pet

Dog Show

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Today’s card showed up while I was looking for holiday gifts for a few staffers – it was a gift fail so to speak. I never would have found it however, if I had not been searching around in dog photos on eBay, where I generally do not belong.

Some of you more longstanding readers might remember its sister card shown below which I wrote about all the way back in 2016. At the time it was a hotly contested card which I had lost and subsequently won as outlined in that post which you can read here. Obviously that one turned up in my feed because of the cat reference.

Pam’s Pictorama.com Collection. From a previous post.

While these two cards are definitely of a piece, the Dog Show sign is definitely the same, there are some differences. While I am fairly certain this is the same woman and dog (same Dog Show sign) she is wearing a different outfit in each. The Cat Show Next card is entitled Beastly Affairs.

However, most notably the Cat Show Next card has a different, patterned floor, the other one is a plain wood. A very careful look (lower right corner) shows that the copyright for these two cards is a year apart with the cat version being earlier by a year, 1907 although my copy of that card was mailed in 1909. So did it prove so popular they brought out this variation the next year? I wonder if there are more.

Today’s card is called Going to the Dogs. Unlike the earlier card, this one has writing on the back although no stamp or evidence of mailing so I don’t know when the writing, in pencil, was added. To the best of my ability to read it, it says, Bascom this is Ednice Jain. Look good & she has gone to the Dogs good – Ha Ha Ha. She is a Dog catcher & not 1/2 as good as one. An odd note, no name signing it.

I prefer the earlier card somewhat and it is more than the cat show reference. The composition with the additional sign is a bit better and somehow holding the dog, and even the patterned floor, make it more dynamic. She has a bit of a smile in the first shot and a hat full of flowers – the hat in today’s card notably appears to have a whole bird on it. She wears a different fur trimmed jacket in both.

Unidentified card online with a Pitbull and similar woman but not the same series.

The card was made here in New York City by the Rotograph Company but printed in England, oddly enough. A quick search online does not turn up more cards in the series, but neither does it tie these two cards out to each other. I don’t even find more copies of either of them online, however above I have shared one that turns up that could almost be in the series.

My colleague will now get a card from 1908 with a big footed puppy, vaguely reminiscent of his own recently acquired little fellow. I will dig out my copy of the other card and a find a place to install them side by side, either here or in New Jersey. They make too a good story together to break apart.

I Was Much Surprised

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Every day that is a Louis Wain day is a good one here at Pictorama! I have had the pleasure of adding many Wain posts to the collection here at Pictorama, including a review of the recent book. (Some of those other posts can be perused here, here and here for additional Sunday leisure reading.)

Like my post a few weeks ago, this is another example where the sender has (consciously or unconsciously) enhanced the card with their message. Somehow when I saw it I just laughed at those words in script under the cat – thinking that he was much surprised by the basket of kittens! Surprise Pops!

Instead the brief missive written on the card is from a grandma to a sick child – chicken pox I suspect. I believe it reads, I was much surprised to hear of your spotty face. I hope its back soon be better & no marks left, don’t scratch it. Your loving Gramms. (The woman didn’t believe in periods for the most part so I have added them.) It was mailed from Paddington at 5:30 PM on May 5 of 1905. It was sent to Master C. T. Travers, Woolfanger (?), Markingham, Surrey.

The card was produced by the Raphael Tuck & Sons Company and declares in tiny print that it is a part of their Write Away postcard series. It also proclaims that it was designed in England and chromographed in Bavaria. I have only started to focus on the Raphael Tuck cards as sort of the sweet spot for Wain. (They also produced a rather fascinating set of Felix holiday cards. I have a few in my collection and find them almost impossible to turn down at auction – although they go very pricey. One is below and the post for it can be found here.)

Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.

Finally onto Mr. Wain himself. Grumpy Papa cat drops his pipe at Momma cat coming from behind the door with a basket load of kittens. Is it the first time she is presenting and surprising him with the kits? Was he, like any traditional papa, pacing and waiting pipe in hand (paw) to hear the baby news? Regardless, it is a bit of a sour puss he presents.

