mariness

My family found my first cat through a want ad, when we were looking for a cat who could help with the mouse problem. That cat was more than successful, and always superior to the family she graciously agreed to share living space with. My second cat was a rescue from the streets of Miami; I'd hit the point where I wanted the cat, and I'd asked friends to keep an ear out for any cats in need of a home, and there was Tasha in all of her not-exactly-friendly neuroticism, convinced, post joining me, that I was the only worthwhile human being on earth. The Grey One was another kitten found by friends, that I got after Tasha died, leaving the Little One distraught.

The Little One was different.

He found me.

He was a tiny ball of mud that barely looked like a kitten when he found me. I washed him and considered what to do with him - I already had Tasha who did not regard other living creatures with favor and certainly was not interested in sharing her human with another cat. And yet. He was so incredibly adorable and loud and adorable - and he'd followed ME. He'd picked me. I decided that I couldn't give him up.

Even if it meant no peace in the household for a couple of years.

It turned out to be one of the best decisions I ever made.

I gave him a nicely evil name, Asmodean, since he'd wormed his way into the household, and an internet pseudonym, the Little One, since he was a very small kitten. Right from the beginning, he was more of a dog than a cat - he followed me around like a puppy, played fetch, and was incredibly friendly - some critics said overly friendly - to anyone who entered. He had an underappreciated habit of just sitting on people when not headbutting them.

He also loved to play, and jump, and leap - I've never seen another cat make some of the jumps that he did, which had the tendency to startle visitors and board games. And one - only one - bad habit; he was convinced, despite all protests to the contrary, that computer and laptop keyboards were designed to be cat beds. As I explained once, years back, one of my pet peeves as a writer was how much time I had to spend removing him from the keyboard. He added a good ten pages of random letters and symbols to my Tor.com post on Toy Story just last week.

His first bad moment came when Tasha died. She may have hated him, but he loved her, and also, I realized, he'd never been alone. He did not like being alone at all. So I acquired the Grey One and told him that she was his kitten. They took me literally; I've sometimes been allowed to pet the Grey One, but she was always his cat, not mine.

When I got sick, he was the best thing ever.

He knew something was wrong when I first moved up here, and got quiet and even friendlier, if possible - I think he was afraid that I would leave him behind. Despite his usual vocal objections to car rides, he was completely silent on the way up. The moment we let him out of his carrier, he went for me, and stayed beside me. He didn't quite have the Grey One's unusual gift for knowing exactly when my blood pressure dropped, but he did know that he could get on top of me, and I could scratch his chin, and that was important knowledge. He rarely left me alone for an instant, and I needed that.

I was up in Columbus when we moved to this house According to my brother, he freaked out and headed straight for a cabinet as everything was moved out of the apartment. He was the last thing to leave, primarily because he didn't want to leave the cabinet - I think because he was afraid he would never see me again. When I came to the house a few days later, he went NUTS and clung to me for the next several days.

And that was our interaction for the next several years. He slept with me, watched TV with me, leaned against me or slept on me or slept near me when I wrote or read, listened to every telephone conversation. He sat at the window, watching me leave on the trike or in someone else's car, waiting for me to return.

He did start to slow down, just a little. He stopped leaping to the top of the bookshelves - something he used to be able to do from the floor, and could still do from the TV stand, and did a few times after we arrived here. As he started having a few problems jumping to the my bed, which is a bit high - he could make it, but he kinda had to claw the arrival - I got him a set of little kitty stairs, which he liked. He could still jump on the couch, and did that without a problem. In the past year or so, he tended to stay on my bed a little bit more. But every time I thought, ok, he's slowing down, he'd surprise me by jumping to the window, or dashing through the hallway, or indulging in his loud, raspy, purrs. When he made it to the age of 17 this fall, I thought that I was going to be lucky enough to have him for a few more years.

Yesterday morning, he was at the windowsill, watching the cardinals. Late yesterday afternoon, his back legs visibly gave out. He struggled for a bit. An hour or so later, he was back to walking, and paced the hallway, but he seemed a bit confused and disoriented. He stared at the litter box for a bit, and then - very unusually - refused it (though he used the easily cleaned tile floor.) Then he seemed better and came back to the bedroom. I brought him some tuna fish, and it took him a moment to realize what it was, and eat it. He wandered a bit more, but kept stopping and staring at corners, or looking confused.

