While I was away at World Fantasy, I got the following email from Rob:

I took Marlowe in first thing this morning to Fremont Vet. The tissue surrounding his eye is very swollen but they eye itself does not appear damaged. He is running a slight fever. The vet asked if our cats have been fighting. It is possible but I didn’t witness any altercations. She found no evidence of injury so the likely cause is a severe herpes infection induced by stress and exposure to Hariet, or perhaps an infection contracted from his night in the hospital. They gave him an antibiotic shot and a prescription for topical salve. If the inflammation is not reduced in two days I am to take him back in.

He is active, has good appetite, and appears to be annoyed but not distressed. Luckily I’ll be home to keep an eye on him until you return.

That’s it from the Sandycrest feline ward.

Apparently, he downplayed that. When I got home, Rob said that Marlowe’s eye was so swollen it looked like he’d been in a boxing bout. So, while I was having fun in San Jose, Rob dutifully put ointment on Marlowe’s eye twice a day for a week. The swelling went down, we were relieved.

And then Marlowe started sneezing and both eyes were oozing white goo. We gave him a couple of days, hoping it would clear up. Alas. No.

So, back to the vet with the poor guy. This time we took Harriet along to get her shots. Marlowe is a perfect gentleman and very stoic at the vets. Harriet? Not so much. She literally climbed me.

The vet examined his eyes and said that it’s likely chlamydia picked up from Harriet. So Marlowe is on a new course of eye salve and oral medications for another week. Poor guy. If he were human having herpes or chlamydia would have meant he’d at least have had some fun first. In cats its just an unpleasant cold.

Harriet meanwhile, aside from a mild digestive issue, is perfectly healthy. Rob and I are considering renaming Harriet to “Vector.”

I spent today looking at support materials for a grants panel I’m sitting on tomorrow.  In many ways, it’s like reading slush but generally better written.  Or at least shorter. Tomorrow, I’ll spend locked in a room with other panelists talking through each submission which should be interesting. I’m sure there are going to be things that all of us likes and things that only one of us likes and the other folks think is insane.

Makes me miss being on the Shimmer editorial board, it does.

In cat news, Marlowe seems fine although we are still on the lookout for “poop on a rope.”  He does, however, hide under the bed every time I put my shoes on. Poor guy.

Here’s where we stand with Marlowe. I took him back in for another x-ray at 4:00 and Dr. Sutton said that she thought there was still foreign matter in there. He also had some gas in intestines that he didn’t have before which could just be gas or could be trouble. Faced with a choice of admitting him right away or bringing him home until we heard from the radiologist, I opted to bring him home.

When Dr. Sutton called later it was to say that the radiologist definitely thought there was a linear obstruction and swelling in the small intestine. Surgery is now back on the list of possibilities.

Meanwhile, Marlowe seems totally fine. He’s eating well, drinking water, wearing his helmet of invisibility, and otherwise behaving as if he doesn’t have two feet of string inside him.

The plan now is for him to stay home with us until nine or ten tonight and then go to the vets for overnight observation. If it’s warranted they’ll do another x-ray to see where things stand. And then, if we need to, surgery.

He’d be in for couple of days and on pain meds when we brought him him. Probably with a cone. I am devoutly hoping he’ll just pass the darn thing.

String has long been one of Marlowe’s favorite things to chase. When Harriet came into our lives, we introduced her to string as well, which she thought was the best thing ever.  Now, Harriet has this funny habit of picking her toys up and walking around the apartment with them.  With the string, she’d trail this long end of it, which Marlowe would chase.

Hillarious and adorable.  Sometimes they would play tug-of-war.

But because I know the dangers of cats eating string, I always put it away when they weren’t supervised.  Until last night.

The cats were happily playing. I was helping Rob in the kitchen with dishes and Harriet walked in to complain, without her string.  So far, this has mean, “The string is inanimate again! Make it move!”

So I went into the living room. No string.  Marlowe was curled up on the couch looking innocent.  I wandered through the rest of the apartment. No string. I said, “You’d better not have eaten that.”

