Friday Four and More: Guess What We Did This Month? February 2008

February 2008…

If looks could kill, I’d be splattered against the wall.

But she is glad to have been spayed, though I’m sure she hasn’t forgotten the experience yet.

I had Mimi and all of four her babies spayed and neutered in two successive weeks, on Tuesdays, the girls the first week, the boys the next, using the same low-cost voucher program and a veterinarian who participated in the program. The Four were just about seven months old and normally I’d get it done before that, but with five at once, even with vouchers, I had to save up after all the kitten stuff—exams, shots, lots and lots of food, and even medical bills from earlier in the year when Lucy, Mimi’s daughter and the Four’s half-sister, was ill. And it was when I had Lucy spayed that I saw the first symptoms of the feline infectious peritonitis (FIP) that killed her only three months later. I think I wanted as much time as possible with them in case the same thing happened.

Luckily no one had gone into heat yet, except Mimi whose biological clock rang loudly beginning about six weeks after the kittens were born and she started calling and prancing around and was out of heat for about 15 total minutes from then until I had her spayed. No wonder she’d had six litters of kittens. I’m not sure the lady wants you to know that about her past; this is certainly not the Mimi everyone knows today.

Here’s how the boys reacted to seeing her this way.

Mr. Sunshine: “This is not what I expected.” Jelly Bean: “I’m confused, but I’m really cute.” Giuseppe: “What happened to you?!”

Then the three of them charge into the bathroom certain that Mimi and Mewsette had special food they were not getting.

Mewsette was already in the bathroom with Mimi because she had been spayed the same day. The boys would be spayed the following week. Mewsette was keeping her mom company and being her sweet self.

Why was Mimi wearing a cone? There’s a bit of a story there…

She was to be spayed much earlier. Because her kittens were there, even though I tried to keep them physically separate, she kept producing milk, and it’s okay to spay when they are in heat and producing milk, but if you can wait a while and hope one situation or the other will resolve you reduce possible risks. So she ended up being spayed with the rest of them.

And because of my experience with Lucy, I wanted to be as careful as possible with her mom. With that history of FIP in mind my veterinarian suggested, and the veterinarian who would do the spays and neuters agreed, to do a little extra exploratory when they spayed Mimi, looking for any possible lesions on internal organs typical of some cats with FIP and checking into some of the lumps in her mammary glands. Mimi was probably about four by then and her body had been through a lot in that time living largely outdoors and bearing six litters of kittens. Her incision would be larger and instead of stitches she would get staples.

Did you know that staples are easier than stitches for a cat to get her teeth around and pull out? I observed Mimi and Mewsette the evening I brought them home and neither showed any interest in their incisions and acted completely normal, good appetite, litterbox use, social, affectionate, but still I put a soft collar on each of them at one point in the evening.

The next morning they were both wearing their soft collars turned backward around their armpits like blue tutus—I think they had worked on each others’ collars and loosened them, but not managed to get them off.

A section of Mimi’s staples were missing, and her incision was open. I ran her back to the vet, who sedated her, cleaned the incision and replaced the staples. She also gave me the hard plastic collar.

I don’t care how the cat feels about the collar, I want the cat to heal. Mimi really didn’t complain either. She’s very tiny, though, and even though I placed her food bowl on an upended water bowl the collar still bumped into the floor when she tried to eat. And you can see by the speckles on the collar that an awful lot of stuff ended up inside.

This was also when I learned what a deeply sweet cat Mimi really is. When I took the collar off her and gave her food, she ate breakfast. I put it back on her. Same for dinner. She never once acted in any way threatening, no growls or other noises, never lifted a paw, didn’t even stiffen her muscles when I settled the collar around her neck.

Two days later I fed them breakfast, Mewsette’s incision looked great, Mimi’s was no longer inflamed after having replace the staples. The phone rang. I ran downstairs. I didn’t come back up for hours. I hadn’t replaced Mimi’s collar. Half her staples were gone again.

Back to the vet, apologizing for this, saying I really do know how to take care of a cat who’s been spayed! We had to start her on antibiotics and pain medication and the collar had to stay on even if I was sitting right there, but I could test her as time went on. Veterinarians know wily cats, and Mimi was, and is, nothing if not wise. The staples stayed in for ten days, though she didn’t have to wear her collar that whole time. For the next five days I did take the collar off for a few minutes and washed it while she ate her meals and nothing could make me leave her. Then I tested her for longer periods of time and the combination of the healing itself, the pain medication and the antibiotic helped to reduce the irritation so she quit pulling on the staples.

The veterinarian found nothing unusual in there. Mimi healed fine. And now she wonders what all the fuss was about before she was spayed, but at least she has these four lovely children to show for it. I thank Lucy for bringing this wonderful family to me.

