About My Ocean the Wiggle Cat

I had last posted how my wiggle kitteh was getting thinner and not as active, that Ocean was having trouble jumping onto the furniture like usual. So I took her in to the vet.

...They found a mass near her stomach. They took more ultrasounds and found two lumps, one on her large intestine and on her liver. They also spotted enlarged lymph nodes, which told them she had lymphoma and the aggressive untreatable kind.

(small "no").

She wasn't in any outward pain, but she was clearly uncomfortable, and I didn't want Ocean to struggle for another month or so before the pain got too much. It's hard, really hard for a person to take a pet companion - a fur baby - to the vet one last time.

It wasn't easy back in 2013 when I had to let Tehya the Pretty Kitty go to rest, and it wasn't easy today for Ocean.

Ocean was the kitten who came to me a week after Tehya died, on Halloween night meowing for trick or treat at the apartment stairwell. She was so fearless, happy to run up the stairs to my doorway to greet me going out and okay with coming inside my apartment to check it out. I called her Wiggles for how she'd roll around on her back when I got close. When I took her in for good a few weeks after Halloween and took her to the vet, the nurses there said "Wiggles" wasn't a proper name so I named her Ocean (for a then-recent Gaiman novel). But she was always Wiggles to me.

And then she had her babies on Super Bowl eve as the Broncos got blown out by the Seahawks. I hope the five kittehs I gave up for adoption - River, Simon, Inara, Zoey, Jayne - went to good homes and hopefully staying healthy. I kept Mal, and you all know how much of a handful he's been.

I wonder how confused Mal is going to be tonight, the first night without mama cat. :(

These are among the last photos I've taken of Ocean. I may upload a video or two of her purring later. I never videorecorded Tehya or Page when I should have, because today I can barely remember how they purred or meowed at me. :( 

This is Ocean just before the vet
came in. They let me hold her
to my side as they performed the
injections. It's so heartbreaking
how she stopped moving.

I am so sorry I wasn't able to take better care of you, my kittehs. /cries

It's Been 10 Years With a Wiggle Cat

On Halloween Night in 2013, a brave little tuxedo kitten began meowing for food and love and I offered both to her.

This is Wiggle Cat. I named her Ocean because the vet nurses
felt Wiggles was too silly for her.

 

This was in 2021 when I ordered a couple of cat posts during
the pandemic. Ocean prefers napping in this one, but the tall one
at the window is great for morning suntans.

And today October 31 2023 is our tenth anniversary together, you wiggler.

Friday the 13th Black Cat Sighting for 2023

Almost wrote "For 2022" but yeah it's a new year, ya moran.

ANYWHO, Who wants to say hello to a krazy kat on a Friday the 13th!!!!

This giant Feline of Ferociousness was only willing to pose with a bowl of dry food over his head, heading the yearning eyes, the quick meowing insisting on FEED ME, etc etc. 

Mal the Krazy Kat will also be rooting for the Seattle Seahawks this playoff weekend because he was born during their Super Bowl win 9 years ago (has it been that long already?).

National Black Cat Day 2020

Say hello to Mal the Crazy Kat (or Krazy Cat, one of the two) the Pan-Furr of the house!

You'll notice he's fixated on the snack that's about to drop into his belly!

(My online friends call their Black Cats "Pan-Furrs" because they're more fur than usual panthers, well you'll understand it when you see it)

International CAT Day 2020

I have been reminded on Twitter that today is International Cat Day.

So with that, I give you ALL THE CATS!

Caturday July 4

How my cats decide who gets to be in the sunroom and who gets to fold the laundry.

Ocean gets the day off and Mal gotta work it.

Happy 4th of July, America!

It's Super Bowl Sunday! Also Known as Mal's BIRTHDAY

To anyone out there who adopted River, Simon, Zoey, Jayne, and Inara, this is their birthdays too and I hope they are doing well!

Just not as crazy as this panfurr.

The cupcake sadly is not cat-friendly, but I will let Mal know how tasty it is OMNOMNOM.

Getting To the End of a Year 2019 Edition

This is also in some respects the end of a Decade (2010-19) and time to not only review a year but review an era.

I started off 2010 unemployed as a librarian, struggling to find even part-time work, not getting back into the profession until 2013 where I've been thankfully for the last six years.

Writing-wise, I've been keeping up with NaNo here, a few short story submissions there, two self-published books (one an anthology, the other a set of political essays) but still nowhere close to a full-scale novel to call my own.

There's been a lot of personal changes along the way. Sad ones, like the loss of my kittehs Page (died 2011) and Tehya (died 2013)... but good ones, like the arrival of Ocean (literally on my doorstep Halloween night 2013) and Mal (literally as a litter during the Fourth Quarter of the Denver vs. Seattle Super Bowl 2014).

Still coping with depression, with anxiety, with a meager social life, heading into 2020 coping with major surgery that still needs to get scheduled so I can know exactly when to go into full panic mode before the doctors hit me over the head with a hamma to knock me unconscious.

There's more to say before the end of the year - still have to type up a Year End's Book Reviews - and we'll see about me taking care of a writing project soon, very soon.

In the meantime, I've barely done any Christmas shopping for Saturnalia. Shame, Witty... shame...

