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the strange allure of tussi

My husband is a bigger Flickr user than I am and has a lot of contacts. Looking over his shoulder, I'd often see him browsing photos of the same engaging tuxedo cat. Every day there would be a new batch. Although I take a fair number cat pictures of my own very cute cats, I tend to categorize excessive pet photos as a little weird.

Then I started looking at this cat, whose name is Tussi. She is undeniably pretty, and exceptionally photogenic. And it doesn't hurt that her owner, Staffan, is an excellent photographer. Staffan lives in Sweden and took a medical retirement. He often cannot get out and about too much, hence Tussi is frequently his subject.

Because of the time difference, every morning when I have a cup of coffee and go online, there is a new batch of Tussi photos to look at.  I've actually come to look forward to seeing how her day went. A huge part of the appeal is that Staffan's captions and narratives are charming and nearly always make me smile.

I didn't want to post a photo of Tussi here, so go visit her yourself:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/vanstaffs/

I think one reason I've been so captivated is that Staffan and Tussi have made me appreciate how the Internet has made the world smaller in a completely good way. No matter what kind of crap is going on in my life, I find a little peace in knowing that four thousand miles away, there is a man and his cat, enjoying a lovely garden.

things we've discovered about juniper

• Her fur has a kind of odd texture. Soft, but like a cheap stuffed animal.
• She hisses at Sophie, but it is often preceded by a pig-like grunt. Normally, she's very quiet, but her regular voice sounds like a Tribble.
• Somebody must have let her eat people food off the dinner table. She is terribly persistent. When she eats her own food out of her own bowl, she grabs a mouthful of kibble and turns away, dropping half of it on the floor while she eats it. No doubt from living in a trailer with 10 other cats
• She loves her belly rubbed and gets very excited, then grabs her hind leg and chews on her toes.
• She will sometimes chase her tail.
• She is the only cat I've ever heard of that doesn't run to another part of the house when she hears the vacuum.
• She must climb on everything, as high as she can go. It's like having a squirrel in the house.
• She likes to chew on things -- including large rubber or plastic things. She's been working on the side rails to the treadmill, which she can barely wrap her jaws around. It's like having a Kea in the house.
• If she can't get her face in a beverage, a paw will do.

juniper raspberry

the inspector

I owe readers a Juniper update.

First, Juniper and Sophie are not exactly friends, but slowly becoming more tolerant of each other. The routine is the same: Sophie wanders over to Juniper to check her out, Juniper hisses when she feels her space is invaded, Sophie wanders away. It's usually only a problem when one of them is encounters the other by surprise; everybody gets freaked out then. Otherwise, I think Sophie has succeeded in nearly touching noses with Juniper twice.

As Juniper has gotten more comfortable and been allowed the run of the house, we've started to see her real personality. We feel like we went to the used car lot and thought we were bringing home a nice, mellow family sedan and ended up instead with a hot rod with a stuck accelerator. Juniper has to check out everything. As soon as I opened the printer cabinet, she was in there. Believe me, every page that came out also got a look.

Perhaps because Sophie is a "down cat" who doesn't like to climb, Juniper is an "up cat" who feels safest at the highest altitude she can manage. The combination of curiosity and climbing has meant our cluttered unfinished basement holds huge fascination for her. For awhile, her favorite place to sit was on top of our spare freezer in the dingy, cold laundry room down there.  Queen of the Frigidaire.

That was before she discovered she could get on top of the ductwork in places where it passed between rafters. This had the added bonus of creating loud sounds throughout the entire house as the sheet metal flexed under her feet, resulting in the humans running downstairs to try to get her down. We couldn't reach her, of course, which was quite fun for her. I wish I had some photos -- it was pretty cute when she'd poke her head out from one place or another. Needless to say, we now store our small spare boxes on top of the ductwork, and just bought an enormous new cat tower for her.

We shall see what new tricks the weekend brings.

she has a name

We've settled on a name for the new cat. We tried on quite a few. I spent some time looking through all sorts on insect names after one of our dragonfly pals, Bryan, hinted at some Odonata genera. So she nearly became Libellula, or Libby for short. I liked this a lot, but "Libby" reminded Kingfisher of a vegetable, glass, or an 18th-century schoolgirl, so it was retired.

Clare provided me with the Inuktitut word for cookie, Sivara (depicted at left). We had a hard time working out a nickname for that, but it was too beautiful to ignore.

I liked Grace, but "Gracie" reminded me of Mrs. George Burns. Meanwhile, we had to call her something, and we kept defaulting to one of our original names, Juniper.

So we've settled on a rather elaborate name in the spirit of others we've encountered such as Barky von Schnauzer, Xavier Q. Ladybits, Admiral Van Poof, Fannie Mae Lovechunk, and our own Sophie B. Webb.

Introducing Juniper Grace Sivara. We call her Junie or Juno sometimes, but we like the sing-song sound of drawing out all three syllables of Juniper.

 

She's very curious and quite loving. She seems to be afraid of Sophie, retreating to her room or hissing or growling whenever Sophie is near. And Sophie is very curious and not aggressive towards Juniper -- she very much wants to give her a sniff or come close by. If they get too close, Juniper will really hiss and that in turn scares Sophie, who hisses back and sometimes chases Juniper.  If I'm in the room, they can both be within a few feet of each other but we don't trust them on their own. Nobody seems really wanting to kick the other's ass, but for two cats who have lived with other cats before, this is pretty tedious and I wonder how long it will last. Anybody been through this?

welcome to our family

After losing Kady, my husband and I knew we wanted to get another cat. We thought it would take some time to find an adult cat with just the right personality to go along with Sophie. Our local shelter is less than two miles from home, so a couple weeks ago we stopped by. There are so many cats waiting to be adopted that this shelter has four trailers in the parking lot which are outfitted exclusively for cats, and there are about 8 or 10 cats in each of them. Not only do you know these cats get along with other cats, but you get a much better idea of their real personalities, and you get to interact with them. As fate would have it, in the last trailer we met a cat that immediately captured our attention. She was a dilute tortie just under two years old that the shelter people had named Cookie. Here she is at the shelter. Note extremely cute nose.

