IT IS NOT A STRAY

I had two very different stories rolling around in my brain when I sat down to write today. I’m choosing the less angsty one. Also, I’m too tired dig too deep into what patriotism means to me in this current environment. So here is the second story which sort of explains why I’m too tired to do any deep digging.

We knew something has been coming into the house at night or attempting to because most nights we close the kitchen pet door. We’ve just gotten used to the idea of letting the cat fend for himself at night, but there have been a few nights when we’ve forgotten to close the door. Josephine knows when it is not the cat. She just knows. I mean, she’s a barker. That’s what Schnauzers do, but she reserves her barks for outside. Something is seriously off if she barks in the house. Every time she’s gotten out of bed in the crazy morning hours to bark at the bedroom door, I’ve scooped her up and placed her the bed with a firm ‘wait’. Then I quietly open the door to go investigate and every time, the coast has been clear with the dog door in place. Then I open the bedroom door and Josephine tears out of the room, snarling, grunting and barking through the dining room and kitchen and out to the backyard.

I never see anything. It is all just an illusion or an idea of something, a presence and I kind of feel like I’m going crazy.

Chris, Amy and I decided for our last year in undergrad to move out of the dorms and get an apartment together. We searched relentless for an apartment and finally landed the top floor of a house that had been converted into apartments. It was a total dump and landlord was reluctant to rent to college students. I think the only reason we got the place was because Amy walked into the office with a check for a down deposit before the landlord could could change his mind. Good lord, the work we put into that place. All the cleaning and painting, but it was ours. We bought groceries and cooked meals. We hosted so many breakfast for dinner nights.

Then the mice came.

So many mice.

It started out small, a loaf of bread with teeth marks puncturing the bag. Then we found mouse droppings on a can of soup. Every time we found evidence, we’d clean out the pantry, set traps and then buy new groceries. But things escalated and we’d find the evidence of mice in more than just a loaf of bread or on a can of soup. We threw everything away, completely emptied the pantry and started eating out for all of our meals. Chris kind of snapped when reached this point. There was one evening when we had just emptied four mouse traps. Chris reset them and then we started putting our shoes to go out for pizza. I hadn’t even gotten my laces tied before we heard the snaps of all four traps going off. Chris built a maze out of cardboard and he’d sit in wait for mouse to come out and get trapped in the maze. Then he’d use a can of hairspray and a lighter to make a flame thrower. I don’t know what the result of this was. I did wake up one night to the sounds of him beating a mouse to death with a dustpan.

Shit got dark.

We did eventually manage to rid ourselves of the mice and our lives returned to normal. Breakfast for Dinner night came back, but I have trauma. I don’t just obsess about mice. If I wake up with a bug bite, I immediately start questioning. Is it bedbugs? Fleas? Both? Do I need to clean my house with fire? If I see one mouse, I am one hundred percent convinced that somewhere in the walls or attic of my house there is a whole cast of mice from Ratatouille living it up. So this thing with the our early morning visitor/s is just kindling for my panic fire. We’d finally settled on the idea that we had a stray cat sneaking in to eat the cat food and I was okay with that. Then, at 5:00 Tuesday morning when Josephine barked at the bedroom door and we went through our usual routine, during my initial scan of the dining room, I saw it. There he was, a small raccoon sitting on the bench, inches away from the cat food bowl. I looked towards the kitchen door and sure enough, the pet door had been left open. I looked at him and said “Okay…you have to leave now.” Then he looked at me in a way that said “Are you sure?” I nodded my head and said “Yeah. You need to go.” And he left.

At least I thought he left.

Instead, he and a friend scurried up the wall and tucked themselves into the corner near the garage door. So when I thought it was clear and I let Josephine out, she went straight to that garage corner and started barking her little head off. Getting them out of the garage was not easy. I had to wake up Michael, but did manage to spook one of them out by opening the garage door. The second one, the one who was all “you sure I have to go?”, that one had to be shot four times with the garden hose before agreeing to leave the garage. I guess I kind of feel some relief now that I know what has been coming into the house. They’ve been really nice and polite for raccoons. They haven’t gotten into the garbage or tried opening the fridge. They haven’t pooped in the house. Really, the only evidence they leave behind is an empty cat food bowl. The one I had a conversation with is actually really cute.

