A boy and his cat

This is one of my all-time fave pics of my husband "Fernando" and our now-deceased cat Nombly.

A million years ago I was living with my roommate Delyriam, and she brought home this abandoned tabby from her work place. Not to keep, but just to foster for awhile, because he hated being caged so much. He'd tear up his fresh newspaper every day. Delyriam used to let him out to wander around. (We think he was living on the streets for awhile before being brought in.)

Well obviously we kept him. It would be very difficult for me to foster and animal and give it up after. Nombly had a gentle, sweet nature. He was a little bit timid, a bit neurotic, but soon warmed to visitors. My friend Gilby is uncomfortable around animals because he doesn't understand them, so their sudden movements startle him etc. But he loved Nombly, because he would move slowwwly and gently.

Most people know that my husband had a rough childhood. F. used to come to our apartment (we were dating) and when he and Nombly met it was love at first sight. They were both a little bit broken, both saw the world in the same way, and both had the same gentle spirit.

While Nombly would cuddle and hang with me and Delyriam too, Fernando was the center of his universe. When Delyriam and I un-cohabitated (when I got married to F) it was obvious that Fernando and I would take the cats, while Delyriam took the dogs. If Fernando and I had ever divorced, there's no question I would have had to give Nombly up.

When Fernando got home from work, Nombly would hop about his feet until F. finally picked him up. When F would wake up, Nombly was the first down the hall to greet him. He was happiest when being held by Fernando, or sitting on his lap, or guarding him while he played his video games.

And Fernando felt the same way about Nombly. Nombly was his soft place to fall. His unconditional love. His unjudgmental best friend.

What I love about the above photo is that we somehow managed to capture this relationship on "film". The universe was just a little bit less scary because they had each other.

The first I'd see of Fernando when he woke up. Always with Nombs on shoulder...
 

Haley and Minion are great, but there's a lot less Tenderness around here since Nombly died in 2009.

missing oldy cats

The first full day we had Minion, I really missed Nombly and Sherry. I became conscious of going from my two old boys, to suddenly having two young girls. And then last night I dreamed about Sherry. Sigh. Little Bones, little Nombs.

What do we do with Nombly's stocking this year?

Update on my life

OPINIONS
I don't understand this Nobel Peace Prize thing. Very silly. The guy is in the middle of two wars, not to mention he would have only JUST got in office when he was nominated and had therefore done nuthin' up until then, not to mention what's he done that's so peace-prize-worthy? Clearly the Nobel PP is as reliable a marker for "good work!" as an Oscar.

SAVING YOUR LIFE
All the managers have to take First Aid training at my work, and I'm the virgin--I've never had any training at all. That's always made me nervous, so I'm glad to finally be doing it. I had my first day today, then a second one next week. Here's what you can now do in my presence:
- get burned
- get a cut
- slice off your thumb
- choke on something
- go into shock
- become unconscious
- get a nosebleed
But don't have a heart attack until after next Friday. Fernando's jealous. Because he works in a hospital where every nurse has advanced FA training, they only give the orderlies CPR.

Did you know?
- In Quebec you're legally obligated to stop and help someone in distress.
- But you're protected by a Good Samaritan Act if the person sustains some other injury while you're helping them--protected from being sued.(My trainer said only BC doesn't have a Good Sam law, but that's not the case according to internets.)

DREAMS
On the other hand, it's a bad idea to go for a nap when you get home from a day-long session of First Aid. I had the WEIRDEST dreams/nightmares than I've had since the time I dreamed my plane crashed into a building. It meandered through many weird things, all vaguely themed on First Aid, but ended with a monster who wanted to eat me. And it was okay if he only ate a bit at a time, but I was afraid he'd eat me completely so I was calling around trying to get someone to pick me up and give me a lift out of there.

OLD BOOK
Taking a small break before I rework the synopsis.

NEW BOOK
Breakthrough! I finally figured out which Shakespeare-Henry-V character will be the Male Romantic Lead in my story. And I've also finally got a handle on said Male Romantic Lead. It's very exciting. This was one of the sticking points in my book (the fact that I want a love story in my book, even though I'm basing this on Richard II, Henry IV, and Henry V which are not romances.)

NOMBLY
I'm fairly resigned to a Nombly-less life. My campaign to make the other cats hang out with me more seems to be working--I'm seeing more of them, and not only at feed time. I think Sherry's a bit confused though. "Why do you suddenly find me so fascinating? Oh well, extra pets. I'm in."

MUSIC
Good haul at the library today:
- Malcolm X soundtrack (used to have on tape)
- Best of James Bond (in case I'm missing a song or two)
- Stormy Weather: The Music of Harold Arlen (wrote lots of famous Cotton Club type songs)
- Bryan Ferry doing Dylan covers
- The Neptunes Present... Clones
- Morcheeba
- last Alanis Morissette album (figure it's worth a listen)
- Public Enemy's It Takes a Million...

update

Back to work yesterday. I'm usually pretty jolly at work, but I felt a bit pep-less. However today I was doing the 6 AM shift, and the other manager called in sick so I was alone, so it was too much of a cuckoo day to be Blue. My preferred way to handle stress is with humour, so I couldn't get too mopey.

Things are still quiet in home, so I'm always trying to attract the other cats to my side at non-feeding times. "Spend tiiiime with meeeeee!" Then I go back to petting my stuffed cat. We bought Sherry a new cat dancer, and found a great laser pointer for Haley... bribery for the children.

But Nombly lives on in at least one way. When the cats wanted me to wake up and feed them, Nombly was the most effective cause he would walk back and forth across my pillow, pulling my hair in the process. And now Sherry has taken up the torch.

And I've thought of one advantage to Nombly's death. He won't have these friggin' cats chasing his tail all the time!

