Edgycat blog

The Story of Cassie the Cat and Moses the Crow

2011-01-26T14:13:00.000-08:00

What do an abandoned kitten and a lone crow have in common?

A Portrait of Sally Cookie by Artist Spoon Popkin

2011-01-20T10:17:00.000-08:00

I was speaking at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in the Edgar Allan Poe room. Very beautiful library in Baltimore which is kept in fine shape by a long list of well-know authors. At the end of the evening a young woman called Spoon Popkin, the last name she assures me is real, offered to paint Sally Cookie as a gift for me. Sally nudged me from beyond and said "say yes and thank you, don't fumble around." So I did and soon it will be here. Thank you, Spoon.

Click HERE to visit Spoon Popkin's web portfolio.

Snowmen Cats

2010-12-28T10:30:00.000-08:00

The weather outside is frightful, but to make a cat snow creature is delightful...

Do you have a cat snowman picture you'd like to share? Click HERE to email it to the Edgycats and Sylvia. We will feature it on the blog at a later date. Don't forget to include your name, the photo caption and, of course, your cat's name. Love, Syl

Cat and Deer Love to Cuddle

2010-11-19T12:12:00.000-08:00

An Edgycat friend, Bruce Bartleson, wrote in with these cute cat and deer photos. Take a look!

Deer visits cat in yard every morning!   A cat at Harrisburg has a special friend that visits every morning.   The owner finally took pics! Those we love don't have to be exactly like us.

Come to BadGirlChats.com for Coffee and Donuts with Sylvia

2010-11-11T08:14:00.000-08:00

Edgycat Friends, stop by BadGirlChats.com for coffee and donuts with Sylvia.

Thanks,
The Staff

Looking for a sign

2010-08-17T11:41:00.000-07:00

Looking for signs

Sally would only drink water that was moving. Where was the sport in water captured in a bowl? Where was the magic? When Sally could no longer leap to the top of the clavfoot tub and land gracefully inside, that was a sign. How many signs are necessary?

Another sign

Sally loved to sit out on the deck in a certain pale green lounge chair. When she could no longer leap up effortlessly, that was a sign

And when Jana and I watched Television

She would come into the room and vacillate between us. who would she choose… my sister or myself and for how long? My sister never had a cat, but she did sorta like Sally, and she did like being chosen. I would occasionally hear her say:” So how’s it goin’ sal?” At the end, Sally stopped keeping us company.

And finally…

When her back legs didn’t work at all and all the fun was gone, the vet came to the back porch and put her to sleep and Tom and Olivia were there to say goodbye and we buried her in the back yard with Izzy, and Buddy and Eric under 3 beautiful stones and a cast iron cat and very soon Olivia will plant ghost ferns there to keep my white cat company.

I am early for my appointment

2010-04-19T12:54:00.000-07:00

I was early for my appointment to discuss illustrating a book on Hot Dogs... Vienna Hot dogs...Vienna hot dogs at a picnic. I was an illustrator before I became a cartoonist. I loved drawing hot dogs in buns, not much call for it then or now, so I was pleased to be offered this opportunity.

I was sitting all alone in a huge room, two stories high with a winding staircase. I had been buzzed in and told to wait. I was calmly looking around feeling relieved as I always did when I actually found the address that I was looking for with a modicum of angst and was safely seated. It was obviously someone’s private apartment, someone who was highly successful in Public Relations, someone who could afford a two-story place on Cedar Street in Chicago.

I heard a clanking noise behind me and I turned my head slightly to look at the stairway and I saw a cat. A cat that had two front legs and two wheels where her back legs should have been. She was coming downstairs. She had no trouble making her way. She moved with aplomb. Her owner followed her explaining that her cat had had an accident. But she didn’t go into the details.

Probably she had talked about the accident many times. It’s not like a child. People might hesitate to ask: how did your child come to lose her legs and how did you arrive at the decision to use wheels? The cat on wheels was another sign that I was in the home of a highly successful woman who had no financial need ask herself can I afford to amputate my cats back legs and replace them with wheels ? Or “ is my cat’s quality of life diminished by her locomotion? Is her life full of fun, spiritually rich”?

Sally has four legs, but she gets around on them awkwardly. I look at her. She purrs. She studies the height of everything before she jumps…and then she makes it look easy. Except when she misses, but don’t we all miss once in a while?

Will Sally Recognize me?

2010-03-04T13:48:00.000-08:00

Sally Cookie is on my mind…

I escaped to California again this year, but due to Sally’s unfortunate condition, her reputation had preceded her and no one wanted her as a houseguest.