EXCEPT THEY ARE WILD ANIMALS!

We’re back to square one, spraying the yard with fox urine and setting the trap. We caught a possum in that trap last nigh/this morning. I have an unopened Costco sized container of fox pee crystals and my next plan of attack is to leave large piles of it around all of the doors. I’m waiting to do this until the night before we leave for vacation to maximize the repellent. If this doesn’t work, well…I guess we have new pets.

Maybe I’ll call them Flim and Flam.

THEY'RE BACK

Sunday morning, after being gently nudged many times by Josephine, I got up and headed to the kitchen to make us both breakfast. When I stepped into the kitchen, I noticed the bag of cat food was sitting on it’s side near the pet door with a large hole chewed into it. I realized then that this is why Josephine had been nudging me for the last hour. I shouldn’t have been surprised. A week or two ago, Josephine treed a raccoon in our backyard. It was an early morning, still dark out, and I was getting dressed to take her for a walk. I could hear her barking her head off while I tied my laces. I walked out with a flashlight to see what she was barking at and there it was, a raccoon nervously staring back at me from its perch in the tree. I looked down at Josephine and said “Yup, there’s a raccoon. Now are you ready for your walk?” She happily abandoned her guard post for our walk because walks are her favorite. And she’s smart enough to know there’s nothing she could do about the raccoon.

I wish I was smart enough to know this.

I sprayed all of our pet doors with fox urine. The cat food has a new home behind a closed door. Michael set his trap and baited it with marshmallows. I used most of what we had left of our little spray bottle of fox urine, so I ordered more from Amazon. Since Amazon is what it is, when I searched for fox urine, it suggested I buy spray and granules. First, I should tell you that two days ago I ordered stamps from Amazon because I can’t seem to physically get to a place that sells stamps. Those stamps are scheduled to arrive Thursday. The box of fox urine spray and granules arrived this morning. Overnight. It was almost as if Amazon was saying “I see that you need to mail a card to your mother for Mothers’ Day. That’s nice, but it seems like this whole need for fox pee is an emergency situation.”

Is it an emergency situation? Yes and no.

Early this morning, Josephine demanded to be let out. Her barks shifted from warning barks to fighting snarling sounds before I could get my shoes on. By the time I got out there she was in a full on tussle with a raccoon and I think the only thing keeping her from damage or causing too much damage was me yelling her name. She let go just long enough for the raccoon to dart away and over the fence. I checked her over and there doesn’t appear to be any scratches, but the incident left us both a little shaky. There is going to be at least one week this summer where we will have no choice but to leave the pet doors open for the cat. Why I care about that dang animal, I don’t know. I took a lovely nap on Saturday. A nap! Me! I napped! It was a miracle. I woke up refreshed with a dog on one side and a cat on the other. I laid there a few more minutes and then the cat stood up and projectile vomited across my bed. It’s fine. I was going to wash all of those things anyway, but seriously. The cat is a jerk, a jerk that we have conditioned to eat from his bowl on a table in the dining room area. Not the basement. Not the garage. Though moving his food to those areas just means the raccoons are going to eat the food in the garage or basement. We’re going to come home from vacation and Albus will now be sharing his space with a couple of stray cats and three raccoons. They’ll be playing poker and smoking cigars in my basement.

Summer vacations are stressing me out.

Except it is obvious that I need a vacation. I saw a thumbnail image of an ad in my Facebook feed and at first glance I thought it was an ad for a deep learning cell tracker program. It was an ad for tile for a bathroom. Look, if you’re a cell biologist, you would have thought the same thing. Any way. All I can do now is make the whole outside of my house reek of fox urine and hope for the best. I was going to say that I should be like Josephine and happily abandon my post for vacations because vacations are my favorite, but now I know that Josephine doesn’t always abandon a post and go on to full attack mode. Maybe it’s really about just deciding what battles to fight.

