Neglected Kitteh

Not that he’d mind.

In all of my many posts about Loiosh (and the few mentions poor Chocolate has gotten), I don’t know that I’ve ever mentioned Samson at all.

This is Samson. He hates you. He hates everyone in the world*. The Demon Eyes effect is from the flash, but the expression on his face? That’s there naturally.

I don’t talk about him much, because when I think about him I’m sad and frustrated. Much like Taltos, I never managed to do anything to improve his attitude on life. Unlike Taltos, he’s not afraid of much; he just hates everyone in the world*.

* This is not actually true. He quite likes Chocolate, who is his brother. And despite the ongoing and rather loud battles he has with Loiosh, he dearly loves the kitten. But he hates all the other cats in the world, and he hates dogs, and he especially hates humans. This totally includes me. I still think of myself as his Momma, though.

Evidence of Samson liking Loiosh:

If Samson understood the web, had an idea what pictures were, and had any clue that I was admitting to others that he likes the kitten, he would kill me in my sleep. Possibly he wouldn’t even wait until I was asleep.

Pets are supposed to teach you about unconditional love. Samson has, in a way — he hates me, and yet I love him. I worry when I haven’t seen him. I greet him every morning (he glares at me). If I can sneak up on him, I’ll pet him. It’s brief when it happens, though.

I’ve pretty much given up trying to wean him of his hating. Despite it he’s generally a pretty happy and serene cat. Healthy as a horse which is good given how exciting it is getting him to a vet. And really, what more can you ask for?

I could ask for Samson-snuggles, but I’m never gonna get them. And that’s okay.

A Guest Post

After several requests I’ve decided to let Loiosh give his own view of weekend before last. Read on…

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Hi! I’ve commented in a couple of people’s journals but I never had the nerve to make my own post. It’s a lot of work but my Momma said she’d type for me and put in the pictures. I don’t really understand pictures but she said they look different to humans. And most of them are of me so that’s okay.

Momma calls it the Weekend of Orange, Occasionally Polydactyl Kittens. I’m not polydactyl but the kitten I met was! He lived at the site but came over to play with me for a while.

Momma fed him some, too, but he and I had different food in different bowls. Momma says that’s a good idea because we don’t know him very well.

That’s us playing under Momma’s chair. That picture was taken by Tamsin, who’s Momma’s friend and knows how to give good scritches. She took a lot of pictures of me that weekend.

Momma met some tiny tiny kittens (I didn’t). They’re only three weeks old but they all already have homes they’re going to go to.

I was never that little.

Momma says one of them is polydactyl, too. He peed on her and she was grumpy, but of course he did, she was rubbing his belly!

It was really windy and Momma was pretty stressed, but I’ve got used to wind and I was okay. I slept a lot.

That’s Momma’s knee on the left.

I wore my wings almost all weekend, and people made cooing noises a lot. I guess they think it’s cute.

That’s Auntie Dharma’s feet in that picture.

I slept in a lot of weird positions. Momma and Aunt Tamsin call this one Ikea Cat, Assembled without Instructions. I call it pretty comfortable.

I did get up and eat, too. Those are Momma’s bright bright blue shoes.

Momma calls this one Praying Angel. She totally put my paws that way. I wouldn’t have done that on my own.

But I was asleep, so oh well.

And here are some pictures my Momma thinks are great. I don’t know, I’m just sleeping and that’s my tongue. So what?

I met a lot of dogs, including a border collie kitten who wanted to play a lot, and a mastiff who was really really big and wanted to play too. I arched up and hissed but he didn’t get it and his momma and daddy and my Momma had to sort of sit on him.

There was a bird on someone’s shoulder but Momma said I couldn’t get too close. I just wanted to play! Momma says it was a cockatiel and that compared to the bird’s momma she’s a wuss, but I don’t get that.

Lots of people petted me and I went for walks and ate lots of bugs and almost caught a baby rabbit. Momma wouldn’t let me, though. I just wanted to play with him! He was really really fast.

Auntie Dharma gave me milk with tuna oil in it. It was SO SO GOOD.

Momma wanted to leave early so we did. I wanted to stay but she’s the one who drives so I was kinda stuck with it. Oh well — I had a good time anyway!

Hi to all my furiends who wanted me to write something!

August Contest Winner, and a New Contest!

The August contest went as follows: “Since I have a kitten, tell me a story about a kitten. Or a cat. Or, if you’ve never had a cat, a dog. Or perhaps your younger brother. Someone smaller than you, in any case, and ideally kind of fuzzy.”

I’m afraid I indulged in a bit of nepotism in choosing my winner, and it is indeed my own mother, who brings us this tale of the cat we had while I was growing up:

My favorite cat story involves our first cat, Spot. When she was about 8 years old, my husband came home from work and found a dead cat in our front yard. It had been hit by a car and since it was white with black spots like our cat, he assumed that Spot was the victim of a tragic accident. He carefully put her in a bag and waited for the rest of the family to come home.

