Drexie Calabash - Rest in Peace

It happened this morning. Drexie Calabash, gray tabby cat, little sister of Karma Kitty, had to be put to sleep. She had turned 18 a couple of months ago. She also had cancer, which we first discovered last month.

Drexie

We got her as a kitten, a month after getting Karma, from our vets' office. It took a couple of days for Karma to quit bullying her; while she was half his size, she finally fought back and convinced him she was staying. (Check the above link about Karma Kitty.)

Karma Kitty

When Karma died, back in 2022, Drexie spent several days searching the house for him. I'm not sure when she reaized he probably wasn't coming back.

She seemed to mourn the loss. Karma had been her big brother, her buddy. He protected her from loneliness and dogs; she protected him from loud noises, such as thunder and fireworks. It was a great deal for both of them.

Last month, Drexie stopped eating, and I brought her to the vets' office. After getting antibiotics, steroids, and pain meds, I brought her home. She seemed to do better, until this past weekend, when she stopped eating again.

This morning, I brought her back to the vets' office again. It turned out she had cancer that had spread to the back of her mouth. Since she was in so much pain, and had trouble eating, Dr. G. suggested putting her to sleep.

My son and I said our good-byes to Drexie, and stayed in the room when Dr. G. gave her the two shots, one to relax her, then to help her on her journey.

Rest in peace, Drexie. You were a little love-bug. Tell Karma hi, and make sure to hang out with him.

Edited to add this little bit: This morning (July 15th), I got ready to head out to run an errand and discovered a lovely flower arrangement, delivered from a local florist, and sent from our vets' office and staff, along with a card offering their condolences. They also did this after Karma died. If anyone in Pinellas County, Florida needs a great animal hospital with caring staff, leave a comment, and I'll let you know.

Life Goes On, Somewhat Crazily

I realize I've been M.I.A. since last August. Even then, I didn't post much last year; from the looks of things, there were four (!) posts all of last year.

Of course, getting started here again has been interesting, to say the least. Anyone who's a writer (or artist of any sort) can related that too much time off makes it a little difficult to get motivated to head off in a forward direction.

But what the heck, I'm back.

Several weeks ago, I came so close to cutting my hair short (at least, short for me). The last time I had a major hair cut was for a job I'd landed, back in 1980. I can already hear at least one or two people thinking, Yikes! No need to tell me that was a long dang time ago.

The job I'd landed was working for a local fire department. The department had hired eight of us (if I remember correctly), including two women. (This is where your's truly fits in.) There was only one other department in our county, here on the west coast of Florida, that had a female firefighter; she'd been on the job less than a year.

I had already started off, near the end of 1979, as a volunteer with Pinellas Park Fire Department, shortly after the department had hired a new chief, so I had a somewhat vague idea of what to look forward to.

The department Jane and I were hired on at seemed okay with the length of my hair. I'd start off my shift with my hair in a braid. If we had a fire, and needed to wear our bunker gear, it was no big deal to grab the end of the braid, put said braid on top of my head, put my helmet on, and immediately, no hair showed.

However, when we started at the local fire academy, the then-head of the academy made it clear that I had to have my hair cut above my shirt collar. After all, that was how short the men had to have their hair. While our chief went to bat for me, I still had to get it cut short. Problem was, having it that short, I couldn't braid it and keep all the hair from sticking out from under the helmet.

At that point, I vowed never to cut my hair again, until I was good and ready.

So why was I thinking of cutting it recently? Well...Six weeks ago, I slipped and fell, landing hard on my back. Instant excruciating pain.

Silly me. Once I was able to move, and actually talk (I'd spent several minutes babbling, leaving my sons thinking I'd had a stroke), I got up and decided to take a shower. I was sure I'd simply pulled a few muscles in my back.

An hour or two later, though, when the pain showed no sign of subsiding, I agreed to go to a local free-standing ER to get it checked out. As it turned out, I'd fractured one of my vertibrae! No wonder it hurt!

Several hours later, after a room opened up in the main hospital (several miles away, with an in-house ER), I was transferred by ambulance and taken straight up to the assigned room, where I spent the weekend. While there, I ended up with an MRI lasting about half-an-hour (never a fun thing for someone who's claustrophobic). Fortunately, it turned out okay, still a fracture, but without further complications.