So I’m settling on being somewhere between abandonment and fighting.

THE SECRET LIFE OF ALBUS THE CAT

Albus tends to shy away from strangers. He will walk through the pet door, through the kitchen and turn the corner into the living room. If he sees unfamiliar faces, that means six more weeks of winter. If our visitors have dogs with them, we won’t see Albus for the remainder of their visit. That is why I was surprised to see him stretched out on my bed Saturday night when Chad and Jess were here. Albus’s ear had a cut that was actively bleeding and a scratch over one eye. This is typical. We’ve seen this before on him. Michael went to move Albus from the bed so I could go to sleep, but I stopped him. “No, let him stay in here with me and Josephine tonight.”

Usually, this is a big no. I will say that Josephine and the cat do less arguing about who is going to sleep where these days, but two pets in the bed is bit much for me. I always wake up in the middle of the night, sweating because one of them is pressed the length of their body to my right side and the other has pressed the length of their body to my left. Which is exactly what happened on this night. Nothing unusual. The next day, I saw Albus laying in various places around the house. This too is normal. At bedtime the next evening, I noticed Albus curled up in the dog crate that is in my room. This is also normal. The crate is right next to a heater vent. This time, Michael put his foot down and went to remove the cat from the crate, but when Albus got up, we could see that he was walking with a serious limp.

Michael did a thorough check and nothing seemed broken or out of place. Albus was able to hop up to his food. He could hobble out side. The next day, he had even hobbled down to the basement. Monday evening, he hobbled over and got into my lap. I gently petted his head and asked him a string of questions that I wish he could answer. “Were you hit by a car?” “Were you attacked by a coyote?” “Was it an altercation with a raccoon?” “Can you tell us what happened to you?” He blinked and continued to purr, refusing to answer. When I moved the fur around on the back of his neck, I could see scratches. He acts like none of it bothers him, yet I have fretted over that dummy for days. I hate the not knowing, but I’m pretty convinced he was in an altercation with a big dog. I can imagine the wounds on the back of his neck was from being shook like a rag doll.

This morning, Albus was barely walking with a limp. He’s much improved. He was sitting in the kitchen looking pretty smug, watching me put away dishes. I looked down at him and asked “Are you plotting your revenge?” He yawned and swished his tail to the side. I’m pretty sure that means he is definitely plotting something.

HERE'S WHAT HAPPENED

Good morning

17 Likes, 4 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "Good morning"

Early Friday morning, I finished up my yoga practice by settling down for ten minutes of my version of a meditation. My version of meditation looks something like this. I sit on the floor cross legged, a blanket wrapped around my shoulders and a dog in my lap. The dog is situated so that I have full access to her belly, which I rub with one hand. The other hand holds a hot cup of water with lemon and honey. I sip the hot liquid while I scratch the dog’s belly. I believe this is the fastest and best method for reaching enlightenment. So, this is where Josephine and I are when then cat saunters in. He looks at us and says “meow” in his quiet cat voice. The translation is “what are you guys doing? I want in on that.”

I know. The word ‘meow’ says a lot.

Albus strolls over and rubs his head on the back of my hand, the one holding the mug. I set the mug aside and then rub his head while scratching Josephine’s belly. It’s just like patting your head with one hand while rubbing your belly in circles with the other. The meditation timer goes off and we get up, slightly groggy from our brief encounter with enlightenment. I roll up my mat and then head to the shower. I notice the cat is still in the house as I step out of the shower. He slides his body on the door way leading out to the living room. I think he’s trying to get Josephine’s attention. The cat doesn’t eat unless Josephine is standing nearby to pick up the food pieces he slings to the floor. I listen to the sound of Josephine’s nails as she scrambles under a cart in the kitchen in an attempt to reach a morsel of cat food. I finish my bathroom routine and go to my room to get dressed. I pause before putting on my socks and shoes to make sure Michael is moving.

