How you can tell you're getting crazy

This is how you can tell when you are crossing the line to being full-fledged crazy cat lady. Your husband tells you sternly that we now have enough cats. No matter how sad their story is, you're not getting another cat. I used to agree with him, but now I know in my heart, if there is a sad story, I will probably end up with another cat.

My son yells that if my husband dies first, he is going to take all the cats to the pound and put me in a home. I fear this as a real possibility. I see that bleak notice on the cat cages in PetSmart all the time. "Owner had to move into a nursing home and could not keep cat." I don't want my cats to end up that way. Somehow I have to time it right that I can outlive them all, and at a certain point in my life, not get any more.

I'd rather stay home with the cats than do anything else. I am like the head Meerkat and this is my tribe. I like to just hang out with them, to know where they're all at. I have no interest in taking trips, even overnight, anywhere. I'm content to stay home with the cats.

I got an email from a person who saw this blog and said he/she would buy my book when it came out. So that's one. They gave me the addresses of two book publishers, but both of them only buy from agents. Thanks, but I need an agent, not the address of a publisher. Getting an agent is easily a part-time job. Sending the proposal out once a month isn't getting me anywhere.

It's All Pee Now

I've noticed that lately, 80 percent of what my husband and I talk about is urine. Which cat peed where? What are we going to do about it? Do you smell pee? Here? Here? Over here? "I found out where the cat peed!" My son always yells that the house stinks, so I ask visitors -- who are getting fewer and fewer -- does the house smell like pee? I almost let the Mormons in today to see if they could smell pee.

The problems are Neelix, the angry sprayer, and Kira, the cat who lived outside too long and just hasn't made the adjustment to not going wherever she feels like it. I don't know if anyone else in the cat crew are joining in, but I can imagine the poor soul who will one day have to try to sell this house for us. "They had eight cats."

The Back End of Life

Kira got an unexpected bath today. She fell into the pool. Somehow she kept her upper body dry and managed to pull herself out, but it was an unpleasant surprise for her. Once she got herself dried off and fluffy again, she took a hard nap on my lap, something she doesn't usually do. It was quite entertaining for the other cats to see her furiously paddling to get out of the deep end. Her son, Sulu, even jumped back over the fence from the neighbor's yard to watch.

Third Rejection

My brother's agent, or one of them anyway, rejected my book after reading the entire manuscript, or an assistant read it while she was on vacation. She said cat books aren't what her clients know her for anyway. This would have been a shortcut, but on the positive side, this takes me out from under having to be grateful to my brother if the book sold. Now I have to prove I can do it on my own.

I just wonder how you do it. Many trips to the post office, I gather.

Kira has a tapeworm, I think. My husband said he saw white moving things in her stool. I can't afford a vet trip, found a "prescription strength" pill that cost $23 for three of them, so it better be good. Kira seems to already feel better and plays like a kitten sometimes.

Kira

When I saw the mother of Seven and Sula, I had to take her home and get her some food. She was so small and frail looking.

Marley & Me: How About Me?

I just finished reading "Marley & Me" which has been on the bestseller list for so many weeks, I couldn't put it on hold at the library so I had to buy it at Target. I didn't think it was the most fantastic dog story, in fact, it was kind of a typical dog story, and the guy writes like many newspaper columnists do, padding things out to get his word allotment in, but still, I cried like everyone else when the fetus died, the dog died, etc. And yes, living with pets make us all better people. (Except for all the bad people who don't get their pets fixed!)

I've got laughs and cries in my book, too. I need to find an agent! I went on the Internet to see how much money this guy made, and it's quite a bit. Even 10 percent of what he's making would solve all my current problems. And I even have a new chapter, because I just got Cat No. 8, which I will write about soon. This photo is of Cat No. 8's son, Sulu, who is actually Cat. No. 6.

I am so pathetic.

The Book is Done

I finished the book. It printed out at about 92 pages, not including the proposal. One of my brother's agents agreed to look at it, although reluctantly, so I mailed it off to E. 11th Street in New York City. The rules say I now have to give her assistant six weeks to think about it.

Neelix (above) goes two or three days on his tranquilizer and then roars back. I think he figured out how to sleep it off and cut down the time. On the recent roar-back, he broke a coffee cup and a thick plastic cup and cleared the breakfast bar a couple of times. Then he went downstairs and peed on the back of the laundry room door.

Levels of Cat Heirarchy

Lately I've been trying to find good deals on climbing trees on eBay because I read the best way to keep the peace in multiple cat households is to afford them a way to rank themselves geographically.

Seven

Chatterbox

One Valuable Piece of Information

I've been reading dozens of cat care books, trying to find help for Neelix. I flip through the index, find nothing useful, and resell the book on amazon.com. But in "The Veterinarian's Guide to Natural Remedies for Cats," I found one useful thing, coat Neelix's tranquilizer pill in butter. The last one went down easier, so hopefully this will consistently work.