Two days later, I got to come home. But for six weeks, I've been stuck wearing a dang back brace. The first coupld of days, my hair kept getting caught in the brace; it was then that I seriously thought about cutting my hair shoulder-length. I didn't, though, and I'm now glad I didn't.

It's only a few more days until I get another X-ray to see if the back has healed enough to do without the back brace. Siiiiigh...

Also, to throw in some more fun, our two cats are now 15 years old, and starting to really show their age. Karma is showing it a little harder than is sister, Drexie, is. But either way, Karma and Drexie are getting up there.

At one time, Karma had topped off at 12-pounds and change; he's now down to 5.8 pounds, and has the beginnings of kidney issues, while Drexi, who used to be 6-pounds, is a little closer to 7 pounds now. They both seem to sleep more these days. Karma is also showing some signs of slowing down, and not able to jump as well as he used to.

Anyone who has had cats (or dogs, or any other pets) and who've gotten seriously attached to the pets knows how bitter-sweet it can be, watching the decline, knowing it's simply a matter of time when the pets are no longer around. That's what we're looking at with Karma and Drexie. I know we'll all be basket-cases when their time comes. But in the meantime, they'll get all the love, cuddles, and treats we can give them.

One last word: love your family, even the pets.

Karma Kitty

Drexie Calabash

Summer Solstice

So today's the first day of summer, at least in the Northern Hemisphere. As if we could really forget it. Anyone with a TV has heard the local news babbling for the past week that today would be the summer solstice. According to the local news (here on the west coast of Florida), the event took place at 6:51 AM, EDT. I slept through it, or, at least, tried to. Not that the earth shook, or anything loud happened to announce the occurrence...But I'd gone back to bed to try to catch a couple of extra minutes of sleep.

My son, M., had to work today. His schedule is such that he has a one-day-weekend every other week; the up side is that the other weekend is a five-day-weekend. He works Wednesday through Saturday, has Sunday off, then works Monday through Thursday, while another guy at work works the opposite of M. So, this weekend, while M. has a one-day-weekend, the other guy has a five-day-weekend.

M. has to get up at 5:00 AM to get ready, so I frequently set my alarm as back-up, just in case he conveniently sleeps through his, then I'll go back to bed until 6-ish. This is mainly to run interception at the front door, so that Karma, our resident Houdini, masquerading as a black cat, doesn't try escaping. I think he does this just to keep us on our toes; he'll go for a few weeks without incident, then, when our guard is down, Zooooom! Out the door! This morning, after M. left, I went back to and tried to sleep until 7:00. Never quite happened, what with Karma and Drexie wanting breakfast...

Good thing M.'s not into celebrating the Summer Solstice. Also, I guess to do it up right, we really should live near Stonehenge. But we don't. However, The Old Farmer's Almanac has suggestions for celebrating the solstice, some of which are do-able. Because of local laws, lighting a bonfire is out. And I seriously doubt that I'll be fishing or camping. But cooking outside is a possibility; so is planting a tree (we have plenty of them in our yard, most of which my sons and daughter and I planted), letting the light in (Florida is the sunshine state, after all!), reading a book, listening to songbirds, or watching the night sky.

Anyway, once I was up, I had my first couple of cups of coffee (does that count as celebrating the solstice? Probably not.), then got ready to go out for a walk. I'd wanted to walk and/or run for an hour, but got a late-ish start. I figure that with the heat and humidity, half-an-hour was not bad. I'll probably go back out this afternoon for another walk.

In the meantime, I guess I'd better get started on another Saturday. One of the neighbors is already out mowing the lawn. I kid him that he's obsessed with his yard, and he gladly admits that he is, although he's eased up a little on it over the last year or two. But when the worst you can say about a neighbor is that his lawn is perfect, I guess one can't complain. (We'll leave politics out; the neighbor and I generally do.)

Whether you tend to celebrate the solstices and equinoxes or simply are aware of when they happen, I hope you have a decent day. And if nothing else, maybe read a book while in a park, listening to the nearby birds. If nothing else, it'll at least break up your day a little.

A Tail of Two Cats (And A Dog and another Cat...)

I currently have two cats, which is ironic, considering I'm more of a dog person. Most people, if they like dogs and cats, tend to like one species a little more than the other. I've always been more of a dog person, but that's beside the point: I now share my house with two cats.

Actually, it's not completely my fault that the two of them live here. Oh, yes, I know, I didn't have to allow either one into my house. But there are times when life happens. What was it John Lennon said? "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans." Which is what happened here.