Once I’m dressed, I go to the kitchen to make breakfast. Avocado, homemade sausage patty and an egg for him. A pancake for me. I set Michael’s plate of food on the kitchen table and I’m fishing out our daily dose of supplements when I hear the cat come in through the dog door. I can tell instantly that he’s not alone. I can hear a shrieking sound and a thump thump of flapping. Then Albus walks into my view and I see he’s got a live bird in his mouth. I freeze and then say “no. Take it outside.” But the cat is a jerk and wants to argue about it. He opens his mouth to reply and the bird takes his moment to save his own life. He flies frantically around the dining room and kitchen, banging into walls and cabinet doors. I duck and crouch over Michael’s breakfast to protect it. Feathers are flying everywhere before the bird finally settles himself on one of the blades to the ceiling fan. 

 I hear Michael from the other room say “let me get some pants on.” He said this without having witnessed the bird drop or me saying anything. He just knows there’s a live wild animal loose somewhere in the house and the reality is this has become our norm. Michael comes out and put the dog in her crate. Then he kicks the cat out. I cover food to keep feathers out of our breakfast while Michael props open the front door. It takes three attempts but that bird finally flies out the front door to freedom. I let the dog out of her crate and we sit down to breakfast as if nothing has happened. Later, what even seemed like days later but in actuality was just later that same day, Michael commented about the picture I had posted of the bird sitting on the ceiling fan. “The picture isn’t great, not one of your best. I mean there was no way to take it without the ceiling fan light getting in the way. But this picture is what makes you a photographer and not just someone with a camera. In that moment your thought was not ‘oh my god there’s a bird in the house.’ Your thought was ‘oh my god there’s a bird in the house and I have to take a picture of it!’”

 I am not convinced I’m not just a product of a share everything generation. 

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Blanket and snuggle weather

8 Likes, 2 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "Blanket and snuggle weather"

Every morning this week, my alarm has gone off at 4:50 AM and I have crawled out from under my heated blankets. I have pulled on my thermal leggings and long-sleeved T. I have unrolled my yoga mat and I have spent an hour in practice. I do not adjust the thermostat and the house is chilly, but I move my body through rounds of sun salutations to warm myself up. Often, Josephine comes back in from doing her thing outside and climbs back under the covers of my bed. She has a new haircut and she probably needs a sweater. She rolls herself up in my comforter like a burrito. It is only near the end of my practice, when I am settling down into a ten minute meditation, when I hear her jump from the bed and run into the living room to find me. Then she climbs into my lap and curls up like a ball. Instead of counting through a mantra, I scratch the dog.

I call it puppy meditation and I think I’m on to something. Like, move over goat yoga. Puppy meditation is taking a seat.

There have been plenty of scientific studies describing the health benefits of caring for and owning a pet. One study gave a group of people a rabbit or a turtle or a stuffed toy that matched one of those two things and then measured anxiety levels. Anxiety levels were lower for people who were petting the live animal. Even if it was a turtle. A review paper submitted to BMC Psychiatry found the current pile of scientific papers out there regarding pet ownership and mental health to be accurate in showing that:

‘pets provide benefits to those with mental health conditions through the intensity of connectivity with their owners and the contribution they make to emotional support in times of crises together with their ability to help manage symptoms when they arise.’

Even if it is a turtle.

There are lots of meditation techniques. Walking. Candle gazing. Chanting. Mindfully petting a dog fits right in. It’s a really nice way to start out the day. Every one is happier. Me. Josephine. Albus not so much. He curls up on the bathroom floor and gives us the side eye. But I bet if you had a nicer cat, you could have kitty meditation. Even turtle meditation.

I am thankful for puppy meditation. I am thankful for my puppy.