Five Year Anniversary with the Wiggle Cat

Five years ago tonight, waiting at an apartment in Bartow for trick-or-treaters that never showed, I instead heard the mewling of a hungry little tuxedo kitten.

So I figured what the heck, it's trick-or-treat, so I go get cat food from the store and come back and put it on a paper plate for the little kitteh to eat... whereupon three other cats jump out of the bushes and eat what's on the plate before she could. Still, I made sure to feed HER since she was the one brave enough to ask me.

And brave she was. And friendly. And wiggly. She'd flop down on the concrete and wiggle back and forth waiting for ear rubs.

I had just lost Tehya to cancer a week before Halloween, and here I was with a kitten just knocking on the door to come in. And she did come into the apartment, cautious but unafraid, and after a few visits I let her in and closed the door, and she had no problem with that.

That was how Ocean the Wiggle Cat came into my life. And then later her kittens.

BUT THAT IS ANOTHER ADVENTURE...

There Are Days I Still Miss Tehya

Tonight is a painful anniversary of letting go of my first kitteh, Tehya.

We want our pets to live full lives, at least live as long as we do, and yet theirs are so brief. What hurts about Tehya's passing was how she hurt, suffering from lung cancer, starving away, mewling in pain... :(

I can't remember how she sounded anymore. I've forgotten her meows for "feed me" or her murmurs for "rub my head." I can still recall how she would come up to me on the sofa, find that spot in my arm as I lay there watching the television, and flop down into that spot with her head arched back for ear rubs and content purring. I fear I may forget that someday...

I miss you, Pretty Kitty.

Cat Video: Friday the 13th

I know it's a little late getting posted, but here's a black cat enjoying some snacks on Friday the 13th.

Caturday Nap Time

It's been awhile since I've uploaded a pic of my kitteh mama.

She's sleeping away while I work at the computer.

Ocean snores. But for some reason it doesn't pick up on the smartphone's recorder. So no video proof of it... yet.

Another Caturday in March 2016

Well, I couldn't stay away on this topic, and I also needed to mention my kittehs' current status.

As it were, their claws needed clipping: I can't do it by myself, neither Ocean nor Mal will sit for me long enough, and I can't train them to accept it. They never equate the snacks I try to bribe them with towards good behavior on their part.

Also, Ocean had been getting mottled (?) matted (!) hair along her back for the past year since her vet's visit, and she needed a bath and grooming.

Unfortunately, it was so bad that the cat beautician had to shave.

She's pretty much in the need for a kitteh sweater to wear right now.

She was not happy about this.

WHY, HOOMAN? WHY YOU DO THIS TO WIGGLE CAT?

And it turns out the reason why Ocean was getting matted fur was due to her unable to clean off the oils during a cat's natural tongue-bathing. And she wasn't doing that because it seems she still has tapeworms.

She may have had it from being a feral kitten when I adopted her, she may have picked it up from the fleas that were in the townhouse we moved into, I thought I had treated her for the fleas - hadn't seen them since her treatments - and thought she had taken enough of the pills I tried to serve her that the vet gave me. Apparently, Ocean still has the parasite in her. Mal likely does as well (although his fur is fine).

Poor kittehs.

And Mal's hissing at her because the bath and grooming probably makes Ocean smell different now. This afternoon has been a series of hiss staredowns.

Poor poor kittehs.

Caturday March 2016

It's been awhile since I've done this. Lemme check what photos I have on file:

Mal and Ocean overseeing the laundry folding taking place on my bed.

Will that suffice for the month?

It's Friday the 13th! You get a black cat being a krazy kitteh.

It's Mal! Celebrating the 13th as only a black cat can! With a dangly toy fishie.

Now, back to the NaNo writing!

Cat Video For the Pre-Summer Madness

Wait, how does this work again...?

It's Ocean!  It's Mal!  It's a floor in need of vacuuming this weekend!

It's Friday The 13th! Hug Your Black Cat!

It's time to revisit Mal!

October Cat Warning

It's the month of All Hallows.

It is the time of black kittehs to stalk the sides of windows and signage for trick or treating.

It is the time of Mal the Crazy Kitteh.

You cannot stop him.

You cannot contain him.

And he will shred your toilet paper.

This month is his.

Beware the Crazy Kitteh.

Because It's Friday The 13th, and You NEED More Cat Pictures On The Internet

Considering the unlucky day that is Friday the 13th, I decided to box up Mal my black kitteh:

You know, just to be on the safe side...

He's getting to be as long as my forearm, getting bigger every day...

I will see you all in North Broward tomorrow for the 20th anniversary of North Regional Library!

Kitteh Update 4/27/14: It's So Hard to Say Goodbye

Shy Simon seems to have found a home.  When I went by this morning to check, he wasn't in the shelter anymore.

All five of the kittehs I surrendered to Lakeland SPCA are off the adoption list now.  I hope that means they've found good homes.

To the hoomans that adopted
Inara
River
Zoe
Jayne
Simon
Please take good care of them.  Mama cat Ocean did all she could to raise them up healthy so they can see the world and live their cat lives.

Mal remains an energetic kitteh, pouncing, wrestling, fishing.  I can't tell if he misses his siblings, but he might.

Meanwhile, look at that adoption list link.  So many young kittens to adopt here in Polk County...