I was having a bad year. It hadn't actually been a January-through-December-bad-year, more like June-through-whenever kind of bad year. It started when our cocker spaniel died in June, 2006. Osha was 16 years old, and we knew it was just a matter of time. She's started losing her hearing, her vision was getting bad, and in the last few weeks, she seemed to have the dog equivalent of Alzheimer's.

One afternoon, maybe a week before she died, I'd let her out in our fenced-in back yard and, somehow, she'd managed to slip out in a break in the fence that she'd never been able to get through in her middle age. When I saw her wandering next to the road, I ran out and scooped her up. She gave me a happy-aging-puppy look that seemed to say, Hi! I can't quite place you, but you do look familiar! Maybe you have a nice treat for me? I knew...



Osha

A week later, the evening of June 4, she had trouble getting up and coming to the bedroom. My son, J., was on the computer, and planned to be up for a while.

"If she needs help, let me know," I told him.

"Sure thing," he answered.

Maybe fifteen minutes later, he knocked on the door, holding Osha. She'd tried crawling out of the living room toward the hallway. I took the old gal and placed her on her nest of blankets, petting her once-silky fur.

But no matter what, she couldn't get comfortable. Paul got up and fixed a pot of coffee and we sat up with Osha. We knew that if she didn't go that night, we'd have to do the hard thing and take her to the vet's in the morning. She was that far gone. Sixteen is a very old cocker spaniel.

Finally, at 4:00, when it was obvious she couldn't get comfortable, I picked her up and sat on the front porch while cradling her. She'd always loved sitting on the porch, sniffing the air, watching the neighborhood. She howled her wimpy little cocker spaniel howl, something she hadn't done in probably several years, then settled down. I told her what a good girl she was, that it was okay for her to go.

When I brought her back inside around 4:30, she seemed ready to sleep. Sometime between then and 6:00, she passed over the Rainbow Bridge, her friend and buddy, our cat, E. B. White, keeping watch.

That was a hard one. Even Paul - a former Marine! - was a little teary-eyed.

Then came October. Paul was sick and had to be rushed by ambulance to the hospital. At one point, he seemed to be getting better. But after almost a week, he passed away. I won't go over the details; suffice it to say that I covered that in another blog...



Paul

The following June, E. B. White died. She'd seemed to be going downhill after Osha and Paul died. And on Father's Day of 2007 - June 17 - she, too, died. After wrapping her up in an old towel so that I could take her to be cremated the next day, I called to wish my dad a happy Father's Day. Unfortunately, it was obvious he couldn't come to the phone. Two years earlier, he and my step-mom had come to visit to let me know Dad had cancer and was terminal. He died two weeks later. My brother, too, had gone several months earlier.



E. B. White



Greg



Dad and step-mom, Phyllis

I really wasn't in the mood for any more pets. Cats and dogs tend to have a shorter life-span than people, which means that there's a good chance you'll have to go through the pain of their deaths. I was soooo over death and dying. Whether the loved one was a person or a pet, it hurt. True, some deaths hurt more than others, but it still hurts. I was not going through that again!

About a month before E. B. died, though, I had called my friend Kevin up. Kevin, you might recall from previous posts, drives cab. I needed a ride, so I usually call Kev.

On this particular trip, Kevin informed me that his friend Billie, a nice gal who'd gone through a rough patch with her sense of humor intact, had a cat who'd just had a litter of kittens. "All of them have been claimed for adoption when they're old enough, except for one," Kev informed me. "That one is yours'. He's your karma." I was sure he meant that I was destined to have this cat, but it came out as Karma.

"No way I'm taking that kitten," I informed Kev. "I don't need another cat."

"Yes, you do," he insisted.

"Whatever." I let the subject drop, figuring that someone else would come along and decide that they had to have that kitten.

But nooooo. Kevin kept giving me periodic updates on my kitten. The first couple of weeks, I kept telling him no. Then I got to the smirking stage; no way is he giving me that darn kitten!

"But Karma's so cute!" he gush, as I smirked away.

Sometime between E. B.'s death and my dad's death, two weeks later, I was on the phone with my son-in-law, B. (M.H., who I'd wanted to talk to, had gone to work.) Suddenly, a car honked in the driveway. I looked outside.

Kevin.

"Hold on," I told B. "Someone's here."

I opened the door as Kev opened the trunk of his cab. "I got your cat!" he called.

