The Eclectic Mix

My cat, Pippin, is 19 years old. In cat years, that’s like 214 or something like that. I mean, she’s so old, she’s lived to see the civil war, both world wars, the end of the revolutionary war, the cold war, the drug war, and some cable special on midget wrestling.

Okay, I exaggerate that bit of it. But she is 19 years old. She’s been with me longer than Jenni. And someday, sooner rather than later, she will slip this mortal coil and reach nirvana as promised. She’s lived in two states and six homes. Yeah, she’s had more than her fair share of living, probably.

And she’s slowing down. She’s sleeping a lot more than she used to. She goes on streaks of not eating much. She doesn’t come to bed with me unless I carry her downstairs and put her on the bed. She’s cold a lot of the time, even when it’s hot and humid outside like today or tomorrow.

So now, the family talk is of replacements. It’s probably a good thing that we as humans don’t replace loved ones who died like that, or talk about it beforehand with the soon-to-be replaced still in the room. But the attention right now by the family is on what to do when Pippin joins the ranks of the former cats.

If I’m going to do more pets, I really want to do two cats so they’ve got a companion. One cat’s OK, and Pippin has really proven to be the solitary sort. But two cats playing together and sleeping together and fighting together really are cute. So whenever it comes to that, I’ll need to find siblings.

And then there’s the question of when to get them: before Pippin kicks it or after? Frankly, I’m leaning toward after, because I don’t think she really has the maternal instinct and won’t give a rat’s ass about interlopers. But there’s that little nagging part of me that says she might just show the young ‘uns the ropes before she shuffles off. There is much to consider here.

The kids and Jenni have much simpler thoughts: colors, names, breeds. Well, the breed thing is mutt, plain and simple. Color becomes the only determining factor there.

And here’s the rub. I’m not sure why I’m giving this so much deep thought. Sure, on the one hand, it’s a pet–a living thing that the family will grow attached to–but on the other hand, it’s just a pet–it isn’t like I’m taking a wife, or choosing which country to live in, or picking chunky or creamy peanut butter. The decision only becomes weighty because I’ve already been here and there’s still that part of it that feels like replacement instead of augmentation or change.

And that naming thing…Mittens? Fluffy? Jeff? I’ve really got to work with my kids on better cat names.

See you tomorrow.

In the midst of setting the clocks forward for the start of Daylight Saving tomorrow, I’m writing this with the cat on my lap, as she frequently does as I’m blogging. And it occurred to me that this semi-annual time change thing that we stupid humans inflict on ourselves must really mess with the feline internal clock.

To wit, Pippin seems to have the five o’clock hour, either a.m. or p.m., ingrained in her system. She knows that most days, I’m up at 5 a.m., and she gets really bent out of shape when I don’t bound out of bed with my usual loathsome plodding at that hour on days like, oh, today.

Saturday is my “day off,” if you will. It’s the one day of the week when I almost always am without any early time constraints and can sleep past 8 a.m. if I so choose.

So this morning, the crying started right around 5, at which time the cat roams the house calling to anyone that can hear her, with the sole purpose of making sure we’re up and feeding her. I fought it and put it off as long as I could, but was still up at 5:30 to get her fed and go to the bathroom. Then back to bed, where she joined me after consuming her breakfast.

But for whatever reason, I don’t fully remember how traumatic it is for her when our human time changes. Tomorrow morning, I’ll be up at her 5:30 a.m., even though it will be my 6:30. So that will seem normal. But on Monday, 5 becomes her 4…Will I be able to avoid the daily crying that early?

Honestly, I doubt it. She is, if nothing else, demanding. And she also senses much in the world, so maybe she either just knows that our time changes, or, for all I know, she can read the clock and know that breakfast and dinner just got moved up an hour.

This just makes Daylight Saving Time a discussion of how arbitrary time really is. Sure, it marches on constantly and regularly, bringing light and dark at regular, prescribed, predictable intervals. But it’s us people who decide we can just go ahead and make one hour different one day than it was the last. Yet another way we’re completely full of ourselves and our abilities and accomplishments. It almost gets to the point where the more we control makes that many other things that less comfortable or convenient.

