Center. Nevermind that we had already purchased the hibiscus online. According to the ASPCA vet I spoke with, the hibiscus will cause some pretty severe gastrointestinal upset, but it is not life-threatening to dogs. We decided to proceed with the planting and place some chicken wire around the plants until they no longer seem like a novelty to Destruct-o-Dog.

So, that's what I learned yesterday. That, and hard manual labor outside with only dogs for company is not nearly as much fun as with a friend, with, say, speech capabilities and opposable thumbs and an innate revulsion to caprophagia.

Frisco

Last week, I mentioned to my therapist (who is actually a psychoanalyst) that our family therapist has made the comment a couple of times that I exhibit a lot of signs of someone who has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and that she had asked if I'd ever talked to him (my regular therapist) about it. My therapist replied that, yes, indeed, he thinks I do. All of this stems from my first marriage to C. (Remember him? If not, you need to go here. And here. And here.) Honestly, that thought had never crossed my mind. I never really think of myself as a "victim" of anything, only sometimes an unwilling accomplice in some things; I believe in accountability, and I take responsibility for a lot, even things for which others would say I am not to blame. Things like Frisco.

C. came home one day with a surprise for the kids. (I don't know where he had been, but it couldn't have been a job; I didn't ask a lot of questions before we got married, and now I realize it was because I knew on some level I wouldn't like the answers.) As he pulled out this minuscule gray fluffball of a tabby kitten, tiny enough to fit in my two small-ish palms. Eldest's eyes sparkled like a diamond in sunlight. "His name is Frisco," she declared. We spent the next several hours playing with Frisco at my parents' house.

Then I had to leave for work. Oh, how I wish I'd never left. I tell myself, even today, that hearing about an atrocious act is different than seeing it happen, and that if I'd seen it happen, maybe my life would have changed for the better.

It was a weekend, I think, because I remember being able to talk for a while when my mother called me at work to tell me that Frisco was dead.

"How?"

"C. killed him." She was, understandably, distraught.

"What happened?"

And this is what she told me:

C. was watching the kids in the living room. All the other adults were in other rooms of the house.

Middle (again, at that time he was Youngest, but you know him here as Middle) was in his playpen, one of those contraptions with fabric mesh for walls. He had a particularly endearing habit of leaning his weight, face-first, into the mesh, contorting his cherubic little face into all sorts of hideous but adorable shapes.

Eldest was still playing with Frisco. She was in love. Frisco was digging Middle's playpen, a vehicle on which to propel himself with his little kitten claws.

What happened next will never be completely known, since the only three people in the room were C. and two toddlers, and a 6-to-8-week-old kitten. What we do know is that within seconds, this picture-perfect Norman Rockwell scene would transform forever. Frisco would lay bleeding and convulsing at the base of a nearby wall, where C. had thrown him.

C. insisted that Frisco had attacked Middle, and that Middle was crying and bleeding. (For the record,
Middle had a scratch on his cheek that was one quarter of an inch long, and my parents said that when they walked in, he was not crying.) C. reacted quickly, simply wanting to save Middle and get the cat off of him. He didn't mean to slam it into a wall.

What I believe to have happened is another story. I've played this scene out so many times in my head, I feel like I was there, and sometimes I have to stop myself from actually thinking that I was. I suspect that Middle had mashed his face into the side of his playpen at the very same time that Frisco decided to climb up the very same place. C., who was probably not watching very closely, heard a commotion, grabbed the vile, vicious kitten, and hurled him into the wall, killing him.

As with some of the other things I've related about C., I wish I could tell you this was the end. But it wasn't. It was only the beginning; we hadn't even married at this point. Why did I stay? Because I thought I was damaged goods, a young woman with two small children, and I thought my possibilities for a mate had diminished to the point that maybe this was the best I could expect. Why do any of us do things at the ripe old age of twenty that will later cause us to cringe with remorse? My fuck-up was just more grand than others.

See how blurred lines can become? Will we ever know C.'s reason for throwing that kitten? No. I've tried to tell myself time and time again that C. hadn't grown up with cats as I had, that he really thought the kitten was hurting Middle. I told myself that because the alternative was too painful to consider. What I do know is that I was expecting more than one tiny scratch on Middle, and that I was expecting some remorseful behavior. I got neither. To the bitter end, C. insisted he'd acted as a hero with quick instincts.

They were killer instincts, anyway.