I probably should have taken him to the vet right then, but....I don't drive, and we don't have a 24 hour vet that I can reach via mobility scooter or trike. He seemed to recover a bit in the evening; I had him on my lap as we watched Flash and Legends of Tomorrow. But he was also incredibly quiet. Much later, I found him in between the TV stand and the wall, head on the speaker, the other cat watching him. I picked him up and he flopped against my chest immediately.

I don't think either one of us slept well - I know I didn't. At about 4 am, he started seizing. He got better after I held him again. I managed a bit more sleep. By the time I woke, he was seizing again.

He was in bad shape when we reached the vet.

We didn't even have time to put him to sleep. He died while I was slowly rocking him, wrapped in a towel, back and forth, wrapped in a towel. I'm not sure he even knew I was there, but I hope he did.

He was the hands down best cat I've ever had, more than a cat, a friend.

The Grey One is sleeping curled up in the sun, nearby. She's been watching me off and on since I got back. I think she thinks I can still bring him home.

I want to fill this with funny memories, but my heart is too full right now.

Bye, little cat. You will be so, so missed.

Still pretty dizzy, but sorta able to sit up and think between bouts of moving floor, so thought I'd try to sneak a con report in here mostly copied/pasted from my iPad notes before the election coverage gets going.

Summary: Con, yay. Hotel and Toronto airport, not yay. A surprisingly emotional con for me, very up and down, where I felt caught between tears and laughter, severe disappointment and massive excitement, fury and glee, and talked entirely too much. I did cry far too much on the first couple of con days, and got pretty dizzy pretty much every afternoon and most evenings, but things improved later.

From my notes on the cheerful and good things:

1. As always, the very very best part of the con was all of the wonderful conversations with the amazing people, and no, I'm not just talking about the conversations about photocopying sharks. (Which were less conversations and more me explaining why I once photocopied dead sharks. Look. This is just one of those things that can happen, ok?) I also finally got to meet in real life various people I've only "met" through Twitter or Tor.com.

2. Alas, the sad part of the con is that I didn't get to talk to ANYBODY enough. Even though, oddly, I also talked FAR too much.

In her con wrap-up, wirewalking said something that really spoke to me, about types of friends at cons, including:

"The ones you pass and exchange hellos and waves with in the halls and wish you could hang out with more, but scheduling always gets in the way."

Yeah, that.

:(

3. On the other hand, I did get to sing with Charles de Lint. Admittedly the more neutral observers of this event would call this less "singing with Charles de Lint" and more "sitting in the audience and joining in the chorus," but instead of quibbling or providing an accurate report, let's call this "singing with Charles de Lint."

I did, however, really and truly have drinks with him before the con actually started, although this was entirely by mistake since for the first half hour I had absolutely no idea who he was. Sometimes it takes a little while for obvious things (mentions of his book titles, for instance) to enter my little brain.

4. It will surprise exactly no one that my last dinner at World Fantasy Con (which technically happened after the con, but whatever) involved Jonathon Coulton songs. What can I say?

5. Speaking of music, I am absolutely shocked, shocked by my completely reliable statistical sampling of random World Fantasy attendees: Bedlam Boys, which I sang 1 1/2 times, was recognized by 15 people. The Wombling Song, which I sang 10 times (sorta), was recognized by 0 people. AT A FANTASY CONVENTION, NO LESS. My little heart, it breaks.

6. Darlings, I must tell you, csecooney made me all wet. Deliciously wet. And then she recited poetry, and soon, I was even wetter. This was at – and I kid you not, darlings, I have witnesses – at an erotica party. A literary science fiction erotica party. Some words about wine and knees might even have been spoken. I cannot be sure. It was all quite dazzling.

7. And yet, all of the witnesses remained fully clothed. (If you wanted proof that we were not at Dragoncon.)

8. On a related note, I did finally make a graceful appearance INSIDE the Tor party. (Usually I make my graceful appearance OUTSIDE the Tor party, because, wow, is that one popular party.) I also have witnesses for this unusual achievement. It lasted about 15 minutes but I feel this should count, especially since people had offered to pull things out of the Jacuzzi for me by that point, which, you know, means it's now a PARTY.