He happens to be tabby-spotty (additionally accurate for this card), he stand on hind legs, tail down. Ears are back in a cat look of annoyance which Wain has morphed with a human expression. Mom cat just looks tired and the five kittens (that we can see) are a mix of tabby, marmalade like Mom a white and two grays – ready to hop out of the basket and start causing chaos. Adult cats stand on a carpet of a sort of wild print with this bit of door between them. As always, Wain manages to express much with a brief, somewhat sardonic vignette.

My family only won the kitten lottery once which if Mom was here she would agree was more than enough. Our female tortie, Winkie, escaped out one morning while in heat, teaching us forever to get kits spade as quickly as humanly possible. Her paramour appeared to be a tabby we’d never seen before. And surprise she ultimately produced a gray tabby, a marmalade one, and two grays – so not unlike this bushel.

Honestly Winkie had little use for them after a few weeks of being very possessive. We kept them all (Tigger, Squash, Ping and Pong) and our feline family burgeoned at that point for a long period of time. I think it brought us to seven. The cats were still free range outside in those days so it was a bit less evident than the Jersey Five (plus visits from Cookie and Blackie) are in the (small) house today. Ultimately Winks started to pretend she had no idea where these interlopers had come from and would growl at them or at best ignore them.

Arguably Wain is pretty much at the height of his popularity and success when this card was produced. It is nice to think of Grandma, long ago, going to the shop and picking it out especially for Master Travers who was suffering a bit from this childhood ailment. My guess is that it cheered him immensely.

Moonlight Serenade

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: This fetching and fluffy feline caught my eye recently. This card is a bit later than the majority of cards in my collection and was sent on September 9, 1933. A woman named Agnes sent it from Whinchmore Hill to Miss Connie Connors at 63, Park Av. Park Estate, (can’t read the town) Northumberland for a penny.

Agnes writes simply, Dear Connie, It seems ages since I have heard anything about you all. Hope you are well. Lots f love, Agnes xxxxxxxx. Presumably it is Connie who had and kept this card to make it down the decades.

And I ask, who wouldn’t have kept this card? This little fellow is caught mid-meow posed on a faux brick wall for this purpose. In some ways it is the evocative bright moon scenery behind him that really does it for me. At the bottom in a script font it reads, A moolight serenade and W. & K. 1592. W&K postcards is the logo for Wildt & Kray, London. The company was founded in 1905 and was active into the 20’s publishing postcards of several genres but most notably cats – including Louis Wain.

Therefore if this card is postmarked 1933 (which it clearly is) it was either a bit old at that time or had been reprinted and distributed somehow subsequently. (Therefore the esthetic appeal to me makes sense since it was likely made before 1925 or so.) You can see it a bit above, weirdly the postmark machine has come through and embossed half this card.

Back of card.

I am glad I have not lived in a time and place where caterwauling is a nightly event. As a cat lover on the rare occasion I have heard it, and the likely fight that might follow I have found it hard to ignore. Just a cat meowing outside will of course garner my attention. Not that I would ever have thrown shoes at them – and not that I can imagine that would do any good.

In this mature period of her life Cookie (age 13) has become very chatty. She demands our attention, especially in the morning, with long, complex cat sentences. This is generally combined with a certain amount of staring (you human fool! why don’t you do as I ask?) and some rolling and stretching and expectation of tummy rubbing. (Cookie is the tummy rubbing-est cat I ever met! Growing up a cat would just bite you if you tried to rub its tummy, but oddly Cookie demands it.)

This leads me to a topic which may require more examination in a later post but there is a movement afoot on the internet where people are teaching their cats to “talk” using buttons spread across the floor. Of course, living in a tiny apartment in New York my first thought was, man, these people have space to spare and waste! Once I got over that, I started following a few people on Instagram who document their interactions ongoing.

To aide your cat or small dog in being a Chatty Cathy!

As far as I can tell one chooses word buttons and spreads them out on the floor and trains kitty to step on the appropriate one to converse. Obviously word choice is limited and a sort of pigeon English (if you pardon the term) emerges. Of course my friends at Chewy sell them but I have no real sense of how popular this trend is.

