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.

I was walking to the subway today on twenty-eight and realized that I was in the flower district. It’s confined to one block now so calling it a district is a bit of a misnomer, but still, it’s a block filled with growing things. I was tempted into a shop and walked out with an orchid and a little palm tree. The orchid is up on top of a bookshelf so the cats can’t get to it.

The palm is in the window. Marlowe spent a little while happily gnawing on it. I asked the florist for something that wouldn’t poison my cat. He said this was popular with cat owners. It’s hardy and can stand up to some punctured leaves. It’s nice to have green things in the apartment.

Last evening Jenny and her fiance, Chris, came for dinner. Well, really, they came to drop off Zoe, their cat, as a trial run for when we take her during their honeymoon. Dinner was just taking advantage of them being here.

I was, to be honest, anticipating some fireworks. When I got Marlowe as a kitten, Maggie hated him so much that if I petted Marlowe and then tried to touch her without washing my hands, she would hiss at me. I’m not making that up. She tolerates him now, more so after the cross-country drive than before.

And Marlowe has never seen another cat, except ones outside the window. His only other experience with other animals have been with dogs that we’ve dogsat. (Boy, that word looks wrong.) Oh, and the mice. Anyway, I had no idea how he would react.

Zoe came right out of her carrier and went up to Marlowe to sniff his nose. He was totally freaked. He had no idea what to do. He only knows this one other cat who beat him up as a kitten–in fact, it’s only in the last year or two that he’s realized that he’s bigger than she is and that she’s old. So, despite the fact that he looks like a giant hulk next to Zoe (also a black cat) he was afraid of her.

Maggie stretched, walked up to Zoe. They sniffed. Then Maggie went to take a nap on the futon. She was so not interested. I think she was just pleased that I hadn’t brought home another dog.

We spent most of dinner watching the cats watch each other. The best moment came after dinner. I wanted to show Jenny and Chris the thing that Marlowe does with the basket. I didn’t think he’d do it, because there was so much strangeness. Man, he saw the basket and beelined across the room to sink his face into it. He immediately sank into his “I’m invisible” posture and seemed so much more at ease.

Zoe. Zoe clearly thought he was insane.

She crept out from under the bookcase where she had been hiding and stretched out to sniff the basket. Marlowe made one “meep” and she levitated backwards, kindof like, “My god! There really is a cat in that thing!”

After that everyone settled into a good routine of ignoring each other. I saw her this morning when I put her food down, but she’s hiding now. I think she’s in my closet, but I’m not going to fish her out. Jenny and Chris come back to pick her up tonight.

Marlowe has been in hunter mode all morning. I just saw him run past with something in his mouth.

Yep. Mouse. I think these are both juveniles, so we can probably expect some more. He offed it quickly this time, at least. I’m letting him bat the dead thing around until he gets bored with it.

Marlowe caught a mouse today. Suffice to say that the rest of this post will not be for the squeamish.

I think Maggie heard it first, but Marlowe was very persistent and caught it. We let him play with it for a little, hoping for a quick kill. Silly us. He was the gentleman and let Maggie play with the mouse first. It astonished me how gentle she was with it, reaching out with velveted paws to tap it. This phase did not last long, of course.

In all, I don’t think the mouse was in the cats’ possession for much more than a minute. I kept trying to tell myself that this was nature and that I should stop being squeamish. Yeah… that would have been fine if they hadn’t just been toying with the thing. I mean, watching it try to get away with a broken leg was horrible.

So, Rob scooped it up in a tupperware and we discussed the most humane way to kill it. The cats, meanwhile are looking for another mouse.

My suggestion was to wrap it in newspaper and smack it on the head with a hammer. Rob concurred. In her youth, Maggie just presented me with a dead mouse so I’ve never had to make this decision before.

On the whole though, it’s nice that the cats are earning their keep. Right?

John got up to see us off this morning at the ungodly hour of 5:30. He sent us with some of the corn from last night–I’d realized at dinner last night that it might well be two years since I had fresh corn on the cob. The stuff in Iceland, in addition to being shipped in from Lord knows where, was not a familiar food for the Icelandic cooks and turned up in strange places. Gummi Chef tended to make this casserole which had wedges of corn on the cob in it. It was very strange.

Speaking of strange and corncobs, we discovered today that Marlowe likes corncobs–not corn, mind you, but corncobs. When I’d finished my lunch, I held the corncob out to Marlowe. He’s often strange and has a tendency to like vegetables. He spent the next, oh, fifteen minutes licking the corncob. It was cute and a little disturbing.

Anyway, we were on the road by six o’clock and made reasonably good time. I must say, West Virginia’s interstate was the smoothest we’ve been on; it’s too bad that we were only in the state for twenty-five miles. When we hit Pennsylvania, traffic stopped. We’re on the turnpike now, but I’m unclear on what the toll fees are being spent on.

We passed a number of towns or landmarks with names that just wouldn’t fly in a book. Paxtonia? Linglestown? Mad River? Triadelphia? Boro of Alpha? Please… Oh, and two Bethlehems. What’s up with that?

I spent quite a while on the phone today, changing our arrival plans around. Instead of going into Katonah tonight, we went to Brooklyn to drop Jodi’s stuff off. We arrived around 8:30. My brother, Steve, just arrived after the ball game he attended. Indian food is on the way. Whew.

Tomorrow is load-in day. Wish us luck.

We spent today hanging out with Kevin and Shawna. Actually, we started the day by sleeping until almost noon. Only ten minutes remained of the morning when we got up. Shawna had pancakes for us.

