Sunday, December 25, 2016

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So for Giftmas we got Evilolive. Olivevil. Vote, I can't decide. Five days ago the #4 cat on My Sillyass Deserted Island Five Game morphed into a hissing, bullying asshole. Asshole. Rosie isn't sick, she's terrorized by motherfucking Olive. Stanley and Jess are hiding under the sofa as I type this, Evilolive Olivevil stalking them. Fleabus says fuck this, left-crossed EOOE (you can vote for that too), Napoleon right-crossed OEEO (another option). We brought MomCat in the coldest night last week, put her in our bedroom behind a closed door, its not a common cat area, it's away from where they feed, where they shit, and I didn't see any interaction between MomCat and Olive, we kept food and litter boxes separate, but total dynamics of the house have changed. Fine metaphors and fuck me, etc...

When the vet called yesterday to tell me Rosie's blood and shit work are clean, that she's perfectly healthy, I offered my MomCat theory and he called it entirely plausible if not provably probable. I asked if such personality conversions are common, and the vet said yes. I said, once these conversions happen how often do they reverse, and he said hardly ever. It occurs to me what a remarkable run of peaceable cats we've had, in all the years and all the cats of Earthgirl and me. If, as the vet says, this happens all the time how lucky we've been. The vet said I now have a cat who wants to be a solo cat, will most likely spend the rest of her life hissing at every other cat, but if she's ever an only cat will probably be the wonderful cat she was just a week ago.

Elric (who gave us Clover, #3 on My Sillyass Deserted Island Five Game of Cats), I've got a Giftmas present for you now that your apartment lets you have a cat.







DISSERVICE

John Ashbery

Life with its sorrow, life with its tear.
And you know what that means:
the sky in a drawer,
    
the underwear underworld
on the floor of the moon.
Under the emergency lamps a small panic was growing,
keeping to itself, chiming
ahead of your headlights, wobbly.
You had just gotten so young
it was all I could do to contain you
in the linen dishtowel we kept for that purpose.
The doctor prescribed bed rest.
   
The cash cow is a going concern,
the intake not dangerous enough
that you folks enjoy.
   
It’s not immortality,
these mechanical trees, alders.
Good to know you’re not killing them all yourself
across the street baby.



2 comments:

  1. My sisters went through a similar change. I got sisters Imblique and Moschops when they were 1 and had them for a decade before I gave them over to a new host family of mother, father, six-year-old boy in 2001 in order to make the leap to where I live now. It was a painful separation to say the least, but I didn't want to submit them to the conditions required under the tenuous conditions that was sure to follow my leap until I finally settled.

    Additionally troubling at the time was a development in their relationship just prior to that, when I stayed with my sister for a few weeks prior to my departure. The change of venue would have been destabilizing, but I had moved once before and they got used to it and stuck together throughout. The difference I think was that my sister had dogs and cats. One day I returned from work to discover that the sisters would megrowl at each other and circumnavigate to avoid contact. I came to the conclusion that it had been the result of discovering that they were on foreign terrain, as a result no longer recognizing themselves for what they had meant to one another.

    The happy ending begins with witness of when I escorted them to their new home a few weeks later; they immediately scurried away and huddled together under the deep recesses of a piece of furniture -- their four glowing eyes as one, as they had been tens years before when they'd first become part of my dwelling, and again when I moved a year later. In a subsequent report from the new family, they were said to be getting along just fine.

    I do sincerely hope ol' evil Evolive evolves back into a productive member of society. I miss Imblique and Moschops, but not their hair and poop. Merry mutating metaphors to all o' yours and you.

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  2. Similar prob. here. Dear Sasha Baron Kitten began stalking Grand Dame Lili(-put), our elder mini-Dachs. Drew blood. Horrible screaming. Vet suggested a plug-in feromone (sp?) dispenser in the region of the conflict. It's like a Febreze or other smelly thingy dispenser. Plugs in, heats the liquid, disperses molecules into the atmos. Cat gets a whiff. Chills. So far so good. No subsequent episodes. Let me know if you do & it works. Gratify me this tiny little bit.

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