Sally has had a miraculous cure due to the diagnosis of her illness: allergy to gluten and my application of the remedy: gluten-free raw meat with vegetables and minerals. But it’s hard to explain to people when you are going to share their space that your wonderful cat no longer has the condition that would make her the spoiler of their environment.

Sally had to stay home. I approached everyone I could think of looking for a companion who would stay in my, I think, pretty interesting space with all the amenities, including Tivo, an in-apartment washer/drier, a copy machine that makes 11X17 copies, great art and a netflix membership. No takers.

Finally the gods smiled and a neighbor, who lives a block away agreed to come in twice a day to feed and medicate Sally... did I mention Sally’s diabetes? My friend’s household is rather crowded with relatives and pets and she welcomed visiting a home that contained only one quite small cat.

I will be home soon. Will Sally recognize me? Will she prefer her surrogate mother to me? I am prepared to take second place, but I hope she will run downstairs to greet me.

March l:
Got here at 7:30 a.m. to be told that the plane was not departing until 3:00. No reason. Later we were told that the plane needed a part and that it was being sent from Dallas. Which had weather. I tried various standby flights, but no luck. I decided to buy a one day pass at the Admirals Club for $50 which includes free wifi, cookies, and certified kosher snacks. They have nice bathrooms. Finally at 1:40 I decided to sit at the gate in case they just decided to takeoff without telling anyone. I called Sally’s surrogate mother and she will step in and keep Sally company for another evening. I have éclairs in my suitcase. My suitcase is in Chicago.

The suspense continues, will Sally recognize me? Will she acknowledge me?

March 2:

I think she recognized me. She was friendly, but then I remembered that’s why I named her Sally Cookie. She’s so friendly and sweet, I felt she needed an endearing last name.

Sally is very very old and she has had a history of near death experiences. She resembles a cat put together from very old parts. Like that old Mel Gibson movie where everything is assembled from rusty leftovers.

Previous emergency interventions have left her with bald patches, (shaved areas for blood tests and medicinal patches) which have never grown back. This is particularly disturbing on her legs, which make them look too thin to hold her up.

She’s as friendly and loving as ever, and she leapt onto the bed to sleep with me with the grace of a gazelle. I’d been looking at the Sky Mall catalog on the plane with a view to buying her a ramp to get onto the bed, but it’s totally unnecessary.

Sally's Dental Saga

2009-12-09T08:43:00.000-08:00

Sally had dental surgery on November 4. It's been a month of ups and downs, recovery and near death experiences.

Hard to say if things will go well with Sally. Here are some good signs: She leapt onto the table where I 'm laying out the Manuscript for my book. I don't remember her showing that much curiosity in years.

When she lands, she lands softly. When she was very ill, she landed with heart breaking thuds. She eats a lot, but only when it's placed in front of her. Has she lost the connection between hunger and appetite?

Her breathing is heavy at night, but normal during the day.(see drawing of her nebulizer) . There is a feeding tube in her neck. She is shaved in various places and quite skinny/ People say: " What a pretty cat!" I say: "What a will to live!

Wait a minute!

2009-11-25T12:51:00.001-08:00

On Friday I call the vet to make an appointment for Sally. She’s breathing with difficulty, not eating and seems listless. I want to be told whether she has any chance of recovery. All the vets are in surgery or are completely booked. I ask if I can drop her off, have her fed and medicated and available for the next vet with a few minutes to spare.

I pick her up at 6:30. She seems marginally better. I make an appointment with her vet for the next day. I nebulize her, feed and medicate her though a tube, and drink Cuban coffee. I also seem better able to handle the feeding tube and syringe and have developed a method of nebulizing her while she’s in her carrier and I’m lying on the floor holding the nebulizer.

The tech gives me a modified cap for the tube, the vet gives me another kind of syringe, checks her insulin and expresses surprise at the number, pleasant surprise. It’s in the mid 200’s.

He has just proposed a riddle: how does a cat get enough insulin to transform her food into usable calories, yet not be given insulin when she is not eating, because that could kill her. I ask plaintively: “Didn’t you say, no insulin is better than too much insulin?” He nods, but says nothing.

I take her home and field calls from worried friends who think I have euthanized her. She is looking dapper with an orange feeding tube sticking out of her neck.

This morning she eats real food, three times.

And the insurance company has decided, that even though in their heart of hearts they believe I have stolen my own car and torched it, they will play my claim. Okay, so far so good.