The account I watch most is a science fiction writer named Alice with a calico cat named Elsie (@elsiewants). Alice says she introduced button talking as something for a novel she was working on and thought her cat would better be able to tell her what toy she wanted to play with. Instead she seems to have gotten a Demanda Kitty (something we call Cookie occasionally) who appears to embody exactly what I always imagined cats would say if they could talk. It is sort of feline trash talking, a series of what she does and does not like and mostly what she wants.

There are companies like Fluent Pet that sell the buttons, lodged in brightly colored mats like those you see in a kid’s playroom. The companies have training instructions (do you want to talk to a cat or a dog?) and of course there are videos online to help. The real question we have to ask is, do we actually want to hear more about what they have to say?

Cookie not really asleep this morning. Do you really want to know what this cat has to say?

As much as I adore Cookie and Blackie, I’m not sure there is much to improve our relationship by giving them more control over the daily demands they already make. Although maybe a diabetic Blackie could communicate better about his sugar levels, too easily I can imagine Cookie pressing the same button again and again – and Blackie always insisting he hates Cookie. I have to say, this might be one area where ignorance is bliss and we shall not go.

Blackie Visits the Vet

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: I have written before about Blackie and his adventures at the vet – these adventures (five days in the ICU there) which ultimately radically influenced my leaving Jazz at Lincoln Center for the huge change and challenge of raising money for this remarkable and unusual animal hospital here in New York City. (That pivotal post can be found here.) Today is an all about animals post.

Most recently over Thanksgiving we had to haul the little fellow in because he wasn’t eating and I was treated to the ER experience of our visitors (over a holiday – always a holiday or weekend, or the middle of the night I say) and I wrote about it here.

Blackie is now a thirteen year old diabetic cat who requires insulin daily. Although we’ve tried pinning a monitor on him to track his sugar it either falls out or he cheerfully tears it off – I can’t blame him I’m sure. He can’t understand why someone would stick such a thing in him. It would be life changing however if we could track his sugar, like a human, and adjust it to at least major trends. Instead, we have to pack him up periodically and take him over.

People both professionally and personally ask me about pet insurance and my answer is usually that with seven cats there’s no way I can afford insurance. It would have been nice to figure out that he should have it early on but no, it was before it was really prevalent. Meanwhile, Blackie has long been in the lead for cost of health care however and I am relieved to blunt it some with a staff discount. (For the record, our vets urge people to get insurance for their pets.)

Taking Blackie to the vet (or anywhere – think trips to NJ) is an ordeal. Somehow through magic cat radar he intuits our intentions bizarrely early in the process. (What are the tells I wonder? How do we keep tipping him off?) The result is him heading to the one spot under our bed where we cannot reach him without taking the mattress off of said bed. This is an athletic feat to say the least.

However, the little fellow has been drinking a lot of water and is looking a bit thin so I finagled an appointment and this week we took him over for a sugar check. Kim was very crafty and got him in the carrier very early. He was unusually quiet on this trip, not his usual yowling.

A pensive Blackie on my lap the other morning.

We got there very early and he was taken to the new feline unit (recently named by a generous donor) in the bowels of our building – a new tower in the final stages of completion which is appended onto the original 60’s white brick building. He was extremely unimpressed although it is so much nicer than where he has stayed previously – a cramped space about a third of the size and cheek by jowl with noisier dogs who are also there for a stay. The new space is reserved for cats (and the occasional bunny) and is very quiet and calm. I am told that it is a favorite place for LVT’s (like nurses at an animal hospital) to want to work in and that the cats are responding well to it. Cages have space for litter boxes and a hideaway area. Blackie embraced the hideaway. (Shown in the photo at the top in his cage – this taken by one of my colleagues, Erica, who stopped by to give him some pets.)

It always interests me where the personal pet parent and the professional fundraising for the hospital cross and this is what I was thinking about when I started this post today. Although I get frustrated with the pace of change there and what I am trying to accomplish, I am always so incredibly impressed and grateful for the superb care that Blackie gets. It is very real inspiration to get back on it and move forward. The new space as a result of money received through our capital campaign is a tangible result. It helps to blunt and curb my daily frustrations.

Hard to know, but this is Blackie signaling that I should leave my work chair and let him have it.

Blackie’s sugar was very high so we have increased his insulin. Additional blood tests came back okay so we think the weight loss (not insignificant, several pounds) is related to that. As always, the thoroughness and thoughtfulness of the team inspires and reinvigorates me.

