Intuixiety

Here’s the thing about my brain, body, connection:
I was trained to try to work my intuition like a muscle. I’ve written about that before but that was YEARS ago, I don’t expect you to look it up. Anyway, I have worked at this working from intuition thing for a very long time, since I was about eighteen, and that, my friends, is a very long time. But what has happened in perhaps the last fifteen years or so, is that now that I no longer self-medicate for painful shyness, depression, social and other anxiety disorders, some of the physical sensations I had learned to associate with the “pay attention” signals from the realms of the mothers, are now mixed with my ever increasing, anxiety based physical symptoms. This now occurs at a level which makes it quite difficult for me to sort out whether, when I get a certain butterflies, nervy, slightly nauseous feeling is it a phone call from the psyche or a chemicals gone wrong, message.

This is one of the reasons that I take so little of my properly prescribed medication. I always am trying to sort out which way the wind is truly blowing. The funny thing about that? That I am required to get drug tested on a fairly regular basis to ascertain that I am actually taking drugs! This irony is certainly not lost on me.

So the question for me becomes, as it probably has been since the beginning, is how much of myself will I lose if I take psych meds? This whole issue is really “up” for me right now, as I finally reached the decision to put my little (cat) girl in Prozac. What a hard decision that was. Sorting out the power and control issues incumbent in forcing psych meds, that I have refused myself, on another being... Not comfortable at all. But she has been a victim of severe anxiety for such a long time that I have decided to at least try it for awhile and see if she becomes a happier creature. The perpetual question: will she lose some essential self-ness?

O da ghee-La

I am totally in love with this picture

Yo Thor Jones!

Wake up it's supper time!!!

Dining room ALONE cat toy round-up

Thor Jones plays. Way more than the other cats. He loves throwing the meeses around. Ergo:

1 leather bracelet from Kenya
1 leather cord knotted up into ring
1 plastic spring
1 little fuzzy mouse sans tail
3 little fuzzy mice with tails
1 large fuzzy mouse sans tail
1 large fuzzy tail
3 large fuzzy mice with tails
8 paper foil balls
2 more, squished beyond redemption

New Boy Meets Old Boy

Jetson Artemus IV de Sprague = Grey = Old Boy
Thor Jones = Black = New Boy
ghee-LA is hiding

It's official

We're adopting/rescuing Thor. So anyone who offered to chip in on his medical should get in touch. He's scheduled for next Friday.

Love for sale, for free

SO, who wants to adopt this great cat that has been living on my porch swing all summer? His name is Thor, he is a really sweet, fluffy, purring lap cat who just wants love and to go to the vet on a regular basis. He's sick of fighting Zach and the big, mean, mottled grey. He's just recovering from a nasty war wound on his poor little head bone. I'd totally keep him if we were't completely pressed to the wall financially. He just wants human companionship so much!!!

Temporary blissitude

House all to my self (bar cats). Music on the big stereo. Cookin’ and mucking. Full up with Indian food. Cool, lovely rain. Head wet from same. Grumbly thundering. Ahhh.

1st Floor Cat Toy Roundup

1 - Wool Bone
1 - Light-up koosh ball
1 - Cat brush (alternate)
1 - Milk jug cap
1 - Former grape now 1/2 way to raisin
3 - Marbles
3 - Large super balls
8 - Small super balls
27 & 1/2 - Foil balls

Cat toy round up reports

This months roundup brings shockingly low numbers. Either the cats are growing up and slowing down or the basement has become a black hole. P’raps a little of both.
29 Foil balls
3 Milk caps
3 Small superballs
1 large superball
1 nubbly catnip scented superball
1 Tube of lipbalm missing for the last month or two

Good Morning Viet Nam

I was having an interesting dream, that I was trying to cross an elevated spillway while being subtly menaced by an ordinary looking yet mystical crow. This was somehow an off shoot of having coached many character building vague field games for odd, multiplying, packs of ragged urchins which caused me to find the magic packet of paperwork that would resolve all issues if only I would stop losing it again.
Suddenly Patsy Cline requested that I stop the world and let her off. This seemed incongruous and rather loud. Mainly because it was actually happening.
Apparently, the mighty, the clever, the very handsome, recklessly agile and ever curious Jetson had managed to: turn on the computer, bring up itunes, select the Patsy playlist and then hit play.
This seemed so very astute of him that I did not at that time apply the spray bottle as I knew in my heart that I would need that impact when a few minutes later he rejoined the task of destroying my jewelry boxes that he had left half done earlier.