Goodbye my dear Sally Cookie.

2009-11-19T12:50:00.000-08:00

The Vet was thrilled. Sally came through the surgery with flying colors. Three hours and every diseased tooth removed and when he turned around there she was up, perky, butting her head against the cage.

I took her home. The next day she was sniffling. I took her back. “Oh, it’s Herpes. Most cats have latent herpes and when they’re stressed it becomes active. Just give her two pumps of this and she’ll be fine.”

Two days later, she is barely breathing, making a frightening honking sound, desperate to get air. My neighbor and I take her to the Emergency Animal Hospital. She has an upper respiratory infection. She’s in pain from her gums as well. She will not eat. For two days they fill her with antibiotics, hydrate and nebulize her to clear her air passages. I go home with pain medication and an appetite enhancer. She will not look at food. She is diabetic. She can’t have insulin unless she’s eating.

The Vet who performed the surgery calls. He wants to do anything he can to help her get well. He comes in on Monday, his day off. It seems that a suture broke in her gum and bacteria entered her body causing the infection.

He tries a cold laser treatment through her lip and also on her nose to help her to breath. I take her home. I bring her back.

He surgically fixes the broken suture. A feeding tube is inserted. I must feed her food, small amounts, five times a day through the tube. Also two kinds of antibiotics have to be pushed into the tube with a syringe and she is to be nebulized three times a day. She doesn’t want to be nebulized. Pain medication for her gum. Insulin for her diabetes…I forgot the appetite enhancer.

She is very small. She needed to be fitted with a small feeding tube. It has a cap, which has to be turned counterclockwise to open or perhaps to close. It doesn’t matter because the cap is just a bit too big for the tube. I can barely get it in and out. The syringe is too big for the tube. Instead of fitting down into the tube, I have to balance it and send the watered down food through it, splashing Sally. Sally is weak. I wake up and the bed is urine soaked. She can’t quite make it to the litter box; She lies under the covers pressed against me.

On Wednesday, November 18 I leave her at home alone for a few hours while I go to the bank and do a few errands. When I come home she is up. She stands under the kitchen table, a signal that she is hungry. I feed her a small amount of real food. I am ecstatic. Later she eats again. And then later she stops eating and her breathing passages sound clogged.

Friday morning I bring her to the vet for the day. A vet who I haven’t seen before wonders why she is taking two antibiotics. It is not a good idea to take two at once. This evening I will pick her up and take her home. Perhaps for the last time.

I’ve read about MDs who want to try everything to keep their human patients alive, past the point where it would make sense to stop, but I understand the impulse. Maybe the medicine will win against the infection. Perhaps the Vet feels he shouldn’t have performed this surgery on such an old cat, but her mouth was so diseased…Perhaps he should have fixed the broken suture surgically sooner. Perhaps.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have made the decision to allow the surgery. A lot of sadness and regret to go around. Goodbye Sally Cookie. You were the best.

Sally at the ER

2009-11-16T11:50:00.000-08:00

The tooth fairy comes up empty handed.

2009-11-11T11:54:00.000-08:00

The dental fairy comes for Sally Cookie’s teeth. They are not to be found. Sally wakes me up and asks, quite angrily for her, “Where are they?” I say the vet offered them, but I said no. They were diseased; I didn’t want to save them. Was this unsentimental of me?

She shakes her head; once again I have failed her. “The tooth fairy was going to leave me a live mouse and a yellow parakeet under my pillow in return for the teeth. I was looking forward to it.”

“I had no idea,” I say sadly. And then I remember I have her x-rays. I rummage around in the drawer. “Will this do?” I say handing her tiny x-ray with 5 or 6 images of what looks like stalagmites, the decision will be handed down next month… I’ll let you know.

The back-story. Last year every time I took Sally C. into to see her old vet, the vet would look in her mouth and say, “I can hardly look in there. It’s awful.” Once she invited me to take a peek. I nerved myself up and looked. Something that appeared to be an open wound was visible at the back of her mouth. But we agreed that Sal was just too fragile to go under anesthesia.

The new vet and I discussed the problem. He said she’s stage 4. I wondered, why is cat dental surgery suddenly so popular? I suspect a new and reliable source of revenue, but then I remember the inside of her mouth.

He takes many blood tests and urine samples and pronounces her sound enough to go under. The procedure takes 3 hours and every one of her teeth.

It’s been a week since the surgery. I am concerned. It’s so difficult for her to eat that she has lost interest in food.