Due to the blood tests Blackie came home with a bright red bandage on his hind leg. As he hopped out of the carrier (always amazed to be back home) he made pretty short shrift of joyfully tearing it off and sending it flying! Later that evening I got a thoughtful text from one of the interns or residents who referenced the bandage and said I should feel free to take it off. I told them of Blackie’s gleefully disposal of it and they laughed. He goes back in a month for a check up, but we are relieved and grateful for his relative clean bill of health.

Milton the Cat

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Kim had the excellent suggestion this morning that I might consider each of the cats individually for a post, starting with some of the New Jersey guys (and gals). Peaches was featured in a post (which can be read here) not that long ago so this would be the second of the lucky kits seven to be in the spotlight. (My father’s wonderful cat Red who died not that long after him was featured in a post here.)

Beau, Gus and Milty waiting for breakfast one morning.

Milty, as he is generally known, is the most senior, if somewhat titular, head of the New Jersey manor. He is, by our best guestimate, about 21 years old. I’m afraid I don’t have any photos of a young Milty. As you can see, he’s an almost tabby, white with copious tabby spots, a sort of every cat.

Milty achieving pets on the arm of the chair.

He came to my mom as a tiny kitten rescued in Newark with a terrible long cut down his back. Because of that, I guess, he came to mom with the moniker of Knifey which she thought was an awful name and hardly described this genial little ball of fluff. He was found and rescued him on Milton Street (Newark Harrison Plaza to be precise it would appear) in Newark and Mom went with Milton as his name, Milty most of the time. Meanwhile, his back injury was so severe that he had to be isolated away from her other cats for a few months while it healed.

My parents were still in the (very large) house I grew up in and Milty had a room upstairs where he spent his first few months. That was a rough and tumble house of more or less five cats at the time, but eventually Milty found, and probably occasionally fought, his way into the milieu.

It was, I believe, not long after my sister Loren died that Milty came to Shrewsbury Drive. It also became a tumultuous time with my folks packing up that house ultimately and leap frogging to a rental before moving into the house I have now. So while a new kitty is always a thing of joy I think things like hurricane Sandy followed by my parents packing up and moving overshadowed his arrival somewhat. He slipped quietly and seamlessly into the life of the Butler household.

Winsome putting her hat on him on a whim last year.

Milty was always a pretty easy going guy. Slowly he moved up the ranks of mom’s cats over time and there was a moment where it was just him and two others before mom went on a cat acquisition streak not much more than two years before she died, bringing their number to five.

Of all of the cats, Milty is the friendliest and in fact actually demands to be petted by all comers to the house – sitting by you and reaching out with a tapping paw gently. He has a good memory for the regular visitors who pay attention to him and runs right to them. He does not discriminate by age – he is perfectly willing to let Anaya, Winsome’s granddaughter age 3, have her first, tentative cat pats with him. His fur is amazingly soft and he has gotten fluffier, not less so, with age.

Milty in the livingroom.

He is a bit of a grump and tyrant these days when it comes to food. If given his way a stream of cans would be opened for him ongoing throughout the day. He has the annoying (for the other cats) habit of eating the first wet bits out of every dish as they are put out – taking the best moist bits off the top. He drinks copious (truly vast) amounts of water daily and is said (by mom) to have tumors in his stomach. In the mornings that I am there he meows loudly and urgently for his breakfast until it is served, he and
Beau eat first there.

Milty is demanding for attention as well and sits on the arm of your chair and gently grabs your arm, just a few gentle claw paws, for pets. Unfortunately, he is not a well behaved lap cat and the claws are in play for starfish paws and he tends to get moved along. He is the top ranked puker in the house and has other occasional accidents, not surprising I guess given his age and other factors.

Peaches smiling and giving Milty a pat.

He enjoys a surprisingly good relationship with essentially all of the other cats. (He has no use for the New York cats when they visit but that seems fair. He mixed it up with Blackie on our last visit, marching into the bedroom one morning to see where breakfast was. He also swatted a friend’s dog who wandered into the house with him one evening.) I tend to find an odd combination of cats curled up with Milty. The most surprising is Peaches, our most feral and generally resistant feline. I frequently find her curled up with him while giving me a somewhat defensive look. Gus also likes to sit with (or sometimes on) Milts and Milty never appears bothered. He is the Switzerland of cats.