From around this date in past years

Mimi Finally Gets to See Our Veterinarian! February 27, 2024

Mimi attempts to use her super unspayed female cat escape skills acquired in her promiscuous youth to get out of the exam room at our visit to our veterinarian today.

Alas, she was unsuccessful and had to endure her exam and a number of tests to inform us that she is 20, she is little, and she needs a few touch-ups. But I am thrilled that aside from persistent urinary issues, some reduced kidney function, slightly enlarged heart, a little hyperthyroid disease, secondary yeast infection in her ears, really bad teeth, she is actually in fine shape.

Recently she’s been a little less active and sometimes lethargic, and her appetite has been diminishing. She’s also had some periods of what look like a pain response, all of which had me very worried. She has lost a little bit of weight in the process, from 5.5 to 5.1 pounds since December.

So we have an antibiotic and some pain relief for her teeth and I’ll chart what her response is. I have goodies on hand to help her gain some extra weight and lots of little palliative things to keep her at a good level of health. When Mimi feels good she doesn’t need any encouragement to take care of herself and enjoy life.

Mr. Sunshine, on the other hand, was feeling pretty good, but he’s been feeling yucky the past few days. He just doesn’t want to eat and even with medications to settle his stomach and an appetite stimulant he only eats a few bites, if that. He still has the sniffles and I think that’s it. I’m working with our veterinarian on some options for him. Today he had the digestive medications and fluids, a couple of extra times outdoors, special foods and treats, and still not much interest. We are planning another ultrasound, but that’s three weeks away. Send purrs, please, and I’m going to keep working with him.

This post was from February 28, 2024, a leap year. We lost Mr. Sunshine on March 1, 2024, two days later. He’d just seen our veterinarian the previous week and it was clear he was slowly declining, but he was still strong and active and I had scheduled another ultrasound. Until that last day he was good except for the occasional feeling blah but still being active as in this post from February 28, 2024. On March 1 it seems the mass on his spleen, or his spleen itself, started to bleed as it had occasionally in the past, and this time it didn’t stop. His occasional feeling blah, no appetite, slight to high fever I had always felt was some internal bleeding from the very beginning in April 2022. How he went on feeling great most of the time I guess was just his nature. His loss the day following this photo was a shock, but I’m glad it was quick.

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From Instagram

Home again and the sun was shining between storms.

I finally got all the stuff off of Mimi’s turquoise rocker so she could enjoy the the sun. We didn’t anticipate she’d also be enjoying her son trying to share the rocker with her. She actually did not enjoy that. But it’s always good to see the two of them enjoying their time even if they are annoying each other.

From around this date in past years

Rolling in the Sun, 2023

So we’ve been having some sunny days lately and Mimi is blissful. Here, I caught her in mid-roll on the front porch, the concrete warmed just enough by sun that she didn’t want to stop rolling around. She looks like a fuzzy little kitty, nice and chocolatey. I say all sorts of silly things to her at these times. When she’s happy it makes me feel silly.

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Whew! What an interesting weekend. It was bright and sunny and I thought I’d spend some time out in the garden and in my studio along with posting the photos (I just posted now), but our community cat Ebby had another little scrape and we took him to see a veterinarian (next post), and I wore myself out with promoting my original art sale. It took me all weekend  and I didn’t even get to do all I wanted to do, like a little video of the art. That’s okay, the sale is over tomorrow, I’m done with that now and hoping for at least one sale of an original work.

The work I wanted to do in my studio is the new cat painting! I want to feature it for my March featured artwork, but it won’t be done by Wednesday. That’s okay, I’m just happy to be working on it. So purrhaps no IG or other photos to share until that’s done. I can’t wait to share it!

 

 

From around this date in past years

Gold, Silver, Bronze Awards!, 2022

So it seems we had a little awards ceremony in the kitchen this week! It seemed to have an Olympics theme, and I’m not sure where they would have gotten the idea since we don’t have a TV, but cats have specialized communications so I’ll leave it at that.

I was not party to the contest, its rules or execution, though I was party to setting it up, sort of…well, Basil was on the two boxes and Bean on the one kind of randomly placed, and Mewsette was there, and I wondered what would happen if I lined them up and…encouraged them. Really, they are so accustomed to me getting all excited and moving things around they are usually on it right away. And so they were! But they were looking in the wrong direction, out the front window, unless there were other photographers I don’t know about they were posing for…

However it happened, Basil took the gold, Bean the silver, and purrhaps Mewsette isn’t happy with her Bronze placement.

Here they are, looking noble.

Then, OF COURSE, nothing like this can happen that Mariposa doesn’t find a way to participate. She was right up there with a chirp and had a quick private convo with Mewsette.

Then she posed too, where she could be seen best.