I heard that in the old days when people had all their teeth removed their gums became so hard that they could eat an apple without any difficulty. Is that apocryphal?

Stolen Car Stories

2009-11-02T15:15:00.000-08:00

I live in Chicago where 40 cars a day are stolen.

Last week my adorable red Toyota was one of them. Stolen from the back yard parking space between 6:00 and 8:30 P.M. I know the time because when I went downstairs the next morning, my neighbor was parked in my spot.

I squinted again and again trying to turn his big dark blue Scion into my tiny red Toyota, but no luck. I walked around the block just in case I had lost my mind and misplaced my car. Nope. My neighbor’s wife walked around the block in case I had lost my mind. Nope.

Regretfully, I phoned the police. The policemen took my report and told me a dreadful story about the gang rape of a young girl in California and added: “Be glad you weren’t there when they stole the car.” Then he asked how old I was. When he realized we had grown up in the same era he said: “When we were young, people gave pregnant women their seats on the bus, the world has gone downhill and will only get worse.

Right I thought, the good old days... so great for women and blacks and gays and etc... a more civilized time indeed! But I kept decorously quiet. At the end of our amiable, somewhat bleak conversation he said: “Buy a gun”

The next day another detective called to say that after my car had been abandoned, it was set on fire and then towed to impound.

I told my stolen car story to a few friends and was surprised to find that absolutely everyone had a stolen car story. It’s a rite of passage, like having a bad time at the prom, so I thought: Let’s hear it!

If you would like to send me your stolen car story. Please do, but make it a bit shorter. I was too long-winded, but telling the story felt good and now I don’t need to ever tell it again!

Mysteries with and without cats

2009-09-30T12:18:00.000-07:00

Mysteries and Cats

Sally was wondering just when I would get around to researching mystery novels with cats in them.

“Well, Sally” I said, “I have read a few and sad to say they are just a great big disappointment, with cats thinking convoluted thoughts and solving mysteries and being so cute one could retch.” Sally nods. She knows that the beauty of cats is that they think simply and clearly and cut to the heart of the matter. Cute is like less than nothing to them. Sally allows that I can give up on finding mysteries and head for well-plotted novels with good writing and surprising twists and turns.

In that vein I recommend Ann Patchett’s; The Magician’s Assistant, which has a wonderful opening line: “Parsifal is dead. That is the end of the story”…. a contender for the best opening line of a novel, previously held (in my mind at least) by “This is the saddest story ever told”, the fist line of The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford. The novel goes on to spin a tale that has many layers, all of them absorbing and beautifully written. It seems that Parsifal concocted his entire childhood. His true history is revealed when his mother and sister show up after his death.

Yes, of course there is a rabbit involved. He has a job as rabbits do in the magic act and is a member of the family… he is loved and watched, so that he doesn’t take a dip in the pool thinking he can swim. Sally has just shuddered at the very thought of water.

Other books by Ann Patchett: Run and Bel Canto for which she won Pen/Faulkner award and the Orange Prize.

How's Sally Doin'?

2009-09-13T07:40:00.000-07:00

Everybody asks about Sally Cookie. "How’s Sally Cookie doin'?" They ask quietly, suitably funereal in demeanor and voice. They know she has a condition and besides she looks very thin and appears to be one step away from death.

So I start my litany which I try to keep brief. "I've tried everything. Budesonide, Prednisolone, Leukeran, Centrine, B12 shots... special canned food from the vet and nothing works," and my voice trails off. My neighbor says meditatively, "Well you know people also have irritable bowel syndrome and it’s really a food allergy... an allergy to gluten." "And," she continues, "I think you should go see Tom at Sam and Willy’s because he knows a lot about gluten allergies."

So I do, because I would go anywhere for Sally, but luckily Tom’s store is nearby and we remember each other from Mojoes café where he was always on the outside looking in because his dog could not tolerate other dogs. So he would stand out in the cold and wait for Missy, his wife, to have her coffee and come back out. He thinks Sally is allergic to gluten and I should try feeding her a diet of raw meat, (which comes frozen in rather exotic flavors: Venison, Duck, etc) and he gives me a free sample.

Raw meat is something I don’t care to look at and initially I handle it with rubber gloves and my eyes closed, but I love Sally and so I buy these medallions which I have to mix up with a little baby food and water and she seems to find it as tasty as those mice she used to be agile enough to catch, not to speak of my darling spice finches.