P.S. I bought Josephine an advent calendar. Michael incredulously said “You bought the dog an advent calendar?!” Then I told him why I bought the dog an advent calendar. Every time I get us one, the candy is terrible and there’s lots of complaining about who has to open it and eat it. Josephine’s little nubby tail is going to wag so hard that it’s going to make her whole body wiggle with excitement every time we open a day on the advent. We could be opening garbage and she would do all of her tricks. If anybody is going to gain joy out of a daily advent calendar, it’s going to be Josephine.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Snow

"Snow"

Albus does this thing around 2:30 in the morning where he sits outside my door and starts meowing like the most heartbroken meow. Of course this wakes up me and Josephine, who is all "hey! the chew toy is awake!" Then Josephine thinks she needs to go outside. So I get up and let Josephine out and the cat comes in and begins to attack me with love and wet kisses that end with a bite on my knuckles. Then Josephine will come back in and the two of them will start mauling each other until I say "ENOUGH!" and kick the cat out. Sometimes they calm down and the both of them settle back into sleep at the end of the bed. Those are moment when I'm all "oh, my animals are so sweet and loving." even though they've interrupted dreams. 

Thursday morning like clock work, Albus shows up caterwauling. I repeat the routine of opening the door and letting the dog out and the cat in. Things proceed as normal. I vaguely remember hearing a weird sound when the two of them where tossing each other around at the end of the bed, but sleep walking investigation is not really my thing. I rolled over and ignored it. Eventually, the cat got kicked out any way. When the alarm went off, I got up and flipped on the light to find vomit on the end of the bed all over my expensive, dry-clean only, wool, Ireland blanket. I can't have nice things. I cleaned up the vomit assuming it was Josephine's. We'd given her a filled hoof the other day and I didn't really investigate what that hoof was filled with. Josephine has been obsessed with that thing ever since we gave it to her. It's empty, but she drags it around with her every where. I woke up with it next to me in bed one morning. It was like waking up to that horse head from the Godfather, except more pointy and less squishy. Any way, the blanket will have to go to the cleaner's and my comforter went into the washing machine. I was putting my comforter into the washer when I noticed another pile of vomit in the basement. Albus was the puker. That mouse head he ate the other day must not have settled well with him. The idea of it sure hasn't settled well with me. Animals are gross. There are muddy paw prints of evidence every where. 

Wait! It gets better. I got to work and it started snowing. Like someone shook up a snow globe kind of snowing. Big fat wet flakes came raining down all blizzard style and tears welled up in my eyes. Then I pulled out my phone and started taking pictures of it. This action did not bring out the sun, but it did dry up my tears. Wait! Just wait! It gets even better. I went to the dentist to have a temporary inlay taken out and a permanent inlay put in. I asked if we could try doing this without numbing my face because I feel like a numb face is worse than the actual procedure. The hygienist said "let's give it a try!" She said they could numb me if it gets too uncomfortable, but it never did and I left the dentist's office feeling like I could lift cars. I spent the rest of my day feeling like I should be walking around karate chopping things. I told you things got better! My day started with cat vomit, but ended with high fives all around. So today, I am thankful for days that may start out sour but end up sweet.

Oh. Hold up. I wrote all of that yesterday before the cat brought a live rat into the house. Michael and I were having a relaxing evening on the couch when I saw the cat streak across the dining room and dive under my desk. He came out from under the desk with something large and furry in his mouth that went "eek". Of course when Michael jumped up to do something, the cat dropped the rat. So the dog and the cat where corralling a rat under the kitchen table until Michael could get something to trap the rat. I peeped out from under the blanket I was hiding under just in time to see Michael beat the rat half to death with the broom. We cleaned up the carnage and then the cat laid down in the middle of the floor all smug with blood on his face. He worked really hard at earning his asshole badge yesterday. But I am thankful that Albus got the rat because rats will mess with chickens. So, hey! High fives all around!

I am thankful for the tulips that have started popping up around here. I am thankful for a phone call with a friend that made me laugh so hard I couldn't breathe for a minute. I am thankful for all the steps taken and all the time on my mat. I am thankful for eggs. We have lots of eggs and they will all be deviled for Terry's Easter Extravaganza. I am thankful for this Good Friday that marks the beginning of Michael's Spring Break. He really needs the break. This week was one where we were two ships constantly passing each other. Monday evening was the most time we've spent together all week. So I have taken today off so we can spend time together... cleaning out the basement! Cat vomit and all! 

Hope you have an egg colored weekend and a fantastically good and Thankful Friday!