But I wasn’t really worried because neither cat had shown any interest in gnoshing on it and they lose toys all the time. I mean I was worried enough that I repeated to Rob, “I hope one of the cats didn’t eat it.”

So this morning, we got up, fed the kitties and about fifteen minutes later Marlowe vomited explosively. Oh look. There’s the string. Or… about half of it.  So I called the vet and we trotted off to the SE Portland Animal Hospital, which saw us right way.  The whole time, I was thinking of Cherie Priest’s cat, Spain, who had an episode with a hair tie and wound up needing surgery.  Much, much cursing was going on inside my head, because I know better than to let a cat have string. I know what it can do to their insides.

They’ve done x-rays of him, which I get to show you, and everything looks fine.

They’ve hydrated him and we’ve got him on a stool softener, hoping that he’ll pass the rest of the string with no problems. Apparently inducing vomiting in cats is not as safe as it is for dogs. We had the choice of hospitalizing him or bringing him home and since he seems fine at the moment, we’ve brought him home.

The really amazing thing? When we got Harriet, she came with pet health insurance. After her first vet visit, in which she had a couple of minor issues, I decided to extend the insurance and to add Marlowe. So this whole vet trip? Covered under “ingested foreign object.”

Ironic, eh? The cats have insurance, but the people don’t. Of course, we don’t eat string.

Edited to add: The vet just called and after the radiologist reviewed the x-rays they think there might be an obstruction in the small intestine. We are taking Marlowe back in for a review at 4:00.

Yesterday was the first coldish day since we moved in and I’m impressed by how quickly the apartment loses all its heat through the large, gorgeous and single-glazed windows. The desk which I am so happy to have next to a window is, in fact, quite chilly.

There are storm window frames outside and some storm windows in the basement. I’m hoping that they’ll actually put them up.

Meanwhile the cats are starting to settle in to each other’s presence. Harriet is very interesting in how she plays. When I pull out a string or stick, she’s quite slow in batting at it. I finally realized that if she lived with 21 other cats in a single room that she probably didn’t ever play with a human. On the other hand, give her a toy mouse and she can amuse herself for big chunks of time.

The other thing, and this is actually a problem, is that if I give Marlowe any attention, Harriet comes over and pushes her way in between us. It’s clear that she is used to having to compete for attention and Marlowe is such a wimp that he runs away. Retraining her to share the human will take awhile.

We also had a vet trip today. She’s got some digestive issue going on (which is very stinky) and an ear infection.  Thank heavens she comes with insurance.  Let’s just hope it’s better than Rob’s…

We settled on Harriet, because it does work well with her elegance and curiosity.  As she settles in, she’s become less stridently chatty and clingy and is proving herself to be quite bright. Re-educating her that the litterbox was not a playground involved saying “No” and offering her another toy.   Since then, she’s been quite ladylike.

I am, however, amused to realize that we’ve got two cats with detective names. Harriet Vane and Phillip Marlowe.  Granted, our Marlowe is named after the playwright, but still the unintentional pairing cracks me up.  As a friend commented, it’s like a cat detective noir story.

If this were fiction, I’d have to change one of them or make it totally deliberate.  Thank god I can have joke names in real life.

We have introduced the two cats to each other. Aside from an initial concern on Marlowe’s part that the new kitty would EAT HIM ALIVE, the introduction was remarkable trauma free.

We also read more on her paperwork.  The cats had a room of their own, so I suspect that one of the reasons she’s so chatty and affectionate was that it was the only way to get attention when their owner came in.

So far the only strike against her is that she likes to play in the kitty litter. The springy, playful action would be adorable if it weren’t in the litter box. The process of teaching her that this is not okay, without making her afraid of the litter box, will be slow.

We are toying with the names Harriet or Hattie for her.  We like the name Harriet, because of Harriet Vane, but our lady is very chatty and extremely affectionate, not at all aloof as Miss Vane could be.  Hattie is a nickname for Harriet and reminds Rob of Hilo Hattie.  Neither name seems quite right, though Hattie is close.