Gus horning in Milty’s perch.

High jumping was never his thing – the awful long cut on his back perhaps – and he generally stays near to the ground now and rarely gets up higher than a low chair. Aside from that he is surprisingly spry and greets all visitors like the retired mayor of a small town who sits out in a sunny rocking chair on the front porch of the general store or post office. He expects a certain amount of recognition and fealty.

In some ways I feel bad for Milty as he never quite got to be a singular favorite with a devoted individual tending him. He has been loved but a bit generally by many. We’ve had a few scares with his health and know that at 21 for a cat his time is likely melting away. However, he seems utterly content as the figurative king kitty in the house of Butler.

T’day Cat Tale

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As is sometimes the case I am on the train and taking a moment to start this post. It is a wet and dark Thanksgiving morning and the train to NJ is crowded. (I can only imagine how crowded the trains on the other side of the tracks going into the city are!) I had to hoof it four blocks to Penn Station in a pouring rain.

Luckily, I was dressed for the elements (that coat I mentioned buying in last week’s post arrived – it is excellent) and traveling fairly lightly. There are a bunch of small hotels near there and many families, clearly here for the parade and holiday, were milling around in front of them, despite the rain. I feel badly for them – even these modest hotels cost them a fortune and it should be a nice treat for the kids – too bad about the rain! Kids looked pretty perky anyway.

The last few minutes of my entry into Red Bank on the train.

I had actually planted myself in NJ on Tuesday night – smartly avoiding the worst of the travel press. Kim had decided to sit this one out in Manhattan so I was hoping for a few days there doing errands and working in the garden to prep it for winter. Then Blackie stopped eating on Tuesday night and the malaise it continued and worsened Wednesday morning. Therefore, I had to come back to New York and we had to take him to the hospital where I work now.

I will start by saying that his vet was responsive in a way that I don’t think any of us feel we can expect from our own doctors let alone our vets. Despite being the day before Thanksgiving, she answered my email at 7:30 am right away and we exchanged several emails before making the decision to bring him in. First, we tried an external stimulant which Kim picked up and applied to no avail.

It was a remarkable relief to see familiar faces around me and helping with him. It had seemed somewhat impersonal in the past when I went there but now I am family. This is especially notable because I have felt isolated at this job and it has been hard to get to know people. However, one of my friends (one of the first people I met there and got to know – she is a Veterinarian Technician) carried him out to me and despite his anxiety he clearly enjoyed Erica’s attentions – that woman knows how to pet a cat!

This stuff is like kitty crack but if they won’t eat it is a very good go to.

His illness, or disinterest in food specifically, remains a mystery. After I got him to eat some Churu at the hospital we decided to take him home last night. I’m glad we did; it was the right decision. He’s diabetic and I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t have to take him in again for a glucose test which will take a full day, but with the holiday if we can get him to eat even small amounts I would rather have him home. He ate a small breakfast for me this morning and so I am heading back to NJ where I will have a handful of friends coming for dinner!

***

Thanksgiving was a quiet affair with the aforementioned couple of friends. I had a winter gardening frenzy of bulb planting (luckily the ground was soft from that Thanksgiving rain) and trimming the dahlias and bagging them up for the winter. Lastly, the geraniums needed to be taken out of the front planters and they are potted and living in the kitchen for now. The trellises I grew my cucumbers on are tucked away in the garage. I had hoped to do more cleanup in the veggie patch but didn’t have time.

Taken this morning. A bit perkier and wondering what on earth Kim and I will do to him next though.

I returned to New York Friday evening. Blackie has resumed eating more regularly but still requiring a stimulant and some encouragement. Essentially we are now in a stage where he’ll eat really good stuff but is still turning his nose up at the healthier real food we expect him to eat. However, he just wolfed down a smidge of smoked salmon so I would say his eating instincts are not totally disabled.