Lessons Learned About Vets

Always tell the vet the cats do not go outside. Otherwise, they are going to load you up with unnecessary feline leukemia tests and shots.

Don't tell the vet how many other cats you have. They freak out. Or they start blaming things on mutliple cat households when you know the problem was going on back when you didn't have so many cats.

Don't be afraid to decline tests. It's a cat.

Neelix still has goo coming out of his eyes, in spite of my spending more than $200 at the last vet and giving him the second bottle of antibiotics this month and trying to get that ointment in his eyes. I feel sorry for him, especially since he was fine up until I took him to Vet #2 and they did so much testing on him. I think he caught the cold from the lizard cage at that place, or the other cats in the room.

Vets Who Run Unnecessary Tests!

Neelix had a cold, not uncommon for him except this time was a little more than a stuffed up, crusty nose. His eyes were leaking greenish goo in the corners. It was hard to tell he was sick at first because the tranquilizers he's taking for spraying make him so listless, I didn't pick up on the fact he was sick, too.

I was annoyed at the last two vets I took him to because the first one declined to prescribe for him unless I left him there all day for sedation and blood testing. The next one was able to get a blood and urine sample without sedating him or boarding him for the day, but that only resulted in a $350 bill saying there is nothing much wrong with him.

So I took him back to a vet he went to once last year for tranquilizers. They had not charged me much at all, had not run any tests, just gave me the Buspirone. They got me back this time, strongly advising that something was amiss with him and they needed to run many tests, including leukemia. Well, the last two vets I had gone to said if he didn't have it by now, he probably never would and I didn't even need to keep up with the boosters anymore. I signed an agreement to $250 worth of tests, and regretted it immediately. Even the "Cat Fancy" magazine I read in the waiting room said feline leukemia testing was unnecessary and often produced false positive results.

They sent us home with an antibiotic and an eye ointment, which is next to impossible to actually get on his eyeball.

Tonight, the partner vet, who didn't see Neelix, called with the results of his blood test and made them sound like something crazy, telling me red blood cells this and that, and homoglobulin levels, and in short, nothing too serious, but still....when I finish the antibiotics, let her test him AGAIN, plus do a stool sample and a heartworm test!

A heartworm test? Why? What makes you think he has heartworms, I asked. He gets these colds all the time. He's been getting them since he was an abandoned three-week-old kitten. His first two vets didn't know why I was bothering to keep him alive because he'll be sickly all his life. The vet on the phone said, oh. Okay, well, call if you need anything.

They don't even ask about the cat's history and want to run more tests. I went on the Internet and looked up the symptoms for heartworms in cats and there are no symptoms, and not even a cure! So what's the point of knowing if the cat has them or not? I am not going back to this place, although I can't send them hate mail because they're open until 8 p.m., and sometimes when you come home and find a sick cat, it's the only place. The emergency vet is downtown and probably charges just as much, but they don't run a whole bunch of unnecessary tests, at least. They just treat the emergency.

Quote

"To live with a cat is a lesson in sharing power," says author Jo Coudert. I say, to live with seven cats is a lesson in anarchy.

Where I Am Now, Seven

I've just started writing a book about my life with cats, how I went from never being able to have one because of my mother, to having two for a long time, to where I am now, seven, and how I fear that in 20 years, when I am old and alone, I'll be one of those crazy women who have 600 cats and have to be arrested.

I've got a book outline, several chapters completed, and I sent a proposal to one literary agent in Denver. A friend tells me I need to approach many more, not wait to hear back until I move on to the next one. My goal is to sell this book and make enough money to pay for the upkeep of these cats. Vet bills for the past two months have exceeded $700, and next week I have to get the two male kittens fixed.

I won't be writing the book here, but while I'm writing about past cats and past histories, I'm going to post notes about present cats on this blog.

At his last checkup, Neelix had red and white blood cells in his urine, whatever that means. I know when I have cells in mine, I have to go on antibiotics. He is, too, now, plus he's taking Cosequinn to strengthen his bladder walls and Clomipramine for his manic activity and spraying. I read about Clomipramine on the Internet and the vet agreed to let us try it. Giving Neelix this much medicine is not easy. I can get the liquid antibiotic in him twice a day, but the Cosequinn capsules are being either mixed with the antibiotic or sprinkled on his food, and right now he's not eating. Either he still feels bad from having his blood and urine taken at the vet's through a syringe three days ago, or the one dose of Clomipramine I managed to get in him has completely wiped out his personality. All he does is sleep in a sitting position, or sit in one spot and stare straight ahead.

It's like a whole different cat because before he was the one always yowling to get out, spraying on everything, screaming for food a dozen times a day, chasing the female cats, and knocking everything off the kitchen counters. Now that he's a zombie, the females realize immediately the atmosphere in the house has changed and I'm seeing them in rooms they usually don't enter.