In fact, Haley has started attacking Sherry's tail! Heh heh heh. Nombly must be enjoying that one up in Kitty Heaven after all these years of being The Favourite Cat Toy.

Once per night, like clockwork, Haley attacks Sherry. She looks bored without Nombly, so I let her. She and Nombly used to chase each other around, but Sherry doesn't seem to differentiate between Game! and Attack! (Hard to blame him, considering Haley's insane behaviour.) But I guess he's going to have to learn, so now I don't intervene as quickly when she bugs him.

This is how Haley torments Bones (Sherry's other name):

- she stalks him around the living room for a bit, hiding behind things, sitting low, ready to pounce
- she waits til he's sitting somewhere, minding his own business - preferably above her
- then she POUNCES! She whacks him with her claws, or attacks his tail or something
- he turns and tries to whack her back, and then he gives her...
The Alpha Cat Stare
and
Swishes His Tail Ominously
- she swishes her tail in return, and meows this weird, long, prolonged meow at him (which is how I know she's stalking him even if they're not in the room with me) and attacks him again
- then she repeats the process until he finally jumps down on her and gives her a smackdown (usually a full body smackdown)
- she screams Murder! Murder! and that's when I check on them to make sure we're not in danger of a serious cat fight, and often after this she'll go sit somewhere "safe" even though she started it. And I reassure Bones that he's a good boy and I know he didn't start it.

IN OTHER NEWS

Poor Fernando how some weird sickness. Some gastro-ee thing, so you can guess what that means. I'm washing and alcoholing my hands all the time so I don't catch it!

IN OTHER NEWS

I've continued researching and plotting my next book. I might do Nanowrimo this year as a way of jumpstarting the actual writing of the book. Just a rough rough draft. I've never done Nano when working full-time, cause Nov is a busy time of year in retail, but I think I can do it. It just entails cutting out the internet-ahj.

It is sooooo quiet around here with just two cats! Sux.

Where's our shadow? Our little constant companion?

spleuh

Alright. I'm not going to sit around listening to sad songs today. I'm going into the junk-food-and-depression phase. That's Step 2 of Petloss Grief right?

sad

Bantha Poodoo and other depressing topics

I didn't sleep on the flight coming home, because it came in at 4 AM Vancouver time, which is when I go to bed. And then I didn't go to sleep until we got back from the vet around noon. I slept four hours, and haven't been able to go back to bed since. I tried once, but I felt too lonely, and came back out to watch TV, in the livingroom where Fernando was playing Warcraft. When I ran out of shows to watch, I watched a movie on youtube. It's 5 AM now, I'm gonna take my sleepy-headache pill, and then start another movie. See if I get tired enough to fall asleep. I get insomnia-ish when I'm sad. That's when I can understand why some people drink until they pass out. Normally Nombly would be hanging out on the couch with me, cause he always liked to be with people. Haley and Sherry are no help... she's up in her basket on the shelf, and I don't see Sherry so he's probably in my bedroom. He needs lots of personal space. Maybe I'll go get my stuffed cat and sit him on the couch with me. She's got a meaner temperament than Nombly (I got her when I was in school, and it was her job to watch me under lowered brows and make sure I was doing my homework) but at least she's gray.


I've been thinking about Bantha today--the Rottweiler my roommate (later sister in law) had. He was a beautiful dog, so frisky and lovable. He LOVED cats. He used to have a stuffed cat, and it was the only toy he wouldn't chew on and rip up, and when he accidentally tore the ear he was upset and Delyriam had to sew it back. Sherry stayed the hell away from him, but Nombly was very indignant at being shnuffled. Once Nombly was sitting up on the freezer-chest, and Bantha got sent out of the room for being naughty, and Nombly whacked him on the butt as he passed.

Years later, when Delyriam was married to my brother, Bantha got sick. I don't remember what the original symptoms were, but in the end they thought he had cancer. They tried all kinds of treatments, but the life just ebbed out of him. I remember going over to visit him, and he would just lay on the floor, listless, showing no interest in being petted etc. It was SO awful. Horrible. When my cat Ernie got sick enough to be put down, he never got to the point where he was that listless. He stopped eating and drinking, but he still liked to cuddle. But with Bantha it was heartbreaking. That's the one thing I'm just so glad we avoided with Nombly--that it all happened rather fast.

Not that that prevents me from crying every 2 minutes, but still... Nombly had a bad heart for most of his life, and the condition was much worse the last time we went to the vet, in the spring. But it didn't show. He looked and acted like an old cat much of the time, but he would still chase Haley around, and dance on my pillow to wake me up, and chase moths that came into the apartment. Fernando and I always hoped he'd have a massive heart attack while chasing Haley through the apartment, and just immediately die. I guess this was about as close as you can get to that. And I shudder to think of this happening if we'd been at work. Imagine dying (alone) because you slowly choke and suffocate? It's too awful to think of.

Okay. Off to take my pills and try another film and have a few more cries.

Old Nombly was a mongrel

I think most of you have heard by now, that Fernando and I had to take our cat Nombly to the vet Wed morning and he was put down because his lungs were full of fluid and he could hardly breathe. I've spent the day just watching TV and crying whenever something sets me off. There's a lot I want to write about our Nombly, but one thing at a time.

My dad once taught my roommate and I the words to the Old Yeller theme


and after that we made up an Old Yeller song for every pet we got. Nombly's went like this:

Old Nombly was a mongrel
A little straight-eared mongrel
Fancy free, without a family tree
But he could up and do it
Just like there's nothing to it
And that's how a good cat should be.

Here Nombly! Come back Nombly
--meh! meh! meh!--
Beeeest doggone caaat in the Eaaast!

Nombly was saying "meh" long before it became fashionable. He had this short, staccatto sort of meow. Along with a short, whippity tail.

Little whipity tail