"Even you wouldn't keep a kitten in the trunk of your cab!" I responded. He gave me a look.

"No, Billie has Karma. I just have all the cat stuff so you can't give him back!"

It was then that I noticed Billie in the front seat. She opened the window and handed out a tiny black furball. Karma's eyes were wide and he opened his mouth to let out a yowly mew. I took him as Kev put litter box, cat litter, and a six-pack of canned cat food on the front porch before beating a hasty retreat to the cab.



Karma Kitty, first week at home

"Enjoy!" he called as he jumped into the cab, threw it in reverse and left!

I looked at this tiny little bundle. "What are we going to do?" I asked. He leaned into me, then looked up and bit the end of my nose.

I got him and the stuff into the house and watched as he sniffed the carpet. E.B.'s scent was still there. "Yes, Karma," I told him. "This is a cat house." Meaning that we'd recently had a cat.

At this point, I heard laughter. It sounded kind-of far away, but somehow close. The phone!

Grabbing the phone, I asked, "Are you still there?" B. was. He'd heard the cat house remark.

A month later, we adopted Drexie from our vets' office (Pinellas Animal Hospital). I figured a second cat would keep Karma company. After a day or two of getting acquainted, during which time Karma kept trying to get rid of the intruder, until she finally fought back and let him know I'm staying, they've become friends and perfect foils for one another.



Karma Kitty, adult



Drexie Calabash

I guess I'll keep 'em.

Holidays

It's only a few days until Christmas, and while my Christmas tree has been up for maybe two weeks, more or less, I finally got around to decorating it.

Before you ask "a competely bare Christmas tree?", it had three strands of lights on it since the afternoon I'd set it up. Just no actual decorations. It's not that we don't have them, I just haven't put them on our tree for a few years now.

There's a reason for this. (Besides sheer laziness; that doesn't quite cover it.) For years, we'd bought live trees from local tree lots, lugged it home, set it up, then decorated it with lights and decorations. Somewhere along the way, we ended up with two large buckets with lids to keep our Christmas stuff in; one bucket was for lights, the other for all other decorations. The light bucket always came off the utility room shelf first; once the lights were on the tree, the other bucket came down and the decorations put up.

Each year, it was the same thing: each decoration represented a family member who'd made the ornament or given it to us. My grandmother had given us quite a few ornaments: ceramic bells shaped like mice with little ceramic clappers that caused a tinkling sound when the mice moved, several clothespins painted to look like Santa Claus, and other trinkets that held memories of going to her house at Christmas time. My ex-mother-in-law had made a few beaded ornaments that we still have, though she's been gone for decades. There are ones that my kids made when they were in grade school. And of course there are others picked up here and there over the years.

Around the time P. and I had gotten together, my daughter M.H. and her husband moved out of state. One of the things they dropped off at our place was a 4-foot artificial tree. It fit nicely on a table top, which is part of why M.H. had bought it in the first place. It's easy enough to put together: simply pull it out of the box, put the lets on the base, pull the branches down, and viola!

However, P. and I simply kept buying real trees. Using the artificial tree felt, well, artificial.

Then, one year, we were a little short on cash. By the time we finally had the money to buy a tree, three weeks before the big day, there wasn't a real tree on any lot to be found without driving miles and miles. So, out came the 4-foot tree.

After setting it up, we threw several strands of blinky lights on it; that was plenty on a tree that size. Then, grabbing the ornament bucket, we found a few ornaments that fit the smaller tree very nicely. There was no way we could use all the decorations; there simply wasn't enough room. Sighing, I put the bucket back on the shelf, half the ornaments still inside.

This tree seemed perfectly fine for the next few years. Then P. died. When I went to set up the tree that year, the lights went on it, but I only had the energy or desire to put one or two ornaments on it. The next year, the ornament bucket didn't even come off the shelf.

A few years ago, I went out and bought a 6-footer. It's still artificial, but I figured I'd get a few years' use out of it. I even bought a few extra strands of lights, since two tiny strands of blinky lights just wouldn't do. But still very few, if any, ornaments. Until now.

My friend Kevin has been spending a lot of time here. He's more like a slightly strange, slightly goofy kid brother, and a friend. Nothing more, nothing less. Contrary to what Billy Crystal's character thought in the first half of When Harry Met Sally, men and women can be friends. He acknowledged the tree and several strands of lights. My son J. even put a strand of lights on that M.H. had given him last year; this strand has maybe a dozen large blood-shot-looking plastic eyes painted on the white globes.

