wendy house

The rain it never stops and I’ve no particular place to go…   …for me this song captures profound sadness so beautifully. 

Japan sang Ghosts

Matrix

Rest In Peace

She had a perky, chirpy, well travelled life from the back streets of Southsea through to the suburbs of Seattle and back to the UK. We spent 15 years together. She will be missed by Sampo and I.

There will be a 7 day blog posting silence in respect of the silence your absence brings into the wendy house.

vet: she’s got a very good quality coat for a cat her age

wendy: you don’t think euthenasia is the right choice?

vet: I’d feel uncomfortable with PTS, but given her age and heart condition it should definitiely be considered

wendy: good, lets not euthanase her

vet: call me tonight if things dont improve

wendy: no pills?

vet: no pills, the injection should solve it

knock knock

neighbour: hello, I live opposite you over there

wendy: hello

neighbour: is your cat ok? the black and white one

wendy: I think so, she’s quite old and has a heart condition. Not as active as she used to be, why do you ask?

neihgbour: we were worried because we dont see her sitting on your bedroom window like she used to

My neighbour was worreid because her 15 year old cat had died recently.  She knows how upsetting this is. She thought that maybe my cat had died and I needed someone to check that I was ok.  How sweet is that? I love my ‘hood

For a millisecond, when the vet said myocardial infarction,  I was pleased that I already knew what that meant.  I  didn’t have to add more ignorance to the unnecessarily overwhelming emotional blustering this conversation was producing. 

I had already been put in my place as an ignorant person.  When I told the vet I wanted to try and assessment Matrix’s quality of life I was told in no uncertain terms that the task was impossible and that he, the Vet, couldn’t help.  The suprise at the vet not even trying to help at that point nearly prompted tears.  I managed to hold the tears back until after the phone call. When I assumed the role of ignorant listener to the Vets prefered agenda I managed to sneak in a few questions tothat helped me get to the information I needed, for peace of mind and confidence in being able to make the right decisions for the rest of Matrix’s life.

When making significant life influencing decisions it shouldn’t be quite this hard, professionals should listen first then respect the percieved needs of their paying clients. Me.

Thankfully I now know that my perception of Matrix having a fairly high quality of life is likely to be accurate and that without the outrageously expensive (financially and emotionally) heart treatment Matrix is most likely to pop-her-clogs with a suddent heart attack or a stroke that disables some limbs at which point the vet would recommend euthenasia.

It’s how my grandma died, not the euthenasia, the stroke.

I wish euthenasia had been an option for Gran, she wanted to go, she didn’t want me to see her but I sneaked under the curtains around her bed while my aunts and uncles were squabbling over who had been the most attentive.  Grandma cried when I hugged her.  I got to say I love you, goodbye.

There is a national shortage of kitty litter.  

The National press are conspiring to supress this story.  Some regional press are sneaking out reports. The Burton press managed  this excerpt:

Tesco, on St Peter’s Bridge, sold out of cat litter on Thursday as customers grabbed supplies to use as a handy and effective substitute for gritting salt. Sales have rocketed by 70 per cent in a week.

The East anglia times noted panic purchase of pussy essentials

Customers at Tesco stores in Kesgrave and Martlesham are reporting a shortage of eggs, bread and milk, while there was also word of rapidly emptying shelves at Sainsbury’s in Warren Heath.   Anti-freeze products, boots and thermal underwear have also proved popular, alongside a surprise best-seller – cat litter.

Local councils are running out of grit for the roads so private citizens are stepping-up to fill the void left by the hording and abusing of  the litter of the cat.   This reduces supplies for normal cat toilet abilities.   There could be unanticipated consequences.

Your eyewitness, on the spot, roving reporter  [ME!]  is out and about interviewing the kitties that matter, those  suffering from this very shortage.

In this revealing interview footage we listen to

• a vey frustrated, unlittered cat
• icicles melting
• the police sirens as they chase people deliberately over-purchasing kitty litter for elicit purposes

Matrix has difficulty walking on the snow and fails to find an acceptable toilet.     Her experience is similar to that of many of the UKs mainly outdoor kitties.  

What will happen next?  

How can I improvise when my stocks run out and my indoor kitties refuse to conduct their ablutions in the snow. OH!

British Gas sent a comedy duo round to deal with my Sparky sockets.  

British Gas Electician (BGE):   My cat died yesterday,   he was 15,

Wendy: Matrix is 15

BGE: he looks it

Wendy:   (silence)

Matrix starts chasing her tail.    She has never chased her tail before. I stop making the bed to watch her playfulness,   she is bearing her teeth and growling.   She falls over, her bowels open and her body twitches wildly.   After  less than a  minute she stops convulsing and lies still.   I pick her up and carry her to a warm soft bed on the floor by the phone while I call the emergency vet.   Matrix and I cry as I dial.    