I don’t buy raw chicken because Tom suggests that she may have developed an allergy to the kind of meat she ate all the time. In her case this would be Fancy Feast chicken and turkey.

Anyway, in two days she is cured and starts putting on weight and although I was very fond of my vet, it appears that she had never heard of cats being allergic to gluten and I think perhaps she should have done more research before suggesting acupuncture and the possibility that Sally had cancer and before I started redecorating my deck for Sally’s last goodbye. Although now the deck is so nice that I invite friends over for dinner, and Sally herself loves to catch a few rays out there.

So I find myself at a new vet, a man who seems to read everything and wants to share his knowledge and I am getting cross-eyed from the shear volume of it, when Sally walks over to me jumps up on a chair and pokes me with her paw... the universal signal for "get me the hell out of here" and even the vet laughs.

The beauty part of the new vet is that he is 1/2 block down from 90 Miles Café, a Cuban restaurant with the best lechon sandwiches I’ve ever had and, more importantly, really fine con leche coffee.

2008-12-12T19:15:00.000-08:00

I love a mystery... but I am a demanding lover. The mystery novel must be almost as well-written as a real novel (I say almost, I am not irrational) It must be an intellectual puzzle, but with fully human characters, who know there’s someone out there smarter than they are…they must have flaws, and they must want to right wrongs for those who need help. Is this too much to ask?

I enjoy novels with lawyers / I like stories involving musicians and art forgers, but I am addicted to the lonely detective, ferreting out the truth, protecting the innocent from further harm and getting bruised in the process. The protagonist can be British, Swedish or American. They can be American writing about Russians. This seems to be popular and works well. See list of my favorites below. Favorites: Reginald Hild: Death Comes For The Fat man, Laura Lippman, The Sugar House, Sara Paretsky, Bitter Medicine ,P.D. James, Innocent Blood, Liza Cody, Dupe, Peter Dickinson: King and Joker, Ross MacDonald: Find a Victim,Jill McGown, Scene of Crime, Ian Rankin, Rebus, Stuart M. Kaminsky Blood and Rubies (a Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov novel) Henning Mankell: The Return Of The Dancing Master. There are books out there that purport to be mystery novels with a cat as a central character. Cats play a large part in the plot. Perhaps too much. Perhaps too much of what I love about mysteries is abandoned when one includes cats…. cats tend to expand to take up available space. I will make it my mission, as long as I can bear it, to read mysteries with cat characters and report on them in this blog.. Right now, like a good detective, I’m tracking down a story called “The White Death” in a mystery anthology called “Beastly Tales.” But I may stop my quest abruptly. Like a cat, I’m easily distracted.

My First Cats

2008-11-23T13:56:00.001-08:00

I held the newspaper in my trembling hand. I knocked and the door opened to reveal a small love seat and shreds. The walls were bare except for an unframed photo of a very beautiful young woman. The smell of cat was strong, although they were nowhere in evidence. The once beautiful woman appeared. She squinted at me. It was my 40th birthday. I was old enough to be trusted with a cat. I sat gingerly on the shredded sofa. I held my breathe. I didn’t want to be rude. She brought one cat out and set him on my lap. He sat there as if he was welded to me. My friend Janice said, “get two they will be company for each other.” I nodded weakly. Another was brought out. I hoped Janice did not think I needed three cats. I nodded at the new cat, who looked quite mad. That seemed a nice balance. A lap cat and a mad cat. The thin woman brought the forms out. There was a folding table in the corner... I can’t read forms, I get restless. There were many. I signed them unread. Later I learned that I had agreed never to close a door to my cat or the formerly beautiful woman would send out paid assassins to remove me. Now my cats have their own apartment.

This is Sally Cookie's Paw

2008-11-23T13:54:00.001-08:00

This is the paw Sally Cookie touched me with when I was on my way out of the no-kill animal shelter. I was looking for a cat just like Izzy, he of the heart shaped face and the kindly nature. I looked in vain. I paused before leaving, lost in the past, when she poked me. I turned, she kept her paw firmly on my arm. I was selected. She is the karma that I earned over past lifetimes spent moving furniture around perpetually aesthetically unsatisfied… Perhaps my bedroom should be a living room, perhaps a too small closet could be a full bathroom, perhaps the whole apartment should be moved closer to a coffee shop. Sally destroyed it all, one piece at a time and she did it without claws. Everything had to be recovered in naugahyde or hauled away. At best my home looks like a dental office designed by a child, at worst like Gene Hackman’s in the final scene of “The Conversation.”