No really, who is the asshole here?

Opinions:
Me or the other?

Neighbor leaves cat out all day. It’s low 20’s, windy and blowing snow. I am talking about all day, since before 10am and it’s now 9pm. Still not home.

I just spent about an hour putting together a weird little shelter on the porch, bringing out food and water, trying to call the persons number and when not getting a call back, calling animal rescue to find out what the cat’s needs were likely to be. (Turns out there is no law saying you have to have a shelter for your outdoor cat. That sucks balls). Walking over to the “friend/SO’s” house to see if they were home and could let the cat in, NOT.
The cat was crying and climbing up the screen door!
Oh and also tried to call the neighbor who cat sits it.

But really, am I just totally a control freak who is so overstepping here?

Edit: The cat sitter called and gave me the authority and a code to let her in. So I grabbed all my crazy stuff and took it back home. Now I have my yard-sale cat carrier all scrubbed out and nice for my cats, so that is bonus, to get me off my ass to do that.

Downed a peg

I have had to rethink my opinion of myself as somewhat expert on cats. I am now baffled and befuddled because I have never had indoor cats before. My young male is driving me and my little girl (cat) batshit. He is SO aggressive. And so mischievous, and so unrepentant, and so becoming an ankle biter, and so into everything he should not be. And I am SO turning into a total bitch and making widespread misery.

A few weeks ago I found myself truly, screaming at the top of my lungs at him and Oliver had to stop me spraying him with window washer because I couldn’t find the water spray before disaster seemed imminent.

To be fair, it’s only when he’s awake that it’s such a problem....

Mousketeer roundup

Count off now....

Today’s cat toy corralling count:
70 foil balls
10 more foil balls visible but inaccessible
3 paper balls
3 fuzzy mice
2 crinkle balls
1 beat up, masticated, not so fresh, cat nip stalk

Did I mention it is freaking hot?

Add your own caption. I decided to forego the obvious

Slugbugblue

More cat stuff:
Every morning, long about 6:30 - 7am, Jetson jumps in the bed and commences punching me in the butt. If this doesn’t seem to be achieving the desired result after about 15 minutes, he’ll headbutt me about 150 times. Normally I’d be annoyed at the daylight savings time change, but this all used to occur at 5:30 - 6am.
People always say,
“Why don’t you just shut them out at night, blah blah, blah.”
To which I reply:
“You’ve never actually had a cat have you?”
No, but really, I like sleeping with cats. What I don’t like is waking up with them.

My Blanket's best

The cats decide that all other, regular, spots can go hang when a blanket is pulled out. After a short struggle for supremacy they just settle in together.

Jets

Update

OK pictures eventually, but we took home a cat. His name was Hudson but due to an unfortunate kid in school by that moniker he is now Artemus Four Jetson de Sprague.
He’s a gray, ergo Artemus. In my family all grey cats have had the Artemus designation, but he’ll be Jetson and or Sunny for common use. He’s six months old, had been at the shelter two weeks and he wants to be muffler when he grows up, so he’s practicing those skills now.
The two of them have not formally met yet. Thrills and hilarity to follow.

I am crazy busy roasting fowl and making pies, crunions, white girl casserole, my signature orange cranberry paste? sauce? (not sure which), mounds of stuffing with morels, chanterelles and portobellos, taters and a vat of gravy. I probably won’t do pix of that since I’ve done feast spreads a zillion times already. But I gotta get back....

Cat rules

Today begins the great kitten hunt. I don’t know what to expect. Instant love? Vast oceans of disappointment? How does one pick a kitten? What criteria other than it needs to be a boy does one use? How do we know whether he’s a good fit in the long run? Kitten personalities tend to be very subtle and bear studying. How does one do that via the humane Society or vet’s office or whatever.

We spent total shitloads of time picking Naan and ghee-La. Visiting them about every day from the day they were born. Watching their personalities develop. I KNEW my Naanie when he started coming over and sleeping on me every time.

I really miss my sweet boy.......