While  the vet questions me. Matrix stops crying and starts to walk around.   Yes her breathing is normal,   yes her movement is normal.   She’s not dragging her back legs.   Her pupils are no longer dilated.   The vet advises me to keep her warm,   let her eat and drink and  watch her closely for an hour.   The vet says it is fairly common for aging cats to have seizures.

I called mumzie.   “Oh yes dear,   Jason had a seizure while he was sleeping,   about 4 years before he died.    He hardly noticed it,  I did because he emptied his bowels all over our nice new sofa, what a mess”

Peacefully, Matrix watched while I cleaned the mess.

The local cat herd has well choreographed dance routines.   The balletic movements involve sudden, synchronised,  dashes and leaps that are  contrasted with subtle coordinated pre-dash tail-fluffing demonstrations.

The garden stage provides props for leaping over, dashing around, hiding under, elegantly perching upon and a liberal dose of  insects to piroette with.  

Here we find Matrix lurking in the Nigella,   where she prepares to launch straight into a dash,   bypassing her weakest move,   the pre-dash tail fluffing.

Matrix is considering expanding her fundamental skill set into a profit making business by running stress reduction clinics for busy professionals.  

The main obstacle is that she’s way too busy (sleeping).

Canterbury has more than its fair share of  people roamng the streets on a sunny summers day.   I often shy away from areas that are clearly main attractions during their busy hours.   I’m drawn down the empty streets and alleys.    Generally empty streets are not lined with shops, museums or cathedrals.     Often they do provide other pleasant suprises.   This is one of the alleyways thay  pulled me from the busy streets of beautiful Canterbury.

Down one such alleyway I found this fabulous rivebank restaurant,   disguised as a  stone shed, with few windows with flag-stone floors,   old beamed ceilings, a charming French waitress, an  excellent menu and no other customers.    

Eric, Neverland with a picture of Matrix  and a Swedish speaking  Florence joined me for a delectable meal.

An action packed weekend in the Wendy House garden:

• a fuzzy-buzzy bee feeds on a rotund allium
• a Peacock butterfly feeds on another allium
• the garden robin feeds on insects attracted by my recent digging
• a harlequin spectabilis ladybird takes a break from aphid eating on one of the acers  
• Matrix snoozes under another acer
• A large hornet (2 inches) found its way into my bedroom.   I didn’t know it was a hornet.   They look scarey.     I panicked, squeaked, opened the bedroom windows,   wrapped myself in a curtain and wafted the corner of the curtain at the hornet until it  took the hint and  left via the window.  

In a highly controversial move Matrix’s photograph  appears on a website of  cats impersonating Hitler.      She’s not a cat you should risk appeasing,   I’ve tried and lost my favourite chair and the side of the bed nearest to the radiator.   She’s ruthless.

 Can you see them?

Scary!

Today I am focussing all my emotional energy on striving to achieve the dizziest heights of most strikingly ordinariness.   The cats have already fallen into snore-laden sleep.  

I’ll let you kno ho it goes,  though it ont be anything special, so maybe I ont let you kno ho it goes.     e’ll see if its orthy,   after a bout of affly indecisveness of extremely ordinary proportions and hacking my mini-hammer on the wwwwww key.

“how are the cats settling in?”

Thankyou to everyone who  inquired after the wellbeing of my darling  fluffballs.   I am happy to confirm that they have quickly adapted to this Wendy House and are exhibiting a full range of healthy fluff-ball-ee activities,   most notable of which is the Monaco-ish,   formula-1-ish speed and agility,   dangerous-staircase dash.

Dangerous-staircase dash

Starts in the garden where Sampo cues-up Matrix by strutting backward and forward in front of her just out of paws reach.   Next,  Sampo runs for the front-door gathering sufficient speed to arrive before Matrix,    maintaining sufficient control to take the entrance-hall-front-room 90 degrees doorway-bend.   Occassionally Sampo misses the bend and ends up in the bathroom where she is cornered by Matrix and has clearly lost the chase.   After several months of practice she has the hall-front-room doorway-bend almost fully mastered.  

The subtle curve on the approach to the foot of the stairs occassionally causes loss of footing on the bare floorboards and is invariably accompanied by liberal doses of meowing from both teams.   The main course-obstacle is the dangerous-staircase u-turn.   The dangerous-staircase u-turn either involves a headlong crash into the front-room wall for those missjudging their momentum,   or falling down the first couple of steps for those misjudging their paw-friction.   Sampo tends to crash into the wall due to belly-induced-momentum,   Matrix tends to slip on the steps.   Once past the first few steps,   if Sampo is still ahead of Matirx she’s pounces  safely to the finish line on the first-floor landing and is ready to start the next round.     Fresh water,   views of local trees and birds are provided on the landing at the end of the course for the competing kitties.    