"Cool lights," Kevin mentioned when he saw them.

But then, after a week or so with no other ornaments, he finally asked where they were. "You got the tree, you got the lights, you need to get some ornaments!"

I had to admit, it might be nice to get the bucket down. Last year, I'd used the excuse that our two cats, Karma Kitty and Drexie Calabash, might knock them off the tree and bat them around the house. But there had to be something I could put on the tree that wouldn't cause problems for the two crazy cats. This meant that the few beaded ornaments in the bucket would stay in the bucket, along with a couple of other potentially dangerous ones (dangerous to kitties, anyway). But then, there were other ones I could put on the tree: there's a plastic one that looks almost stained-glass-like and looks nice with a light showing through; there's a star made out of little mirrors (great for reflecting light), and several others that actually look a little nicer than I remember.

The tree is now officially decorated. It won't rival anything in any fancy home decorating magazine. But that's perfectly fine with me.

Merry Christmas, Happy Solstice, Happy (belated) Hanukkah, and Happy New Year.

Karma and Drexie Calabash

My two cats have been acting a little crazy the past few weeks. Whether it's from the shortening days, the weather, just feeling extra good, or the fact that they're cats (or all of the above) is anyone's guess. But they've been going through periods throughout the day when I swear the two of them are banking off the walls. As hard as they've been playing, it's kind-of amazing they haven't gone through the walls, especially Karma.

Karma Kitty is a black male cat, replete with cattitude. He has a habit of getting on the arm of the couch and straddling it, the way a panther would straddle a large branch. From there, it's relatively easy for our miniature panther to survey his domain, take a nap, pounce on unsuspecting people (or his sister) or take a swipe at bare arms. He had topped out at twelve pounds and change, but after being put on a special diet the end of last year, he's dropped down to ten. It's all muscle, though. He's also, without a doubt, the smartest cat I've ever known, as well as the coolest. Think Einstein/jazz musician/male model/snuggle bug rolled up in one. (Okay, that might be over the top, but you get the idea.)

Drexie, on the other hand, is a delicate six-pounder, a loveable ditz whose taste for exploration (as well as occasionally whooping up on Karma) is so ingrained in her personality (cat-ality?) that, had she been human, would have landed her in the history books.

It was this tendency toward exploration that got her into trouble this afternoon. Actually, it got her stuck in the dryer.

Normally, if I'm doing laundry, I'll check to see where Karm and Drex are before starting the washer or dryer, since they've been known to try climbing into the machines when the doors are open. Doesn't matter if they're full of laundry or not.

Drexie is worse at this than Karm is. She's also been known to duck into the pots-and-pans cupboard, then get into the silverware drawer. This takes a little doing, but entails climbing on a shelf near the back of the storage area, then climb into the back of the silverware drawer, flattening her tiny self into the small space, then putting her front paws into the silverware trays.

The first time she did this, it was a total surprise. I had fixed myself a cup of tea and wanted to get a spoon to stir it with. Opening the drawer, I discovered I could only pull it out so far before I got swatted by a white paw on the end of a tabby leg. Hmmm... I thought. Either I'd better do a better job of washing the furry silverware, or there's a certain cat in there. I had to take the trays out before I could get Drexie out. And yes, the silverware got rewashed.

I've since secured the cupboards under the sink so that a certain explorer can't get back in there.

Getting back to the dryer...I'd taken the laundry out, stuck it into a basket, and turned my back on the dryer for all of maybe thirty seconds, if that. Then I shut the machine.

About half-an-hour later, Karma was sitting in front of the dryer when I went to put a last load in. He kept chatting at me, then looking at the dryer.

"What is it, Karm?" I asked. He kept meowing, then looking back at the dryer. He's smart, but has yet to move beyond meowing, which does occasionally make communication a little dicey.

Then I heard a very faint mew. Karma was sitting there, staring at me like he was thinking, Well...? I opened the back door, but there was no cat in sight. Again, the faint mew, at which point, Karma swatted my leg, then patted the dryer door. (Did I mention he's smart? He's just not subtle.)

When I didn't respond immediately, there was another faint mew and Karma smacked my leg harder, then touched the front of the dryer, before running off.

At that point, I opened the dryer and out walked Drexie, who gave me a look like, It's about time!

Guess I'll have to make sure I know where the little wench is at all times. Guess I'll also have to listen to Karma, too.