Woofday Wednesday--Perkins

This is Perkins. He is our Prince Charming. He has the sweetest, most laid-back disposition of any dog we own. In fact, were it not for the fact that whatever Bozo dumped him out didn't have him neutered as a puppy, he would be an indoor dog; as it stands now, we couldn't de-activate his sprinkler system in time to avoid that nagging desire to piss on every immobile object.

He has one other terrible trait: his wanderlust. This boy was born to run. If he ever gets loose, he will lead you on a footchase to the ends of the earth (I've had to chase him a half mile before). One day a couple of years back, he took off, lost us in the footchase, and didn't come home. He always came home. We searched for days, we made reward posters, we got a few tips, but, ultimately, nothing came of it. We were heartbroken. Then, one day, more than two weeks after he went missing, a neighbor called & said she'd been hearing a dog bark near her house for a few days. She'd thought it was in a faraway yard, but it turns out Perkins was trapped in the crawl space of a house next door to hers that was vacant and for sale at the time. My husband had to crawl through a tiny hole to retrieve him. The vet said his body had started to break itself down from lack of food, and he was dehydrated, but blood tests showed no harm to his kidneys; Perkins dodged a bullet. We were so very lucky.

Love a stray; neuter & spay!

Wordless/Woofday Wednesday

Photo Hunt Saturday--Different

This week's theme is: Different. I took these photos after the two snowstorms we just had, which is very different for Texas weather. For five years, we had snow once every single year we lived here, then it stopped. Our last significant snow was Valentine's Day of 2004. I'm posting two photos this week, which is different for me; usually, I'm a one-photo gal.

The first photo is of Marshmallow in the snow. This photo really captures the intensity of her two different colored eyes. (You can click to enlarge it.)

The second photo is of my boys, whom I refer to here in my blog as Middle and Youngest. It never fails to strike me how very different they are from one another, in every possible way. I remember when the tags in their clothes were as close in numbers as their age. They are only sixteen months apart, but they are farther apart physically and emotionally than they have ever been in their lives.

Meowy Monday--Taylor Mae

Before we get to Meowy Monday, I want to mention my Blogiversary Giveaways again. Today, for Meowy Monday, I'll be drawing a random name from my comments to give away a bag of Feline Greenies and a can of Pet Promise cat food. (My kitties love it. It has no rendered animals, no factory farmed animals, and no animal by-products, like fur or toenails, in it.) You have to comment to be included, though!

And now...

Since you've already met all four of my beautiful kitties, I now get to have guest ambassadors for Meowy Monday. This week's guest is Taylor Mae, one of my aunt's kitties.

Mimi has two kitties, and they look exactly alike. How, then, you may wonder, do I know that this is Taylor Mae (and not Pepper Ann)? Because she let me take this photo. Pepper Ann only tolerates men, for whatever jacked-up reason, and I don't qualify.

My cousin is a veterinary technician, and she is always bringing home injured, abandoned, or otherwise misfit critters (witness Woody the Woodchuck, who weighed at least 15 pounds and had not a single hair on his pink ass). She has the sad, unfortunate job of going to help with her county's euthanizations once a week; if I'm not mistaken, Taylor Mae was in the queue that day. How Beth chooses which animals she takes home to the Farm of Misfit Critters, I'll never know. I could never choose; I want to save them all, even though I know I can't.

Love a stray; neuter & spay!

Photo Hunt Saturday--Party

Before we get to today's Photo Hunt, let me remind you of my Blogiversary Giveaways. Today, I’ll be giving away a CD with TEN of my favorite original photographic images that you can use for your computer desktop or screen saver. A few will probably be ones you've seen on a previous Photo Hunt Saturday, and a few others will be ones you've never seen. But, you can be assured, they will all be lovely! Remember, you have to comment to be included in the drawing.

Today's Photo Hunt theme is: Party. I love this photo of the little impromptu party that Sapphire decided to host... hehehe. She definitely has friends of all size, shape, and color, just as we all should!

Woofday Wednesday--Nibbles

The story of how Nibbles joined our family is a sweet one but one that gives testament to the absolute disregard for animals that some people have. In late 2000, we had an ice storm that knocked out power all over our town. We decided to go out to eat for dinner, and as we passed Fairview Park, in the dusk I spotted a little dachshund struggling through the ice & snow. We stopped to pick him up, and he was so sweet and so cold. I wrapped him in my sweatshirt, and we began to drive through the neighborhood to find this little guy's home. On our second try, we found "home;" this angel's name was Rusty. We expected his family to be grateful or worried about him; instead, they simply said that he had been gone since that morning (eight hours in the snow & ice), and they figured he would come home on his own. They also had two other dogs that they said didn't really like Rusty. We sadly left, and for the rest of the evening we talked about Rusty and his terrible family. The next day, we went to his house & asked if we could take him home with us: it was a bittersweet moment, as they rather quickly let us have him. We changed his name to "Nibbles," and since that day, he has always been so humble and loving and grateful.

A couple of sad things that we've not been able to  overcome in the seven years we've had him: he still cringes when you reach for him, even to pet him, and he still treats all food as if he were starving, nipping fingers and growling for his spot at the dish.

He now has degenerative disc disease, common for dachshunds. Cold weather makes his back ache like arthritis, so he now stays indoors. We have to lift him up and down from high objects (like beds or sofas).

He is truly a "Mama's Boy." He makes the greatest grunts and whines and howls. He is a little spoiled and as a result is a pain, but after coming from the family he came from, it's all good.

Love a stray; neuter & spay!

Meowy Monday--Rosie

Last week, you met my kitty soul mate, Gilda. This week you meet her sister, Rosie, who looks a whole lot like Gilda; many people get them confused until they get to know the sisters. Rosie is Eldest's kitty; she is never far from her at all. She is quite talkative when she wants something, and although Circus terrorizes her frequently, she always gets respect at the food dish for some reason. She is truly the sweetest-natured cat we have.

When we went to adopt a cat from the rescue group, there were so many beautiful kitties to choose from, but my heart went out immediately to these two that looked alike and were in the same cage. It was obvious they were sisters, and I really felt torn; I asked if Hubby would mind getting both, he said okay, and they were mine.

Their naming process is one I've made scrapbook pages about. They have had so many names. Their adoption certificates say Annabelle and Annalise. Those names just did not really suit them. So for a while, we called them Pink and Red, for the colors of the collars they were wearing. We noticed that one stayed close to us, but one of them shied away from people in general, so they became Hither and Yon. The kids couldn't remember those, as they were very young. So we tried Nearly and Farly. Those names were too comical; these were more regal cats than comical, though, and those wouldn't do, either. After searching the internet I found a site dedicated to naming pairs of animals. Coming across their names, I knew immediately they were the ones for our kitties. And thus they became Rosencrantz & Gildenstern, a.k.a. Rosie & Gilda.

Truth be told, Rosie is the cat I chose that day. If we hadn't decided not to split the sisters up, I would not have found my kitty soul mate. A note of advice for anyone considering splitting up a pair: don't.

Love a stray; neuter & spay!

Meowy Monday--Gilda

Now that I'm somewhat back on schedule, let's get back to another love-- cute, cuddly, fuzzalicious kitties!

You've met one set of our sister kitties, Sapphire and Circus. Today, I present one-half of our other set of sister-kitties.

After Poogan came into the house, I decided it was missing some feline fancy, so I asked to get a cat. As a testament to his love (he was an avowed cat-disliker... not quite a hater, but, well... you get the picture), Hubby went with me to look at the rescues available at PetSmart through the local SPCA. Among all the beautiful kitties, there were two that really caught my eye. They were beautiful brown long-haired tabbies, they were in the same cage, and they were nearly identical. One was aggressively seeking love and rubs, while the other one gracefully let her sister take the limelight. I simply could not make up my mind. Luckily, Hubby came through and suggested we take them both, because had I had to decide, I would never have found my kitty soul-mate.

Gilda (short for Gildenstern, which I will explain next week, when you'll meet Rosencrantz) is definitely my cat and my cat only. Anyone who says cats don't display loyalty like dogs has never met this cat. She is the softest cat I've ever met, she sleeps next to my head every night, and we are like peas & carrots.

Gilda recently inexplicably lost about 30% of her body weight with no other symptoms whatsoever. After several blood panels, two ultrasounds, an endoscopy, a possible cancer, and a several-month-long regime of steroids, there is still no real explanation. It seems that eight pounds is her new "normal", as opposed to twelve. Bizarre, but I have decided to just go with it; I was worried so long that she was going to die, but now I just want to concentrate on how well she lives.


Love a stray; neuter & spay!