By that, I mean that this lost hour, even though we get it back in months, means everyone will be tired and grumpy for the better part of the next week, all for the sake of some extra sunlight at the end of the day in the summertime, and the supposed saving of energy because we don’t need to turn lights on.

But right now, the cat cares little of all that. She’s curled up in a little ball on my lap, oblivious to my typing, and caring very little that the timing of her meals changes slightly starting tomorrow. All she knows and really cares about is that she’s warm, comfortable, happy, and will get fed tomorrow, just like today. Maybe pets do have it all figured out: cut down your needs to the bare minimum, and life gets that much happier. Now if I could only achieve Karma, I could be on track to become a cat and hit that point somewhere in this Earthly existence. Instead, I need to set a few more clocks forward an hour.

See you tomorrow.

…And a Merry Freakin’ Christmas to you, too…

And I guess a Happy New Year, as long as I’m being humiliated…

Ah, who the hell cares?

Sorry for not posting yesterday. Honestly, I just forgot. Sat here, went through some old CDs of data to see what I needed to keep and what I didn’t, got tired, and went to bed. No writing, no blogging. Sorry.

For those who know, Mom and Dad left for a trip to Greece and Turkey yesterday. Heard from them today, and they’re safe and sound in Athens after about 11-and-a-half hours of flight time. I have been placed on cat death watch, as Puck has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Joke as I might about it, he’s a good cat, had a great life, been a good companion to the family for a long time, and he’ll be missed. I just hope it’s not on my watch. The last thing I really want to do is call my parents halfway around the world and tell them the cat kicked it. But at least they’ve got Patrick’s phone just in case they need to get a hold of us, or vice versa.

But anyway, I was reading that the Large Hadron Collider is going to be powered up tomorrow. There are those who believe that if we collide the two particles that the resulting energy release will incinerate the Earth, thus ending the world.

So maybe I don’t really need to worry about Puck, or the fact that Patrick’s phone (that I pay for on our cellular plan) has travelled about 15,000 miles more than I have in the last calendar year. Just because there won’t be a tomorrow. Or there might. Who knows? Particle physics is an odd duck.

So, see you tomorrow.

Or not.

“Hi. My name is Paul.”

“Hi Paul.”

“I’m…I’m a, uh, cat watcher.”

“Tell us about it.”

“See my parents have this cat, Puck, who’s even more neurotic than I am.”

“Whoa, that is bad.”

Puck is old. And like pets who are old, various parts of him aren’t working like they used to. But he’s still got a good thing going, and seems to enjoy life. When my parents are out of town, I occasionally am called upon to help feed the cats, and it’s usually some sort of adventure. If I’m not stepping on him because he likes to weave himself between everyone’s legs, I’m getting played like a chump.

Once, he walked toward me slowly when I walked in the door, meowing, but wasn’t walking right–had his hind legs all wonky. Concerned, I just stop in the doorway, and bend down to check him out, and whoosh–he’s out the door to go walking down the hall.

Tonight was another one of those nights. He came in to the kitchen favoring his back end, sat, kind of wobbly, near the tray that holds his food bowls. I put his food dish down, and he begins devouring it (almost half a can of wet food mixed with a good 1/3rd cup of ground chicken). Midway through (yes, he finished about half of it in just a couple of minutes while I went to clean the litter box), he staggers slightly and falls over. Concerned (frankly, one of the last calls I ever want to make is to my parents to tell them the cat is having problems–or worse, dead), I bend down, lift him to his feet and steady him. In the meantime, I refill the water and just a couple of minutes later, the food is gone. He ate all of his food (he’s toothless, mind you) in just about 7 minutes total. He looks at me as I’m getting ready to leave, meows very loudly, looks at his bowl, and falls over again.

I’m worried. I have images going through my head of how the conversation with Dad’s going to go: “Um, the cat, Puck, is…um…” I walk toward him, and he literally springs up to his feet and trots over to the base of the counter. Yeah, I was had again. I gave him another half bowl of food, because that’s what he wanted, telling me by feigning this weak/dying thing.

I’m used to being used and almost outsmarted by my cat, but not by Puck. I mean, he’s nearly the definition of in-breeding. But yup. He’s figured out how to play me like a fiddle.

“I’m Paul, and I’m a sucker for my parents’ cat.”

See you tomorrow.