Rob and Kevin pulled our bikes out of the truck today (they were on top) and we biked along the Lake Wobegon Trail. Man, it was nice to stretch my legs. The ride is beautiful. There was a giant patch of ladyslippers by the side of the road which my mom would have been gaga over. I wish I’d had the camera on the bike ride with me.

The cats seem fine here. In fact, all guilt that I have felt about keeping them cooped up in the truck has vanished. Maggie has spent the entire day sleeping in one spot. And Marlowe? He found a spot on an empty shelf which is smaller than the carrier he’s been riding in. He’s spent today sleeping in there. He had a brief nose-sniff with Roo, their golden lab, but has otherwise been content to stay in his cave.

We’re planning on hitting the road about 8:00 tomorrow morning and head for Racine.

We arrived in Avon at around 8:00 local time. Rob’s brother, Kevin and his wife Shawna greeted us. We have been plied with wine and Shawna’s delicious cooking. I took a shower and feel much more human.

The cats are ensconced in our room. They seem have settled into the routine nicely. Maggie tends to stay in the “upstairs apartment” which is the open carrier on top. Marlowe alternates between the downstairs and “the cave,” which is the area under our seats. I moved a bunch of stuff to the rear of the truck, since we weren’t using any of it, so that he had more room to hang out. He still gets freaked out by being outside during the day, but last night was hankering to go out. We had them both tied to our luggage inside the tent until we got settled.

Today, I even got them both to play a little bit with string. I don’t know what they make of the whole trip, but they are being remarkably adaptable.

We’ll see how well they let us sleep tonight. I am dragging and looking forward to a day of being stationary. We’ll stay here in Avon until Monday, when it is off to Wisconsin.

Move to NYC–Day 1

We have arrived safely in Salt Lake City. Alas, we had to cancel the dinner with friends because, even getting up at dawn, we still didn’t arrive at Beth’s until after eleven pm. Meanwhile, you can click on the photo above to look at an album–unlabled–of the past two days.

Things we learned today.

1. The truck goes about 60 to 65 mph, except up hills, then it goes 30, if we are lucky, for an average of 50 mph.
2. Marlowe, the cat who escaped outside last night, today exhibited signs of having kitty agoraphobia. He spent the first part of the day with his face pressed into the corner of his cage. He’s doing better now.
3. Maggie thinks that being in the van just means that she gets lots and lots of laptime.
4. Salt Lake City is much farther away if you can’t go 75 mph.
5. Weigh stations are not very exciting.
6. Wild fires make great sunsets.
7. Idaho roads are very bumpy.
8. Bumpy roads will cause the ferring guard to break on a motocycle if you are using it as an anchor.
9. Motorcycles are heavy if you have to tip them back upright.
10. When buying bottled water, make sure you select bottles with lids that screw on instead of ones with a bottle cap.

Marlowe got outside. When I found him and tried to pick him up, he hissed and ran. He’s under the neighbors’ porch now. I think we might have to let him stay out overnight; with any luck, he will follow his usual pattern and comes back in the morning.

What a pain.

Edited to add: Got him inside an hour later.

We stopped pilling her today. Maggie’d gotten seven days of the pills, which the vet said was the minimum that she’d like to see. And, since she was getting double-doses… oy. Anyway, we decided to stop, because she’d stopped eating.

I spent the morning hanging out with Christina and in the evening, Rob and I went to the store to pick up some wet cat food to tempt Maggie. Lo! She ate. Thank heavens. Marlowe is, of course, wondering why he doesn’t get the same treats she does. Silly kitty. I offered to wrap him in a towel and shove butter down his throat, but he doesn’t seem interested.

I picked this up from Vylar Kaftan. The point is to type your answers to the questions into Google Images and then post the first picture listed in the returns. All of this should make it blatantly clear what my answer to Number 5 is, even if the visual answer were not so dead-on.

1. Your age on your next birthday:	2. Your favorite color:	3. Your middle name:
4. The last meal you ate:	5. Your bad habit:	6. Your favorite fruit or vegetable:
7. Your favorite animal:	8. The town you live in:	9. The name of your pets:
10. SO/best friend’s name:	11. Your crush’s name:	12. Your occupation:
13. Your birth city:	14. Your favorite song:

This man makes armor for cats & mice. I wonder if Mr. De Boer has ever managed to actually get a cat to put one on.

Marlowe would love it.

Edited to add: I found this in Mr. De Boer’s FAQ.

Q. Have you ever put a mouse into a suit of armour?

A. If there was one question that I have been asked the most, this is the one. I have not put a mouse into a suit of armour. I have, however, tried it with one of my cats, and have the scars to prove it.

This is one of my two cats. He’s a mask artist.

When he was a kitten I gave him one of those string ornaments to play with. He used to bite the edge of it, and it would flip, almost going over his head. One evening, as I was hosting a dinner party, one of my guest said, “Kitten! What have you done?”

I had nightmarish images of the kitten dipped in paint and looked under the table, to see this tiny black kitten with a giant white bubble on his head. After dying with laughter, I pulled it off the poor thing. Five minutes later he had it back on. Our best guess is that looking through it makes him think of tall grass. When it still fit over his entire head, I painted it like a jack-o-lantern for halloween. None of my guests believed me that he liked it.

He’ll greet me at the front door with it on, occasionally falls asleep wearing it, and will run from one end of the house to the other with it on. I bought a twelve-pack of the balls, because he does wear them out. And yes, he can take it off on his own. He’s an odd, odd cat.

If it weren’t for the fact that so many editors have a strong aversion to cat stories, I would totally write one about Marlowe and his helmet of invisibility.