Cookie is taking full advantage of the situation. To be clear, we are martinets when it comes to the cats eating habits. They eat at 6am and 6pm. They get a mix of canned food and dry food is out for them. We have not introduced treats into their lives except to inveigh them to eat on the onset of their stint in New Jersey. When they both stopped eating the first time I was introduced to Churu treats and keep them on hand for such events. Those things must be like kitty crack is all I can say.

Cookie napping recently. I must say, she doesn’t seem concerned about Blackie but is happy about all the treats in the house.

I brought some Churu back from New Jersey with me as Kim had used up our small stash. Cookie keeps taking us over to it and showing it to us – hoping we will take the hint and give her some.

I know I haven’t written much about this new gig. This past year I have been working to get a lot under my belt in a very different area of fundraising and in a very specific place. Building this fundraising operation to full throttle is a journey which has only just launched. I wouldn’t have Blackie or Cookie (or Beau, Gus, Milty, Peaches and Stormy – the NJ Five) sick for anything obviously, but in some ways this recent incident has informed me with an interesting piece of the puzzle for fundraising there.

Some of what I experienced was clearly because I am a staff member, but having used them before with a substantial illness with Blackie, the good communication and much of what I experienced was in play then too – which influenced my decision to take this job. It is a special place, in part possible because it is a non-profit. My job is figuring out how to unlock all its potential.

Tiger and Tom Smith

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: There is a certain kind of cat photo postcard I am a sucker for and this fits the bill perfectly. These two tabby tigers perch together on this bench in this very homemade photo postcard where someone has taken the time to etch their names in during the printing process.

It is poorly made – even before the intervening decades (more than ten) it was likely faded from poor processing, perhaps tired chemicals or just an inexperienced hand. It is hard to see but the bench that Tiger and Tom pose on may actually be a chair that has lost its back. Hard to tell.

Tiger and Tom look ready to make a break for it so I understand the pressure on the photographer to rush a bit. Cats will be cats and these would like to get on with their play in that big field which was probably full of all kinds of interesting things to chase and marvels to consider and conquer.

Greetings from H…ll according to Chic!

On the back, in a clear if youngish hand, it says, Heard you were at the fair. I had a day off but went to Owosso instead. Had a great time. When are you coming to H…ll? Chic and then below, They all call me Chic out here for there are 3 Myrtas besides me. It is addressed to Miss Julia Purdy, Fowlerville, Mich. The postmark is indistinct but appears to be from October 26, 1908. Sadly no reference to the puss portraits on the verso.

Milty (left) and Peaches in an uneasy alliance.

Spending time at my mom’s house among her numerous kits (I posted about their general ambivalence to me recently which can be found here) I am reminded of the feline politics of a house full of kits. Growing up we always had a waxing and waning (usually waxing) number of cats and you become accustom to their pecking order, the shifting sands of affiliations and turf tussles..

A rather noble photo of Peaches this week. She hisses at me when I find her in my office.

Currently in this house Milty is technically senior cat but so old that he is a bit of a figurehead (shhh, don’t tell him) and it is Beau who is really top cat. He rules with a casual paw for the most part. Gus is a male upstart who is always testing the water with Beau who cuffs him about the head and neck and tells him to get on with his own business. This leaves two girls – the ever bossy Peaches and the so timid now you see her now you don’t Stormy. For some reason we refer to them mostly in a formal way – Miss Peaches, Mr. Milty, etc. This goes for all the caregivers too.

Cookie and Blackie rarely sleept together so I tend to document it if I come across it.

All this to say, I see some interesting combinations and odd bedfellows amongst the participants as they look for strength in numbers and allies. Sometimes I find Peaches and Milty napping uneasily together in a chair, later maybe Gus and Beau having a truce in the side bedroom. Everyone loves the room I sleep in and the office I use as these rooms are closed to them when I am not here. There is a great outpouring of cat interest when these doors open with my arrival.

Hobo munching breakfast today. And the reveal of his entry point!

I will close on a stray cat note. Hobo, a ragged looking male I have taken to feeding (because we don’t have enough cats you say!) who consumes copious cans at a time – the cat has a hollow leg I swear. He showed early this morning for his first three cans of the day. We’ve long wondered where he was entering our yard as it is entirely fenced in. Today I discovered his path and a small hole in the fence, with a well-worn cat path clearly defined!