That wasn’t enough. Sitting quietly is not Mariposa’s thing. So she got up and decided to parade in front of everyone. Is Mewsette a bit embarrassed as Mariposa gives Bean’s face a good dusting with her fluffy tail?

“Do you see me? Everyone out there? Do you see me here?”

Mewsette keeps an eye on that tail. And Bean keeps an eye on her. No more tails in the face. Eventually she felt she’d made a good purrformance, and left for her next adventure.

Mr. Sunshine showed up, a little peeved. “There must be a platinum medal, because surely I’m the best at everything.”

Again, a moment to sit and appear dignified.

They look pretty cute from the back too.

It was truly a special moment. I’d say Chewy was a winner here for getting my order to me within a week for the first time in a while.

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I obviously got caught up in some things last week, after getting behind in posting. A larger design job that had a few issues, water in the basement after all that rain, some cat rescue things, and something coming up on the weekend, and then the news about what was happening in Ukraine, I thought I’d get caught up sooner. I’m still working on a big design project so I’ll be sharing some of the posts I’d intended to post last week in between getting this project done. I have other posts for the coming week, and I just want to share some of the things from this week before then!

 

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From Instagram

This! This is why we work so hard to #supurrvise you every moment!

Oh, I thought you just liked being near me all the time.

Now we will supurrvise the opening of the boxes. We do like being near you, but you are known for running away on some tangent of your own interest so we have to be vigilant. Why do you think so many cats live with you?

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So, what do we presume they’re discussing in such a secretive way? Maybe just keeping their noses warm.

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From the Garden and Beyond

Stay tuned.

 

From around this date in past years

Grandma and Lucy, 2021

On Sunday evening I dropped off some food for a caretaker and got to photograph some of my favorite feral cats. The tortie is Grandma, because she probably was grandma to most of the colony before they were TNRd, and Lucy, a stunningly beautiful Siamese mix, two girls who haven’t missed many meals, are nice and plump with thick plushy fur, well taken care of community cats.

The two were on the woman’s porch, though the colony is much larger. I was headed back to the shed where Lucy is standing to pour the bag of food into the container the caretaker uses. But I’ve been here before, and you may even recognize these two—I took my DSLR with me. Despite the heavy overcast, the snow provided a good bit of reflected light to capture these two. They took off down the steps and down the walk, as I slowly walked toward them carrying the big bag of food and my camera with the telephoto lens at the ready. They both stopped and Grandma sat and lifted her paw, the universal sign of a cat guarding her castle, and purrhaps the sidewalk was cold too. But she held the pose long enough for me to get several shots of her and even change the lens.

My telephoto is an f4 lens, which, because it’s physically longer than a regular lens, lets less light in to the sensor, so low light photos can often be dark, oversaturated, and blurry, a real disappointment at missing a good shot like this one. My regular lens is a zoom but not a telephoto, and it’s f2.8 and lets in far more light, but even though it looks like Grandma is “right there” she was actually quite a distance away, and when I enlarged her in the resulting photo she was a little blurry.

The detailed photo rant was in part to share that it’s important to me to get clear and beautiful photos of, well, everything I photograph, but especially of community cats to show that they are not filthy disease-carrying flea bags, but they look like any other cat you might have in your home as a pet.

But jeez, tough as nails. Would you sit in the snow like Grandma?

Look below—I don’t see a tortie there, do you?

And because it’s been brutally cold here with, in some places, a foot of snow often coated with ice, here are a few more details of their living situation: their system of shelters and a heated water bowl.

And their food bowls. This isn’t all of them, but there are three more on the side of the shed.

Winter is a dangerous time for any animal to live outdoors, and this past winter with its unexpected snows and ice and polar vortex cold has been a killer even for humans, as we saw last week in Texas. But people who care provide the right kind of care for these cats, and they can survive in good health.

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From Instagram

It’s just snow, snow, snow everywhere #littlemimicat looks. At least she can finally go out the basement door onto a bit of the patio now that the human has finally decided to shovel out there. Oh, for those long summer mornings lying on the bricks in the shade of the laundry hanging on the clothesline. (Mimi never goes outdoors without the human and a leash and harness.)

They were missing summer too, but at least there’s fresh air to sniff. I’ve had this door actually taped shut for the past month because of the cold. This is the first time it’s been open since then, they don’t care how cold it is, they missed it! But what’s with all that white stuff out there?

From the back yard and beyond.

This little basement flower was smiling down over my washer this morning. A blue bacopa flower she’s actually very tiny but makes a big statement with color. Good morning! Thanks for making the laundry happy today!

While photographing the girls, above, I slipped over to my favorite county park as I saw the sunset building to a golden glory.

And while that sunset was unfolding I saw a tree dancing in the woods at sunset.