9. I failed, alas, to make a similar appearance at the Vandermeer party, and thus missed the bunny.

(I have no more context for this. I was simply told, "you missed the bunny," so I thought I'd share so we could all miss the bunny together. Except of course for those reading this who didn't miss the bunny.)

10. On the other hand, I also missed the funeral and open casket viewing that took place in the room right next to various panels, including the ghost story panel, and all the assorted creepiness. I did, however, get to experience the Sheraton's Haunted Elevators. I suspect editors are going to get slammed with Haunted Elevator stories in just a few months.

11. I kept expecting the con to end, for people to drift out and away, because that was what has happened in previous cons – on Sunday, I am often back alone in a hotel room, crouched against the noise of a convention, returning to myself bit by bit.

This time, though, the convention lingered – Sunday dinner, late Monday coffee and semi-lunch, cab ride to the airport, the ticket counter – and then, the real shock, shortly after I'd said goodbye to everyone I'd shared the cab with, feeling that it was time to return to myself again.....

....there was neile at an airport store! It was the con that never ended. Well, until I got on the plane (upgrade to business class, which was nice if mostly pointless since I was sick the entire flight, after my not exactly happy fight with Air Canada and the Toronto airport) switching back to a world of delighted small children who were going to see BUZZ LIGHTYEAR and TINKERBELL and needed TO YELL ABOUT THIS.

12. Finally, MUCH THANKS to everyone who helped me, either with pushing me around or through the bathroom issues, especially the stalwarts who pushed me back up that ramp to my hotel room. I know that I was frequently too tired to thank all of you in person and I feel terrible about that. I really am grateful.

13. This isn't, strictly speaking, part of the con, but the Little One greeted me hysterically when I came back in through the door ("Shut UP, cat!" was my father's not exactly enthusiastic response to this) and has not been off me since. The Grey One almost seemed dismayed to have me back, and later clawed me, just to remind me where I stand in the world, still living in hope that I might one day earn her permanent affection. It's like publishing, in a way.

Contrary to the howls of protest currently emanating from the hallway, I am not a cruel person. (Well. Only occasionally.) I simply hold fast to the notions that:

1. Cats do not belong in kitchen cabinets. I understand that they (the cabinets) are small and dark and comfortable, and provide an excellent jumping stop to land on the stove, which in turn allows a four legged creature to make an elegant and graceful jump to the window sill. This, however, ignores the small fact that a) the humans of the household DO NOT WANT CATS ON THE STOVE, which we have explained at some length before this, and b) that cabinet is for the storage of household items, not cats.

2. Contrary to popular opinion, I have not actually caused the rain, although it is true that unlike you, I welcome it. (I'm hoping it revives the rose bush that burst out in glory in January then died in February just as the other rose bush that died in January decided that maybe life was worth living if in an unenthusiastic, scraggling sort of way.) I will also note that although it is true that the two squirrels who usually play on the front lawn and in the maple tree cannot currently be seen, a) this might not have anything to do with the rain, and might more come from b) knowing that you sit at the window and stare at them.

3. How do we know I'm not cruel? Because I very very badly need to go to the bathroom at the moment, and yet I'm not stirring, because your partner in furry crimes has flopped himself across my lap and chest in ecstasy, and I'm just not cruel enough to spoil this moment.

The Grey One entered my life as a tiny kitten several years back. Her mother had been badly abused and was rescued by a couple of friends. Most of the litter ended up normal enough, but the Grey One was always shy and skittish, even in her box; I picked her because she was pretty and cute and looked as if she needed to be held.

So sometimes my judgement is a little off. Not about the pretty and cute part.

I had gotten her because the Little One needed a kitten (my older cat had died and he does not handle being alone well), and when I brought her home in her box, I told the Little One that this was his kitten.

I didn't expect them to take me so literally. The Little One LOVED the kitten and began carrying her around in his mouth, cuddling her, and refusing to let me (or others) handle her. It became very clear that this was his kitten, and later cat, not mine. Sometimes I was allowed to pet her (these were exciting times) and I was distinctly allowed to turn the water on for her so she could watch it run until she learned how to turn it on herself. (Which did not take long. This is a very intelligent little cat.)

