You are not fooling anyone into thinking you are a typewriter. Yes, you are the right size and the right color, but you are covered in fur.

Fondly yours,
Mary

The problem is that she’s not very good at it.  Frequently, she’ll just shove her head under the running water and let it dribble through her fur and drink from the water running off her nose. She will also try to bite the stream of water. Mostly she’s been licking up the water that’s splashed everywhere.

No amount of cleaning her actual water bowl convinced her to use it and we’re concerned that she wasn’t drinking enough. Yesterday I picked up a pet fountain from PetCo for her and Marlowe.

Initially suspicious, they are both noticeably drinking more water. Hurrah. It has a deeply annoying buzz, which is deeply, deeply annoying. I’ve ordered a different one that’s supposed to be super-quiet. The deeply, deeply, deeply annoying buzzing doesn’t seem to bother the cats as much as it does me.

Meanwhile, Harriet is still sitting in the sink.

The cats are frantic with loneliness and Marlowe is doing a great deal of chasing invisible demons to prove his affection for me.  Rob is still away at IPNC so I’m just going to go to bed and let the cats hog his side.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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…

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.

Harriet

Marlowe and Typewriter

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

What a pain.

Edited to add: Got him inside an hour later.

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.

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.

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.

The trees still have fall foliage here. Reds and yellow are everywhere, and the weather is clear. In Portland. In November. It’s like a welcome home present. Our cats, Maggie and Marlowe, seem to remember me. I honestly wasn’t sure if they would or if they would care that I’ve come back. They were very affectionate and clingy last night.

I woke up around 4:30, but was able to get back to sleep until a more reasonable hour. I got up around 7:45, which is not bad for jetlag. Now, I’m sitting in Fuel, my favorite coffee shop. I had an egg and cheese bagel for breakfast with a decaf mocha. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve been able to order a decaf anything without wondering if they would have decaf?

She’ll be coming with us on our trip around Iceland. Just don’t tell Buster; I think he’d be jealous.