As each member heard the news there was a lot of crying and gnashing of teeth. Karen was the last to arrive and I really dreaded telling her. When she heard the news, she could not believe it was true and insisted on seeing the cat in the bag. (The rest of us had only taken a peek.) I tried to convince her not to look but she was persistent and when I dumped the cat out of the bag and saw the belly we all looked at each other in amazement as we realized that the cat in the bag wasn’t Spot.

At that point we all looked around asking each other where she could be. She was always patiently waiting for dinner when we came home from school & work.. It didn’t take too much calling before we saw her coming across the yard. I would love to know what went through her mind as we all ran screaming to greet her. I don’t think she had ever gotten a reception like that before.

Spot lived to a ripe old age of 18 or 19. She had adopted us when she didn’t have a home and I think she was a very happy cat.

Unfortunately we never found out who the cat in the bag was. I am sure that some family missed her though.

I’ve decided to make a change in the way I run my contests — instead of only offering them to people who get my newsletter, I’ve decided to open them up to anyone who reads my blog! Here’s September’s contest:

Tell me a tale of harvest — whether it’s ‘tomatoes coming out our ears’, or a ride in a haywagon with a teenage sweetheart; a corn maze, the farmer’s market, or your grandmother’s favourite method of cooking up all the extra zucchini. Pictures, recipes, poetry, I’ll accept it all! The prize as always is a ten dollar gift certificate to Om Shanti Handcrafts.

I’ll take entries here, or you can email me at om.shanti.handcrafts@gmail.com; even send me a link to a blog entry if it fits the theme. I look forward to seeing what you come up with!

Deadline is early next month, whenever I get round to doing next month’s newsletter.

Short Takes

I’ve appeared in another Etsy Treasury.

I’m contemplating some jewelry for a Breast Cancer Awareness Challenge run by Miss Knits, assuming I can find any pink beads.

I near froze my tuchus off camping this weekend — quite literally, as it went down to about 35F/2C overnight. Thank God for wool blankets and a warm kitten!

I’ve been going hiking a lot lately, and doing some wildcrafting when I’m not in a park. That’s the term these days for harvesting some of what’s already growing there. I have a goodly handful of rose hips I’ll be doing something with.

Been riding my bike a lot, and will be doing so again, as soon as I get my rear tire replaced. :/

Pictures and more bloggy goodness to follow I’m sure.

Monday Morning Blog Carnival Roundup

Time for a listing of blog carnivals!

A Wonderful Weekend appeared in Carnival of the Cats (hosted this week at Counting Cats in Zanzibar) and in Bad Kitty Cats Festival of Chaos (hosted this week at House of the (mostly) Black Cats).

And another oldie but goodie — Green & Clean appeared in Cirque du Vert and in All Things Eco Blog Carnival.

Always looking for more carnivals to join! And do check out the ones I’ve listed — there’s a lot of good stuff to read.

Blog Carnivals!

A blog carnival is, in someone else’s words,

A Blog Carnival is a particular kind of blog community. There are many kinds of blogs, and they contain articles on many kinds of topics. Blog Carnivals typically collect together links pointing to blog articles on a particular topic. A Blog Carnival is like a magazine. It has a title, a topic, editors, contributors, and an audience. Editions of the carnival typically come out on a regular basis (e.g. every monday, or on the first of the month). Each edition is a special blog article that consists of links to all the contributions that have been submitted, often with the editors opinions or remarks.

I’ve been haunting Blogcarnival.com for a bit now, reading collections of tales on everything from cats to working at home; I figured it was about time to contribute a little, as well as just reading, so I paged through their list of active carnivals to find a few to submit things to. And I found a whole bunch!

Already I’ve been included in a couple of carnivals. My recent post Two Days Later — a collection of photos celebrating my cats, and a bit of healing after losing Taltos — was accepted to two cat-filled carnivals:

Bad Kitty Cats Chaos Festival (hosted this week at Pet’s Garden Blog)

Carnival of the Cats (hosted this week at A Crystals and Jewelry Adventure)

I also dug out an oldie but goodie for Carnival of Embarrassing Stories (hosted at Because Emily Says So who follows the carnival up with a few stories of her own).

I’ve been having a blast reading other blog posts links from each of these carnivals — many, many pictures of adorable cats, plus a few tales of being semi-naked and occasionally soapy in hotels. I highly recommend this as a form of amusement, and if you’re at all literary yourself, I urge you to try it out!

A wonderful weekend

I’ve been all week recovering from it, alas, but I really did have a great weekend.

It involved an SCA event up in Nebraska. Yes, I hear you say, Nebraska is at the end of the world and is filled with naught but corn and corn farmers, but at the same time I tell you, it is awesome.

I almost didn’t go. I had a long and stressful week, was tired and feeling a little ill as I packed up the car. I knew this was going to be a small event and I could only hope that I made enough money to cover my expenses — not inconsiderable with the price of gas as high as it is. I also knew that I’d get there well after dark, despite all of my efforts to the contrary, and I find setting up after dark to be extremely stressful.

But I went anyway. And after a half hour or so on the road, I found myself in a pretty good mood. Kitten asleep on my lap, good music on the radio, driving fast through beautiful country. And northern Colorado is beautiful.