Basically we’re trying names until one of them sticks.  Yes, you may play the name the kitty game too if you want, just know that we lean toward literary names.

Marlowe is named after Christopher Marlowe, who went by Kit. Get it? Kit-ten Marlowe? Sigh…

Maggie was named after The Cat on the Hot Tin Roof.

Before that I had Pixel, from Heinlein’s The Cat Who Walked Through Walls.

Rob also feels that it should be two syllables because that’s easier to yell when the cat gets on the counter.

Since Maggie passed away we’ve noticed that Marlowe is needy and bored. Yes, even with the move. So we’d been talking about getting another cat. Today we went up to the human society and looked at two very sweet kitties.  We probably would have looked at more but the decision was already hard.

We’ve brought home a very sweet six-year old lady with a brown tabby coat and pale, pale yellow eyes.  My god, is she affectionate.  The biggest problem right now is the strength of her headbutts of love.

Initially we’ll keep Marlowe and New Kitty separated until she’s acclimated a little.  She comes from a house with 35 other cats.  Yes. You read that right.  Thirty-five cats.  One litter box.  We hope this means she’ll adapt well to Marlowe.  He, meanwhile is wildly curious about what is happening in the bedroom.

She’s curled up on my lap right now purring away.  We might have to have a discussion about where my lap ends and where the laptop begins but at the moment we’re both content in the sun.

For those of you who love kitty photos, there are a half dozen or so at Picasa.

New Kitty

Unexpected benefits to the new apartment are…unexpected.  The drain in the kitchen sink had a little bit of a drip, so I turned in a maintenance request in the evening and the next morning, the maintenance guy turned up to do the repair. Like magic!

And then, as he was leaving, he said, “Hey, turn in a request for those cabinets and I’ll come back and fix them.”

I looked baffled and he said, “You want them to latch, right?”

I’ve lived in vintage buildings for so long that I’m sort of used to cabinets that close imperfectly. The notion of having a handy-man notice and then offer to come back and fix them for me is a luxury that was unlooked for.

Other benefit.  The post office is four blocks away from the apartment complex.  Manuscript submission just got a whole lot easier.

And now, here are some carefully cropped photos of the bedroom.  Carefully cropped so you can’t see the pile o’ boxes over in the right hand corner.  Hey. We’ve only been here a week, so it’s amazing that we’ve come this far.

As you’ll notice, we’ve not yet unpacked the artwork.  The room itself is actually quite bright, but because of the sunny courtyard outside the window, I had to turn on the bedside lamp to make the camera happy.  The bed is one that Rob picked up in Hawaii. It’s missing some pieces and so required a little bit of assembly. Our NYC solution wasn’t as stable as this seems to be. I’m also very fond of the afghan on the bed. SF writer, Laurel Amberdine, made it as a present for my 40th birthday.

But what really makes the bedroom, indeed all of the rooms here, is the view out the window. This is what it looks like when you are sitting on the bed.  I can’t wait until spring when that apple tree outside my window is in bloom.

The only apparent downside to all the green involved landscapers with power tools at 8 am, but I don’t get the sense that it will happen every morning.  Actually, it was pretty funny. I was up at 6 for some reason and sitting at my desk writing.  This guy with a rake walks past.  I thought. Hm. Me. Window. Bathrobe. Perhaps I should get dressed.  When I came back, he had just spotted Marlowe.

His face lit up and he approached the window like he was going to talk to the cat.  Marlowe totally freaked. It was as if someone on television had suddenly turned to address you.

We are still unpacking, but are into the art and ephemera boxes now. This is my favorite label.

The TARDIS and books were fine. The cloth napkins are horribly wrinkled.

I have to say that my desk situation is vastly superior in the new apartment to either the old apartment or even the house.  I’m right by one of the windows.  Marlowe uses me as the highway to get to his window seat.  He looooves the windows, here.