Westward Bound

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: I am starting this post while on a plane to Denver. Some Pictorama followers know I sent an advance post yesterday, written last week. Today I am using my plane leisure time to share a missive for tomorrow. (I don’t want anyone to have to face Sunday morning without a Pictorama post!)

Those of you who do the full Monty and follow me on social media know that it was a tough week. Our beloved Blackie spent five days in kitty ICU for a diabetic episode which appears to have been brought in by an underlying infection – maybe a UTI or pancreatitis. He was, in the words of one friend, a VERY sick kitty.

I am pleased to report that with the amazing work of the vets at the Animal Medical Center he pulled through and we were able to bring him home last night.

Vet’s office when visiting Blackie the other night. He kept looking for a way to make a break for it.

He roamed our 600 square feet with wide eyed awe. He gave me head butts and purrs as the familiarity enveloped him and he relaxed into it. Blackie was one happy cat! Kim gave him a bowl of tuna and he tucked in for his first real meal in days although he was only able to consume about a third of a can.

After couch time with us he retired to bed with Kim and spent the entire night tucked and purring, between us (moving to occasionally perch on top of one of us) much as he had nine years ago on the day we got him. After a day of his hiding in a scary new place I woke to find a tiny kitten Blackie sound asleep between us in the middle of the night. Last night his little engine went purr all night, rising occasional and then falling to a reassuring rumble.

Blackie from several months ago.

He came home with an alarming number of medications and devices however. I feel awful that I had to leave it all to Kim at 5:30 am when the car service arrived today take me to the airport. It was very hard to leave them this morning and I have checked in with Kim several times. Poor Mr. Blackie has a long way to go, but we’re hoping for the best.

Nonetheless, off to La Guardia I went for an early flight to Denver. I agreed to be here at this conference for work months ago and little did I know how hard it would be. But I am pleased that with some of La Guardia’s terminals finally complete at least I no longer waded through puddles, endless broken paths and construction. A cheerful Indian man was my driver and he kept me from getting weepy about leaving home.

Sunset and incoming storm tonight in Denver.

The hotel is an enormous family resort with a Princess/Pirate theme going on. I landed in a heap only to find not only was my room not ready (I was early and had expected that), but the final night of my stay was mysteriously missing. Discouraging. I called Kim and then parked in various locales to take care of some work calls – I was minus wifi and was frustrated at not being able to post my Pictorama until late.

The resort is on a desert plot of land with not much visible in any direction – a little like landing on the moon. I walked outside briefly to get the lay of the land for a run tomorrow and was disappointed that it was pretty much concrete all around. Someone mentioned trails across the street so we’ll see. More to come, but now a nap!

Yummy Tummy

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: This is an actual photo, not a photo postcard, which weighs in at only about 3.5″x 3″. It was taken from an album which it had been glued into, black paper stuck to the back. It is an interesting photo when studied – the woman in the background is wearing a fully long dress, as I guess the woman with the cat is although that is a bit hard to see. This dates it early in the 20th century. Meanwhile, a man with a cap, somewhat obscured, is seated behind the woman and cat.

Of course I have purchased it because of this wonderful tabby. He appears to be an orange tabby – which means he is likely to be a he as Google informs me that males outnumber female orange tabbies about 80% to 20%. This photo has an interesting immediacy. When it is blown up large you can see that what the woman holds is a toy on a string, not food which was my immediate thought.

I have had close association with several orange striped cats in my life. My mother has a rather magnificent one named Red right now, who was devoted to my father and who presents his toys and acts as ambassador cat when I overnight in New Jersey.  Pictorama readers my remember my childhood cat Pumpkin, an enormous and dog-like kitty who used to follow me to the bus stop in the morning growing up. He was much larger than this fellow, but had an amazing fluffy striped tummy and tail. He would roll and display his tummy in a come hither way – and then chomp down on your arm with all his considerable force when you tried to pet him. Bad kitty! We had to warn guests and even delivery folks not to be taken in.