And so she remained for awhile: highly intelligent, exquisitely beautiful, and a cat that is to be seen and heard (she can be very vocal when she wants to be), not touched, when she could be seen at all (a startlingly high number of people remain convinced that this is a one cat household.)

When I moved here, I determined that since I now had the time, I was going to transform her into a friendly cat. At least a friendly to me cat. I coaxed. I scratched. I used judicious supplies of tuna. I discovered a weakness – her belly has, as it turned out, a terrible need to be scratched and rubbed on an irregular basis.

And now I can't get her off me and it's interfering with my typing.

So I finally got around to watching Double Indemnity last night. I know, I know. I'm not sure how I missed seeing this film, but somehow I did.

Other than the hideousness of Barbara Stanwyck's wig, what struck me was how much things have changed since 1944:

1. Everyone, but everyone, is smoking non-stop. Part of this is the film-noir tradition, of course, but it's not just villains or shady types. The camera lingers on the cigarettes, the matches, the very act of smoking, lovingly, reverently; smoking even becomes a minor part of the plot, a motif for character interaction.

It's simply not possible to have that many characters smoking that continuously, exchanging matches and cigarettes and cigars like that, in films these days. Even in films portraying the late 30s, these days.

2. Fred MacMurray drives up to a drive-thru – and gets a beer.

3. $30,000 for a house is a horrifying price – for slightly different reasons.

4. The film's insurance company is saturated with casual sexual harassment – not just from Fred MacMurray, but from everyone. It's not just that the women workers at the company are all in at best secretarial roles, but the men continually call them sweetheart, honey, and treat them with mild contempt.

5. The entire plot would have gone far differently had everyone had the use of pre-paid cell phones.

And how much things have not changed since 1944:

1. Insurance companies? Still evil.

**************

Sometime after the ending of the film the Grey One appeared from nowhere and leapt upon me in an ecstasy of affection.

Now, some of you are doubtless thinking, "How sweet!" I, a more cynical sort, immediately thought, "How suspicious!" It's not that the Grey One never indulges in affectionate gestures – she does, usually when she's decided that she needs to be scratched, right now. Said gestures usually consist of coming up to me, squawking, running off, returning, squawking, leaping on my stomach and/or legs and walking on them in a very determined manner, and rarely managing to quite settle down. Upon occasion, she does allow me to come up to her while she's resting and scratch her little head, and she's also been known to stalk up and down the bed or near the couch until I reach over and scratch her chin, at which point, she will stand firmly at attention until the chin has been scratched to an acceptable level, at which point she promptly disappears again.

This time, she flopped on my chest and began frantically rubbing herself all over me, flipping over on her back and exposing her belly and purring.

"What exactly did you do?"

The Grey One attempted to appear the picture of cuteness and affection and innocence. This is not necessarily something she is good at.

Nonetheless, I spent some time scratching her belly and her chin – really, I wasn't given much choice in the matter – before heading out to investigate.

Sure enough, she had thrown up right on the bed.

Just to clarify, she had a perfectly useable and more to the point, EASILY CLEANED bathroom floor just a few feet away, and no, she did not, as a point of fact, actually need to use the bed.

I glared at her. She rolled over on her back and worked on the adorable look.

I know. I know. I've been neglecting this blog recently. It's not LJ (or Dreamwidth) or a sign that I'm going to leave LJ (or Dreamwidth) although, while I'm on this subject, LJ's recent tendency to suddenly log me out when I'm trying to view your locked posts and trying to force me to watch a pop-up add before allowing me to attempt to log back in is not making me much fonder of LJ. I have a paid account, LJ; stop logging me out of it, and stop trying to sneak in paid ads. Where was I? Oh, right, about to explain that I'm not feeling much like writing anything at the moment, fiction or not. Last week was at least a better week on the fiction/poetry front, but this week…not so much. I'm blaming a combination of fatigue and Mercury, which is apparently in retrograde at the moment, not because this is a particularly good or believable explanation, but it is at least a convenient one.

So, some random thoughts to fill the gap:

1. I realize that we're all supposed to be kinda shocked that Gordon Brown called one of his constituents a bigot, but, I gotta say, I was kinda relieved to hear a politician actually expressing his unadulterated, honest opinion about something. Yay for forgotten mikes.

2. On a related note, I must say that the Brits, as always, hold more meaningful sounding elections than we do. I have decided that it's the accents.