Western Nebraska, I thought, not so much. I mean, Nebraska is flat, right?

Actually, no, it’s not.

This is where we camped. It was gorgeous. I indeed got there after dark, but got offers of help with setting up and with holding Loiosh. Camp took about ten minutes and I left the booth for Saturday. My helpers went back to bed and I took Mr Wiggly Pants for a walk.

I have not seen so many stars in years. And years. The sky was bright and crowded with them.

We walked about on the plain, Loiosh hunting bugs and God knows what else, me watching the stars, until the moon rose, and then we went to bed.

Up far too early the next morning — these folks get up with the sun! Farming community, I suppose, though I don’t think any of them actually farm. I got the booth up in good order and settled in for the day.

I spent some time watching the fencing — on a wooden bridge so narrow it bounced as you walked on it — and quite a bit of time hanging out with folks. The merchants next to me had a bored teenager who channeled her boredom into artwork (of which, alas, I got no pictures) and allowed me a piece of foam stuff to make a bit of wearable art of my own.

He wore them pretty much the rest of the day.

Sleeping angel.

His first set of garb — I’m so proud *wipes tear*.

Of course, then he became horrible.

Yes, that’s taken from inside my tent. No, he didn’t actually rip the mesh.

But it was a close thing. Amazing thing is he made it up there with his wings still on!

He wasn’t entirely sure about the whole thing, so I rescued him.

I wound up having an amazing time — the folks there were so welcoming! Even though I hadn’t paid for feast (I love feasting, but money is tight) they invited me to eat with them anyway. I was also invited to the autocrat’s camp for both Saturday morning breakfast and Saturday night dice. By the end of the event we were teasing each other as if we’d all known each other forever.

And I made more than enough money to cover expenses.

I highly recommend events in the Shire of Hinterland to anyone who might be close enough to attend. I had a wonderful, wonderful time.

Two Days Later

It’s odd. He spent most of his time hiding in a closet or under a table — there were whole days I didn’t even see him — but it still feels too empty and quiet around here.

In the meantime, things I have learned from my cats:

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When you’re hungry, eat. When you’re tired, sleep. Play all the rest of the time.

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The best way to get someone to walk along with you is to ask.

Goes for tree-climbing, too.

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Snuggles make everything better.

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Kisses too.

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It’s amazing the places you can find to take a good nap.

…really.

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Anything can be a toy. Anything.

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You can find friends anywhere.

…but okay, not always.

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They’re helping, each in his own way. And today I’m feeling a little better.

More detail

Thanks to all of you who’ve commented. I don’t know if I’ll have the energy to reply to each individually; I’m running pretty low at the moment.

Taltos had been sort of slowly fading for a while — getting skinnier at any rate, though as energetic as always in running to hide. He was always afraid, see, and I never managed to convince him he didn’t have to be. I decided against taking him to the vet, because changes were it was just age, and adding the stress of vet visits and medication would likely negate any good the medications might have done.

I still don’t know if it was the right decision, but it’s the decision I made.

There have always been whole days when all I’d see of him was a pair of eyes under a table. He was always _afraid_, and I tried and tried and tried to teach him he didn’t need to be, and I never managed it. So I mostly left him alone, except to check on him every once in a while.

A few days ago he was fine.

Yesterday he ran past me into the closet — stumbling, almost dragging himself along, I went in after him immediately.

He still had the energy to scratch me up pretty good, but it was clear he wasn’t okay. His legs weren’t working right, his tongue was stuck partway out of his mouth and wouldn’t go back in. Stroke, or possibly a brain tumor that finally got big enough to push on the wrong things. I held him for a bit (and the fact that he let me told me everything I needed to know) and then went over to Tim’s and had a meltdown.

I knew he had to go. It was time. But he’s always hated the car, hated the vet’s; I was stressing him enough just leaving him in the bathroom, though he wedged himself behind the toilet and seemed somewhat serene with that.

Tim, bless him, made all the arrangements. I wouldn’t have been able to talk on the phone — could barely talk in person. I stayed in the bathroom with Taltos and tried to think of a way to make it easier on him. I got a syringe and got a little water into him, which he seemed happy about. And I got out the bottle of valerian and rubbed a little on his nose.

That seemed to calm him down a lot. I got him curled up in a cat bed without him fighting it, and he relaxed once he was in it. He didn’t cry in the car, didn’t panic at the vet’s.

All I’ll say about that was they let him go easy, and I’m glad I thought of something to help with that. I can’t bear to think if he’d been terrified.

Loiosh isn’t letting me get too down. If I get too depressed he bites me on the nose (“I trained him; he bit me”). Chocolate is being extra-loving, Samson’s being his normal hateful self but that’s fine.

I hardly ever saw Taltos but the place still feels empty. I miss him.

Here’s a much less Demon Cat picture:

Rest in peace, big guy. You don’t have to be afraid any more. Wait for me by the Bridge if you want — but don’t feel you have to. I’ll look for you there either way.

My big cat…

Taltos, 1997-2008