Therefore, I can only say I was shocked with Cookie and Blackie arrived here with a very canine desire to have their tummies rubbed – since kittenhood they roll over and demand tummy pets multiple times a day. Cookie in particular needs some tummy rubs every morning to start the day. She will meow and stretch and roll with happiness when you comply. Blackie also invites an occasional tummy pet, but it is as if he likes the idea more than the reality and tends to roll over after a rub or two and send you on your way with a paw push. No biting though.

Our resident cats also perch on their hind legs more than any felines I have ever known. Like the cat in the photo I have had cats that would stand and reach for something, but not as willing to perch that way, sometimes for minutes, as our Cookie and Blackie seem to be. Occasionally they entertain me with their version of cat boxing this way. (If there is anyone out there who has not seen this video of cats boxing in slow motion doing patty cake with commentary – or if you just need a chuckle – have a look here.)

Kim and I have speculated that this is a form of kitty evolution, especially the hind leg standing. Shortly after Kim and I started dating I made him a Valentine drawing of my cats Otto and Zippy, them holding forth in a riotous anthropomorphic party scene while we were out of the apartment, but presumably to disappear magically somehow as we approached the front door. Oh to know the secret life of cats!

Chow Time!

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: The symmetry of this photo appealed to me, not to mention the tidy tabby and nice black cat whose white tummy we can just about see if we look carefully. These two may just want an ear scratch, but I suspect more realistically are involved in the ritual dance of food request.

We have decided to raise Cookie and Blackie more scientifically than our previous cat companions and they get a prescribed amount of wet food early in the morning as early as Blackie can get us up (yes, for some reason it is his job and not Cookie’s, she does observe the process however to make sure he gets it done) which is quite early. Kim and I are early risers (we’re talking around 5:00 AM) during the week. On weekends I tend to burrow deep into pillows and blankets and ignore Blackie stomping stoically over us, back and forth in a food protest march all his own, until Kim gets up. That is Blackie’s method and I will say it is his very own style. Some of his predecessors used the cold wet nose applied to face method, or the kind, but urgent paw tap. My cat Otto was even known to give me a little nip or hair pull if I really was unwilling to move. (When I was younger I really slept long, hard and soundly.)

Weekdays I am rarely home in time for the evening meal which takes place at 6:30 sharp. On weekends I do witness the gathering of the troops as early as 5:00 to remind Mr. Deitch that, although they may not wear watches, they are aware of the time. Poor Kim has to withstand an average of an hour or more under the glare of cat eyes and their tendency to draw ever-closer while he is trying to work! For those of you who think we are hard-hearted and starving the darlings please know that there is a dish of dry food out all the time in case someone grows terribly peckish. Cookie has her own ritual of needing to be assured that dish is full daily.

When I was growing up somehow this was all different enough that my mother actually used to call the cats to come and eat. When I think back on it – what was that all about? It wasn’t like we lived on a farm or something, just a house, but she would call chow time and they would all come running from different parts of the house. When I was a small child our cat Pumpkin got lost we placed an ad in the newspaper to try to find him. I remember asking if we should mention that he answered to that call. (This idea of putting an ad in a local paper seems so quaintly old fashioned that I suddenly feel ancient. A story for another time. However, be assured he was found having been brought to the local SPCA which we had alerted to his disappearance and was reunited with us after several days.) In all fairness, the cats would also come running when they heard the can opener – an electric one in those days, remember those? Before pop top cans. Returning now to the question, I wonder about it because like ours the cats at my parent’s house are the same milling, demanding group about food.

My mother, in charge of cat feeding in their house, makes no pretense at these silly ideas about feeding times and set amounts of food, and her cats have what I refer to as a constant rotating smorgasbord of cat food, both wet and dry. (I may also add that she has never subscribed to high end vet endorsed food, and with all of this she has had cats live into their early 20’s. So much for my high-end food acquired online and carefully controlled portions!) Notably and to my point, her cats also do not need calling these days either. Much like mine they mew and cajole when they are hungry, which makes me wonder – is this a small evolutionary change in cats? One of those tiny steps forward in cat brains that goes largely unnoticed? But a step toward – what? A race of assertive cats who stand up and ask for what they want? Perhaps not what we are looking for in our darlings, but where they are heading nevertheless? Or did cats in days of yore have more important things on their minds? Greater cat business and purpose, perhaps in the form of the occasional high-protein mousie snack caught on the hoof?