I went back three times visiting Cookie. This seemed like a bit of a rush, but since we had no holiday plans (or decorations) and lots of time off, the timing seemed good to bring a new cat home. And what better gift for this cat, who was brought to the shelter last fall as a stray, adopted once, and returned a couple months ago when the owners couldn't keep her. So early this week, she became the newest member of our family.

Kingfisher's office is converted into temporary new cat sanctuary. She was quiet and well-behaved on the way home, and explored every corner of the room when I let her out. She is very affectionate and sweet, but not quite as clingy as Sophie -- just what we were hoping for. We wanted to introduce the cats slowly, after the new cat felt comfortable.

Of course, there's nothing a cat hates more than a closed door. When I'm in the room with the new cat, I get the Sophie symphony on the other side of the door. If the new cat was alone, there is likely to be much scratching and whining at the threshold. After a day, the two cats were allowed to sniff each other under the door, but they seemed pretty uninterested in each other. Mostly this is what they wanted:
New cat: To get out.
Sophie: To get in.

This got on my nerves pretty fast, so the other day I closed off most of the other rooms, and let the new cat out. She just trotted right past Sophie without a second look and set out to explore. Sophie seemed astonished. Her rubbernecking as the other cat went by was hilarious. With her tail puffed out, she followed behind the new cat for a bit, then finally sat on the couch and just watched. There was only a little bit of hissing back and forth, but it went well. Several more episodes on Christmas day went pretty well, too. Today there was a major dust up, so we are back to more incremental schedule. She does make herself at home -- here she is in my office, under a portrait of Kady.

You'll note we've not quite settled on a name. We've been looking for something girly yet relevant that lends itself to a two-syllable nickname preferably ending in an "ie" sound, which cats are supposed to respond to best (since she'd been "Cookie" for awhile, it would be less confusing for her, too). We don't want it to sound too much like "Sophie."

Here's our progress so far. Cookie is sort of lame, and we went through variations on small, sweet desserts (Snickerdoodle, Biscotti, Macaroon). We also considered a raft of seasonal names, with Juniper (Juno for short, as suggested by Mike) a frontrunner for a bit, knocking out Holly, Abie (a play on Abies, the genus of fir trees), Solstice, and Radish. I trolled through lots of Greek and Roman goddesses, since my late brother was really into mythology and named his cats Isis and Maia; he was my inspiration for adopting Kady. We thought about situational names like Echo (since she looks like a muted version of Sophie) and looked for terms regarding second chances. Other suggested names have included Phantom, Smudge, Justine, and Heather. There was also Grace, or my grandmother's name, Beatrice. Some names we've really liked, but just didn't feel right on her.

We think we're closing in on a name, and will announce it when we are sure; things can change as we get to know her (yes, you will have to tolerate at least one or two more cat posts before I get back on track here). Meanwhile, feel free to confuse us further if you have any suggestions.

saying goodbye

I had to say goodbye to my number one cat today. Kady took a turn for the worse on Wednesday. It's true -- you know when it's time. I've never had to have a pet put down before. Scheduling her death was one of the most surreal things I've ever done, and waiting the last day and a half was a wrenching experience. Although the first three words that come to mind in describing her are "surly", "neurotic", and "lazy", she could be subtly sweet, and always soft and warm. We had a lot of those sweet moments these last few weeks. Here is one of my favorite photos of her.

And here is one of her last portraits, which I took yesterday. 

She was my first cat and I will always feel grateful for all she taught me. We love you and miss you already, pretty girl.

keyboard cats

Typing can often be challenging around here.

the new slim kady

A little Friday cat blogging...

Kady used to be a really fat cat; I'd say she weighed close to 15 pounds at her tubbiest. This year she's lost a lot of weight, and is down to 7 pounds. She's 14 years old now and I think, based on an array of symptoms, her kidneys are beginning to go downhill. She still has a good appetite, although she's getting spoiled by the tasty assortment of high-quality organic food she's offered (and Sophie sure loves it -- she's heading to blimpdom!). On the upside, when Kady was fat she had a really difficult time getting up the stairs because she has arthritis in one front leg. Now she can fly up the stairs, sometimes holding up the sore leg. She seems to be pretty pleased with herself now that she's light on her feet and can hop up on the bed or tables and get around more easily. She spends less time anchored to the bed, she's alert, and seems less surly. Still, I know this is likely the beginning of a decline and that things will become even more difficult than they are now. I've been giving her -- my first cat -- a little extra loving. Wish Kingfisher and I a little extra patience and wisdom in the coming weeks.

missing stanley

I am completely bummed out. My friend Mark's cat, Stanley, unexpectedly passed away yesterday. I wrote about Stanley a couple of years ago but hadn't actually met him until earlier this month. At Mark's house, everybody had to talk cats for awhile, and their family obviously loves theirs just like we love ours. The bond between Mark and Stanley was obvious, even when Stanley wasn't riding around on Mark's shoulders.

Mark has had a hard year in this regard, and I know there isn't anything I can say to ease his grief, or that of his wife and daughter. They are in my thoughts, and I will give Sophie and Kady a little extra love today in tribute to Stanley.

Stanley (bottom), 1998-2008.