I can’t blame him.  There’s nothing like sitting at the desk, having granola with  Sauvie’s Island blackberries for breakfast while staring at all the greenery outside the window to make one think that moving was the right choice.  I just feel so much more relaxed here.  Granted, I’m not working on any shows at the moment, so sleep deprivation isn’t currently a part of my life.

Meanwhile, let’s orient you a little about the apartment.

The apartments were built in 1945 and are pretty intelligently laid out, though not for a world where telecommuting was a large part of life.  We’ve adapted Dining Room (D.R) to be a dual office. Rob and I have our desks back to back and I sit on the kitchen side.

The kitchen is the smallest I’ve had, but pretty well laid out for all of that. My biggest challenge will be pantry space. It’s actually nice, in an odd sort of way, to be forced to consider if we really need things.  There are a number of things, like the 1930s toaster that belonged to my grandmother, which I love but don’t need. We almost never use it, so it is going into a box and down to the basement.

This is the view from the kitchen sink window.  Pretty amazing, eh?  What’s remarkable is how much this feels like a private yard, rather than part of a complex. The designer did a really good job with the layout. We also don’t have any common walls with our neighbors, except right at the end of the kitchen.

I’m not sure what it will actually be like to cook here because, alas, the gas company won’t come until the 16th so I won’t do any serious work in there until then.  It gets crazy amounts of light and the morning sun comes straight in the window.

The downsides? The floorspace is not much wider than the doorframe. The refrigerator and stove are to the right of the picture, along with a single bizarrely deep cabinet.

There’s also only one outlet waaaay down next to the door. That’s where Rob’s espresso machine lives.  Technically, there is also one behind the refrigerator, and we’ve plugged a power strip into it, but I won’t need a lot of power on that side of the kitchen.  I foresee an extension cord in my life.

As the rest of the apartment comes together, I’ll post pictures of it.

Rob had picked up a flat of wheat grass for the cats, which they loved, and at some point he set it outside to get some sun. Naturally, it rained, so he had to leave it out to drain.

Before he brought it back in, a pair of pigeons nested in it. Rob said that they visited several times before settling in. He could almost imagine them going back and forth “Cheap rent, but not much of a view.”

“Yes dear, but it’s furnished. Look at this wall to wall carpeting.”

So, that’s mama pigeon sitting on her eggs. She has two.

Here’s baby. Baby pigeons are one of the ugliest things I’ve ever seen in my life. And this photo is a couple of days after it’s feathers have started to puff. When they are just out of the egg, it’s all reddish skin and what looks like white bristle.

You see that the rains have pounded the pigeon’s lovely carpet into a hard cake of mud. I know they are pigeons, but still, you gotta feel bad for them. They thought they had a great deal worked out, and then wham, the apartment floods and the landlord won’t do anything.

Junior has grown some. This is about two weeks after the last one. The plumage is starting to fill in and, aside from the balding head, baby is starting to look like a bird instead of an alien from the sewers.

Dad meantime has left mama to fend for herself so she’s out of the nest for long stretches. We think she’s walking the streets looking for handouts.

Curse those deadbeat dads.

Marlowe watches them religiously. His concern for their welfare is really touching. He’s constantly pawing the window and chirping trying to get their attention.

I don’t think Mama or junior is quite sure what to make of their neighbors.

Here’s a portrait of the two of them, taken three days after the last one. You see how baby’s head feather’s have filled out. When junior flaps to get mama’s attention, he’s starting to look like a real bird.

I hope we’re around when he makes his first effort to fly.

No, seriously. I get this much fur every time we furminate him. Which we’re doing daily.

I mean, you don’t even get a sense of the height of the mound in this photo. Why isn’t he bald?

Cherie Priest recommended the furminator on her blog a while back. We’ve been dealing with our two very sheddy cats and keep considering shaving them.

So today, I went out and bought a furminator. My heavens. The thing works exactly as promised. Plus you get the added bonus of getting to say, “Careful, or I’ll furminate you,” or “I furminated Marlowe earlier,” or “Not just now, I’m furminating.”

I mean… really. How can you not love that.