3. I am sorry to say that the ponies that I told some of you about are not ponies at all, but miniature horses, which just goes to show that I should never make any statements about any equine species whatsoever. In my defense I thought they looked like ponies. The peacocks that share their field are, however, actual peacocks.

4. On a related note, I am placing a $3 million dollar imaginary bet on Devil May Care on this weekend's Kentucky Derby. (I believe that if you are making imaginary bets on horseracing, you should bet big. I also believe that since I have lost about 99% of my imaginary horseracing bets, I should never be allowed to make real ones.) No, not because she's a girl horse, but because Devil May Care is one of my favorite Elizabeth Peters' books. Also she looks pretty. I am placing a $2 million dollar imaginary bet on Dean's Kitten because I like kittens. Also he looks pretty. (You may be beginning to see why I am not suited for a career in racetrack gambling.)

5. The Grey One, previously the sort of cat who preferred to hide under things and could easily vanish for days upon end (I'm still convinced she's mastered some sort of inter-dimensional/parallel universe travel, and don't tell me that's against the laws of physics, because I don't think she's interested in obeying those) has suddenly become friendly to the point of becoming a major nuisance, by which I mean, just when I finally come up with a sentence that might work in the novel, she raises her little grey head or her little grey paws in an unnecessarily sharp reminder that my hands are on the keyboard and not on her chin. Hmm. Maybe Mercury in retrograde isn't my only writing problem.

6. Oh, and delayed thanks to everyone who recommended the Whirly-pop popper; I'll just add that yes, you can use it while you're sitting down, which is awesome, and it makes seriously good popcorn. This is also the only popper I've used that almost never leaves behind any unpopped kernels. I'm in awe.

Every year, it happens.

The wind howls. A chill enters the air, the room, the walls. Night falls. Heat streams from the room.

And we have a struggle over the blankets.

Now any reasonable observer would agree that since the cats have fur, and I don't, and since I actually buy cat food and litter, and they don't, and since one of the two is friendly only on her own deranged schedule (and when friendly, somewhat insistently and painfully so – although, to be fair, from her perspective I probably do not have anything on earth more pleasurable or important to do than to scratch her chin, aside from pouring out cat food), I should, by any standards, get the blankets.

Cats, of course, are not reasonable observers. Which means that the following happens on every cold night:

The Little One crawls under the blankets to be next to me.

The Little One decides that he needs more space under the blankets, and starts shoving me.

The Little One decides that really, the problem is that is he on the wrong side of me, and scrambles over me to reach the other side – and then starts shoving me.

Just before the Little One is tossed unceremoniously off the bed or into a wall, he wraps himself around one of my arms, hugging it tightly, his entire focus bent on Being Cute.

Meanwhile, the Grey One – who, as I may have noted, is the considerably more intelligent of the two – has dug her little claws into either my lovely soft microfiber throw or my equally lovely soft plush/fake fur blanket, and dragged them either to one corner of the bed to make a little kitty nest or even more frequently, dragged one or both to the floor, hiding beneath it, a strategy that would doubtless work better if she would remember to hide her tail as well, which she never does. Removal of said blanket inevitably results in what might seem like a a magical or ghostly turning on of the bathroom faucets, if not for the slight fact that yes, we CAN SEE YOUR GREY FUR running from the bathroom, and we can also see you watching the running water in intense concentration.

(Most of the time, when she does this, it's apparently just so she can watch the water run. I think she's trying to figure out where it comes from. She never drinks it or plays with it, but I figure that since she's figured out how to turn the faucets on by watching us, she figures she can figure out where the water comes from by watching it. I used the word "figure" far too often in that sentence.)

On occasion – just on occasion – we vary this by having both cats nestling smugly – no, not snugly, smugly - on top of both blankets, wrapped in each other's paws, smack dab in the center of the bed, refusing to move even when I attempt to move my legs directly under them since that is the most comfortable place for ME. Or we have both cats crawling underneath the covers to sleep with me, a procedure that is far more complicated than that sentence would suggest.

I love winter – or at least the hint of it that we have here. (Hey, we did get actual frost and icicles last year. Who knows what this winter might bring?) I love the cats. But you'll excuse me while I go and try to save my own blankets for the night.