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From around this date in past years

Sunny Morning Daydreams, 2020

What is Mewsette thinking, sitting with the winter sun warming her back? I often find myself wondering that. From the time she was a kitten she spent a fair amount of time in her own little world, while her brothers jostled each other for attention. But I feel a kinship with a daydreamy kitty, and sometimes we daydream together.

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Photos from around this date in previous years

Creative Days With Creative Cats, 2019

Photos from years past.

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Snow at Night, 2017

Well, I guess I won’t use those colors right now. It can’t be comfortable, but then what do I know about cat naps? Mimi is happy. There’s a little sun.

I love long afternoons in the studio, especially when I’m working on a portrait. It’s even better when one or more of my fine felines shares the experience. I haven’t had too many long afternoons in the studio this week, but when I finish in the late afternoon or early evening sometimes nearly all ten cats in the house are in the studio.

Usually at night this studio window is solid night.

But I am enchanted as the falling snow slowly defines each twig and needle and roof peak and even the sky from the darkness. There is a cat silhouette watching at each window in the house.

I took this photo at 11:00 p.m. Wednesday. I had another photo planned but assisted the Homeless Cat Management Team with another hoarding rescue earlier today so I’m off my schedule again. You’ll hear more about that later this week. And possibly I was meant to share this photo right now instead of tomorrow.

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From Facebook and Instagram

Mimi and I got some time outside today even with the extra projects. That’s the very topmost section of the wild black cherry tree in the far corner of the yard. That’s how tall it was.

The quiet of coming snow.

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What other photos have I shared on or around this date?

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Today’s Adventures

One of the first few times Hamlet and Ophelia settled on the bed for an afternoon nap.

Mimi and I spent enjoyable quiet time out in the back yard this afternoon for our daily adventure, just before the rain began, below. But a little later I let Hamlet and Ophelia out of the bathroom for their daily adventure in the upstairs while I worked in the studio.

Afternoon is a good time because though plenty of other cats are up there with me , they are seriously napping and the two can run around as they please. For the most part they’ve been skittering, kind of scared, keeping under or next to the furniture except for some time spent looking out the bedroom window.

I walked out of my studio and glanced in to see them both on the bed, looking relaxed, and making no move to run, though I was looking at them and they were out in the open. It seems as if they knew all about beds, but they’ve never had the chance to sleep on one before. They are making some progress. Hamlet enjoys being scritched around the neck and blinks his eyes at me, but no fast moves. Ophelia gets cuter every day, and her fluttering little excursions make her seem like a comical little femme fatale. I see her fluffly little tail moving around the room and I have to laugh.

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From Facebook and Instagram

I think I took some of the same photos of Mimi outside today!

Mimi and I went out to get some fresh air and fill feeders when the rain was still promising, dark and still. She always begins her time outdoors having a really good scratch on the bench on the corner of the deck, one direction, then the other, twice each. And then she gets her harness and leash, which she hates, and pouts, and tells me off. But she gets over it. I sat at the picnic table with her on my lap, we felt the weather change, listening to the quiet, watching a white-throated sparrow stock up on sunflower seeds. Wish I’d had a better camera with me.

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What other photos have I shared on or around this date?

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Sable, 2015

Smokie is pretty tired of his slinky fur sister getting all the attention. He is exquisitely handsome and he knows it, especially when he’s basking in the warm morning sun showing off all the sable highlights in his velvety fur. And he’s watching a certain kitty with a certain toy…

He’s managed to capture the green sparkle ball from Giuseppe! Or, did Giuseppe possibly let it go? Either way, Smokie is pretty excited to have it for once as he hears Giuseppe singing about this Mlle. cat all the time and it sounds like something Smokie wants to know more about. Something tells him the green sparkle ball is an important part of the situation.

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Winter Reflections, 2011

Every 18-year-old kitty deserves to nap in the sun on the table curled into an old flannel bathrobe.

Why do I have a bathrobe on my kitchen table? Doesn’t every cat owner have some sort of feline comfort area on their table? It was warm in the kitchen when the sun was shining so I took it off and laid it on the table to grab when I went upstairs; instead, Cookie settled on it. How dare I consider moving it? And what a wonderful reflection, both literally and figuratively.

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Mimi enjoys the sun on the windowsill. Read more and purchase.

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All images and text used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission, although links to your site are more than welcome and are shared. Please ask if you are interested in using and image or story in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of an image or a product including it, check my animal and nature website Portraits of Animals to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit Ordering Custom Artwork for more information on a custom greeting card, print or other item.

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Weekly schedule of features:

Sunday: Essays, Pet Loss, Poetry, The Artist’s Life

Monday: Adoptable Cats, TNR & Shelters

Tuesday: Rescue Stories

Wednesday: Commissioned Portrait or Featured Artwork

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