The cats are regularly able and willing to practice this tricky F1 course on a daily basis  often  changing  chaser-chasee roles and investigating route variations including the dinning room table top,   sofa-bends and comfy chair corner.  

Ringside tickets are available.  

Corporate bookings and sponsorship considered.

An exciting evening was spent studying pussycat-paw-preferences.   If you are already yawning,   stop reading now,   this is the excitment climax sentence for this blog post.     This is the sound made by the fluffballs decending the staircase  of  danger in  WendyHouse:

Matrix:   bur-bump, bur-bump, ber-pump

Sampo:   bump—bump–bump-bumpbumbbump    

Watching the bumpy affair indicates that Matrix always first puts her left-paw onto the next step while Sampo uses the not-insubstantial momentum of her stomach to launch herself down planting her left paw on every other step.   The   cunning corner two steps before the  bottom of the staircase has occassionally taken advantage of Sampo’s momentum to literally bump her.    Sampo, not the brightest of kitties.

Matrix = left-pawed

Sampo = Ambidextrous

On the 1hr drive to Reading from the Gatwick Animal Reception Centre Matrix rode gunshot purring, chatting and rubbing the journey away. Sampo silently hid under her food dish. Within an hour of being given free reign of the Wendy House Matrix had eaten, drunk, pooped, then snooped into every cat-sized orifice she could find. Meanwhile Sampo slurped a sack of water then watched the goings-on from the safety of under the dining room table before a tip-toe exploration.

Then. They both got on with the serious matter of snore-laden snoozing in front of the fake-real fire.

Pleasing the kitties was a primary influencer when selecting a new-old Wendy house. The main bedroom, conservatory and fake-real fire are already big-hits. Phew.

Tricky-test passed.

Now champagne and kebabs… Hoorah!

Today I’m  catless, carless,  surrounded by dissembled furniture and half packed suitcases.  

Goodbye blubbing by me and soulful wailing  by Sampo.   Matrix looked her normal relaxed self.

Matrix and Sampo can’t join me in the UK until the last 4 months of their  PETS passport process,    6 months quarantine,  is finished.    Today they moved to their  US  foster home.  

It’s cold.   While shivering and looking for a quick dose of warmth I push  my hands deep into my jacket pockets.   In one pocket I felt a warm fluffy object.   Like a soft furry stick.   It did the job but I didn’t know what it was.   I pulled it out of my pocket to take a look.   It was Matrix’s right front leg,   apparantly recently severed from her body.   Still warm and wet with blood.

I woke-up very suddenly.     I suspect that was a real nightmare that wasn’t cheese induced.     Despite distinctly recalling going to bed last night I was definitely not in bed when I woke on the floor about 20 feet from the bed.   At least matrix is okay but I’ve gained a nasty bruise on the back of my  head and an ache to match.  

Ouch.

Malicious mischief is an actual  offence in Washington State and a way of being for Matrix when she smells roses.     Being  a very English domestic cat she simply loves a mouthful of roses.

Do cats have an informal, accurate, theory of static electricity?

My kitties adore paper.  I leave sheets of crumpled paper on the floor aound my home. They prefer  rolling and writhing  on the paper than the carpet.   The carpet is not natural fibre.   Rolling on the carpet builds static electricity.   Rolling on paper does not.  

Coincidence or clever kitties?   You decide….

after-beer words of wisdom paraphrased in a local (US) regional phraseology:

Wendy: “I needs me a boyfriend to do the cookin’ and stuff, cats is ok but they caint cook”

Matrix: shhhhhhhnnnnrrrrrrrrrr……….

Cats, like boyfriends, can and do snore

Am I DULL or what!!!

 700,000 x luuuurrrffffffff to all you doody-cats

Bask in all that BIG  luuuurrrrrffffff

Matrix doing a demo:

This week I’m eating Salemville Amish Blue cheese from Wisconsin.   It is moist, flavourful, crumbly  and tongue-slitheringly creamy….

 Eyan reports that Microsoft Word losing 2 hours of his intellectual effort  and a Gouda supper prefaced this rocky dream:

I was with my mother on the coast somewhere – the coasts were rather open and vast, somewhat influenced by photos I saw on Flickr.com. I climbed down a rocky ravine to get down to the beach (this is more influenced by the upper Algarve) My mother was urging me on. But, true to style, I got stuck and was in grave danger of falling off and breaking a good few bones.

After an evening scoffing meowmix; Matrix leapt out of a seamingly deep coma with this dramtically delivered dream report:

Meow meow meow MEOW meow MEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOW