Friday cat blogging

Long time readers here may remember that in late fall 2019, our old, tired and beloved cat, Morty, survived a cross-country drive with us for a sojourn here in the country on Martha's Vineyard island. Unhappily, Morty slipped out of a slightly open door unnoticed and simply disappeared. We assumed he'd gotten lost in this foreign-to-him environment and could not have survived, despite our desperate efforts to find him. We mourned.

And then one night a magical friend came running in clutching a dirty gray ball of fur -- "is this Morty?" Indeed it was, and more or less alive. For the better part of a month, we nursed him. We re-hydrated him subcuataneously several times a day. Erudite Partner squirted ground up medicine and baby food into his mouth. He slept beside us. 

By the time in December we were ready to drive back across the country, he had perked up, though he still needed some care. So off we all went. He did well riding on the non-driver's lap. When we got home to San Francisco, he settled in. But by early in the 2020 pandemic lockdown, it was clear he was leaving this world. He died in late April.

Erudite Partner's step sister memorialized Morty here in this Vineyard house with this needlepoint pillow. He liked tulips -- especially to snack on. He was a special cat.

Friday cat blogging

Morty is no more.

Over the last couple of weeks, his multiple infirmities seemed to compound and he withered away. When he could no longer walk nor eat, we accepted it was time to let him go. He lived eight good, affectionate, years with us -- and we reciprocated.

Thanks to the SPCA for their kindness to us in this necessary passage. We are heart-broken.

Friday cat blogging will be on hiatus for awhile.

Friday cat blogging

Morty found a sunbeam -- and a lap to go with it. He is not as much of a help as he seems to assume.

Friday cat blogging

Morty just wants to sit in his sunbeam. But the sight drives Carly to distraction. Since the dog is not getting out to walk, she gets her exercise by running up the back steps and banging into the glass door, trying to reach that cat. Morty remains oblivious.

Friday cat blogging from lockdown

We're all in here together. Morty can look out the window. Virus or no virus, we wouldn't let him out anyway, but he can hope for a sunbeam.

Friday cat blogging

Morty is not feeling so well these days. He is an old guy with aches and a nasal tumor. He spends a lot of time in his house, looking out warily lest I approach with his blood pressure pill. He knows about lockdown. All his life we've been insisting: "cats don't go out!"

Friday cat blogging

Morty found a sun beam in this unseasonable summer weather Northern California is enjoying.

Friday cat blogging

Morty turns away disdainfully from tormenting Carly the playful pit bull. No, he's not going out to play. I have no notion what would happen if they could get at each other and don't intend to find out.

Friday cat blogging

There he sits, giving us a look. What a lovely fellow!

Friday cat blogging

While we were away, nursing the sickly Morty, one of E.P.'s wise knitting friends sent an admonition: "The people usually give up before the cat."

When Morty neglected/refused to eat or drink for nearly a month, we took this to heart, pledging to each other that we wouldn't give up. E.P. force fed him vitamin-enriched prescription food through a plastic syringe multiple times as day. We punctured his lose skin and dripped electrolytes into him every day. And, as he retreated under the covers of our bed, we kept telling him: "You have to eat." "You have to drink for yourself."

And, finally, he did! The home-again Mort has now returned to his food bowls and his water fountain was if nothing had ever kept him away.
Unless he does something unbearably cute, I think I'll give Morty a break from cat blogging for awhile. We all need a rest from feline obsession.

Friday cat blogging

After all his adventures, Morty sleeps today in his house in San Francisco, seeming not so different from the cat who crossed the country so unhappily. A little thinner after his nine days in the wild and his weeks of forced feeding and subcutaneous hydration. On the return trip, he rode on our laps in the front seat, never really trying to get under the pedals as we feared. He's a tough old guy.

And we're tough old girls, though slammed by a horrible cold since about Illinois and still hacking monstrously. This too will pass. We're emulating the sleeping Morty as much as we can.

On the road: laying over in Albuquerque

Morty doesn't seem disturbed that we've been felled by a rhinovirus. He eats and sleeps and we will too for another fuzzy-brain sick day. Off again soon enough.

On the road: from Vandalia, Illinois

I was going to use Mr. Google to find out how Vandalia got its interesting name, but it turns out sources are uncertain.

Different theories can be found in almost all of the books written about Vandalia over the years. In her book Vandalia: Wilderness Capital of Lincoln's Land, Mary Burtschi tells of a conversation between one of the original surveyors of the town and a Vandalia resident. The surveyor, Colonel Greenup, explained that Van was suggested by one of the men. He recommended this as an abbreviation to the word vanguard meaning the forefront of an advancing movement. Another suggestion was made for the term dalia, derived from the Anglo-Saxon word dale which means a valley between hills. Greenup takes credit in the conversation for connecting the two terms to form the name Vandalia.

Another possible source of the name is the Vandalia colony, a failed attempt to establish a fourteenth colony in part of what is now West Virginia and Kentucky. The Vandalia colony was named in honor of Queen Charlotte, who claimed descent from the Wendish tribe of Obodrites, also called the Vandals.

Another theory put forth is that Vandalia was named by those who located the state capital in the town; according to the story, they mistakenly thought the Vandals were a brave Native American tribe, rather than of Germanic origins.

Wikipedia

The town was the capital of the state of Illinois for 20 years from 1819 to 1839 -- Abraham Lincoln served as a legislator here and apparently played a role in moving the government center away, to Springfield.

Vandalia feels forlorn to this day, but what do I know.

We stopped at a Love's truck stop on the way here and returned to the car to find Morty exploring the dashboard.

On the road again

From Youngstown, OH:

The E.P. and I, along with the revitalized Morty, are driving cross-country again. Morty appears to be having bad memories of riding in Wowser.

A difference is this time is that he is allowed to ride on the lap of the one of us who is not driving. It doesn't look as if he takes very kindly to that either, though it's got to be less lonely than being locked in the back.

Meanwhile, the weather is doing what the weather does in December. Lovely ... but means driving requires complete attention.

Blogging along the way will be sporadic.

Friday cat blogging

To see Morty on his bed by the wood stove, you'd hardly know that he'd been a patient in our amateur cat hospital for the last two months. Force feeding and watering have helped him restore himself to a less hefty version the pre-adventuring Morty.

He's looking and acting pretty normal for an old feline. Let's hope he's built up enough reserves to endure another car trip across the country when we set off for home next week.

Friday cat blogging

For all his fans: Morty hangs on as best his aged digestive system and traumatized psyche will allow. We describe him as engaging in more and more "cat-like" behavior -- climbing up and down stairs, demanding laps, etc -- while still requiring a lot of assistance to get calories and water down him. We think he's a well cared for animal and we suspect when he's not fighting invasive treatment, he might agree. And its good to find him protesting ...

Friday cat blogging

I've been hesitant to report about the Morty's condition. He's very up and down. Last week he had a day of vomiting and inappropriate elimination and we thought he was a goner.

Since then, he's taken to (very) moderate self-feeding and drinking, which we continue to support with subcutaneous hydration and vitamin enriched cat food pushed into him. Left to himself, he seems to prefer dry crunchies to any of the good stuff. There's no accounting for cats.

Meanwhile, sometimes he wanders about exploring his still unfamiliar environment. Here he contemplates the scene of his escape back in September. We remind him firmly, "cats don't go out."

But mostly, Morty does what many an animal would prefer as the autumn dark and cold close in: he takes to the bed (ours, naturally).

Friday cat blogging

Perhaps this should be dispatches from the cat hospital. Morty endures -- ambulatory, digestive functions apparently working, affectionate when awake -- but neither eating nor drinking on his own. The blood work from the vet suggests no obvious impairment, except low potassium. We're fairly successfully feeding and hydrating him. He's not gaining weight, but he's not losing. We continue ... he continues.

Here he grooms EP. What could be more cat like?

Friday cat blogging

Morty looks a little annoyed, doesn't he? Not too surprising. At the direction of his vet, we're trying to help him recover from the shock of his nine-day adventure in out-of-doors. He gets daily subcutaneous hydration (I've spared you a picture of the needle) and daily administrations of high vitamin cat food by mouth via a sort of huge syringe. Erudite Partner is becoming an adept amateur vet technician. In between feedings, he sleeps. And at night he snuggles up against us, brushes his whiskers against our faces, and generally is the same old Morty.

We can't discern whether we're running a cat hospital or a cat hospice. This animal's state has been known to turn on a dime before. What will be will be.

Excellent food for a cat

On Thursday I had a new experience: I went shopping for baby food. Since Morty's escapade in the wilds, he has been off his feed, sometimes going a couple of days without discernibly eating. His vet and our friends suggested we try feeding him pureed turkey baby food. Some cats think it is yummy.

So there I am in a super market and I can't find the stuff. I'm looking for rows of little glass jars. Isn't that what baby food looks like?

Stupid me. Laura Reiley explains that my expectations are absurdly out of date.

There’s been a boom in unhealthy foods and beverages for children six months to 3 years old, packaged for convenience and often promising to make children stronger and smarter.

Dietary supplements said to boost the immune system. Squeezy pouches boasting 3 grams of protein and 3 grams of fiber. Oven-baked stone-ground wheat “wafflez,” superfood puffs and a baffling array of toddler milks purported to aid brain and eye development.

... “Americans are snackers,” said Mary Story, a professor of global health, family medicine and community health at Duke’s Global Health Institute. “And the food industry is always looking for novel ways to market their products and increase demand.”

... For a scientific report for the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, her team found that 29 percent of toddlers’ calories were coming from snacks, most of which were salty or sweetened processed foods, not fruits and vegetables.

It's not hard to be suspicious about what this will do to these kids later in their lives.

Anyway, I didn't identify the bright colored plastic packets as baby food. They look like snacks -- and maybe nutritionally they are.

But I did find, way at the back of the shelf, out of sight, the last jar of the kind of baby food I was looking for. Morty will grudgingly lick up a bit of it; it passes the feline test.