Time Tells

I don’t know why, but I looked back at some older blog-entries this weekend, and from December, 2024, I read that Moxy had spent most of his time since the move to the Cosy Cabin in the bedroom. He was anxious elsewhere, due to being bullied by Brazil.

What a change!

Now Moxy likes to go everywhere, and he and Brazil are good friends. When they wrestle - they are harmless but knock-down, throw-em-against-the-wall matches - the Mixer tends to get the better of it, due to his advantage in weight and density. Though Shimmer does like to bully some cats, I think he wants friends more than opponents, and believe that he is satisfied with how things have turned out between him and Moxy.

I know I am.

Claws for Concern

Yesterday and today, I cut the beasts’ claws. I am able to cut all of them except, of course, Sable’s. All of them had grown sharp and rapidly since their previous trimming; all except Indigo’s. Hers were still blunt; indeed, they were still rough, the intervening weeks not resulting in the smoothing of edges that new growth gives them.

I have always considered feline claws - the speed with which they grow, the thickness, the sharpness - to be indications of health: the faster and more deadly they increase, the healthier the cat. This belief may be in error, but it makes me rather melancholy concerning Indie. There is little to be done if the lumps on her abdomen are cancerous, but one doesn’t like to see evidence of ill health in any case.

Indigo wanted on my lap this afternoon. She spent almost half an hour there, quiet and still but for her purring. If she does have less time available than she should, she will at least have as much of that as she wants.

The Natural Next Step

Moxy has abandoned any pretence of sharing the heat from one of the vents in the sitting room. He now likes to lie on it, covering it completely.

“Moxy, have you noticed that it’s rather chilly in the sitting room, almost as if the heat isn’t getting through?”

“Why, no, human, I’ve not noticed that. Let me look into it. Eventually.”

Dinner-time in the Restaurant

One of the advantages of Indigo spending much of her time in the sitting room is that she also eats there, or near there. This compacts the space in which I must serve meals. This has so far not shown the obvious disadvantage - that cats who dislike each other may be put off (or put off others) due to proximity - but it must so far exclude Millie, who doesn’t eat all or even much of her soft-food meals right away. She would prove a distraction for the others.

Surprisingly, Indigo is not displaying much of her grumpiness in her new environment, though she did bark at Sable to clear her path as she was walking away from her empty dish last night. And in the bedroom, where Indie retired for the night, she was still as unpleasant to Imogen and Brazil as always.

Nonetheless, even if it can’t be considered a step forward - I don’t believe Indigo harbours any milder feelings for the others than she has had - it allows her to grow accustomed more to their presence, and their behaviour, which is another reason I prefer her in the sitting room, rather than relatively isolated in the bedroom.

And it makes for an interesting picture (even if not all were entirely in the shot).

Wider Horizons, More Comfort

I had mentioned in a recent blog-entry that Indigo has been spending more time in the sitting room, and exploring new spots in which to relax. This weekend, she found the couch. And, in a move that surprised me, came up the little staircase onto the couch while I was sitting there and climbed on to my lap.

A friend wondered if this new-found fondness for the sitting room had to do with Neville’s absence. Indie has been in the sitting room before, of course, but only for short periods. Now, she is spending most of her time there. Nev was never in the cylinder-house cat-tree, and has only rarely been to the top of the tall cat-tree. The only spot where Indigo can think that she is supplanting the Nevsky is on the couch. Noentheless, we can’t know what changes the departure of one cat will have on others. It may be that Neville’s ill health perturbed Indie in some way that the others didn’t sense, and she only now feels that she can go where he had been.

Whatever the cause, I prefer Indigo in the sitting room, where there is more light, more views - if she cared to use them - and more spots for her to lie in. Even so, I was glad when she came to bed last night, and once again put her paw on my face.

Looking Forward

I have been given permission by Valkyrie’s new family to use some of their pictures on this blog. I wanted to wait until I had some illustrations before writing about her adventures.

Valkyrie - though she now has a new name - is officially adopted. She was a little puzzled by the change of scenery, and probably missed her fellow gang-members, Brazil and Moxy, especially the latter. But Valk always had a gregarious nature, and she quickly became friends with her new adoptive sibling. He is not quite a year old, and so a good physical match for the ‘Eternal Kitten’. They wrestle and chase each other, and I saw a video of Valkyrie grooming the orange boy.

The question mark - at least to Valk - is the dog. He is quite the friendly sort, very accustomed to cats. He is also instinctively compassionate, having watched one of the previous cats age. He curtailed his rough-housing with her as she grew older, and eventually stopped playing; instead, he lie near her and kept her company in her last months. Valkyrie doesn’t yet think this qualifies him to be her friend. She is telling him to keep his distance, but I suspect that will change with time.

Valkyrie has plenty of attention from the married couple who have adopted her - the husband in particular was looking for a bond with the new cat, which seems to have been achieved - from their daughter, and oldest son, who is also a cat-fancier.

It was tough letting Valkyrie go, but she has found her home now, and she won’t be looking back, only forward. With youth, family and friends on her side, there is a lot of forward to look to.

Inconclusive

The ultrasound results from Indigo’s examination were a bit of a disappointment. I had expected them to tell me more about the lumps on her mammary glands, but they did not, and could not. They did show that there is no cancer in her internal organs; if the small masses on her mammary glands are cancerous, they have not spread. This is good, but I was expecting more definition to the news. A biopsy would be needed for confirmation of cancer, and that too would not be definite.

However, there is little that could be done for Indie if she does have cancer, so the plan is simply to continue on and see what happens, to make her life as good as possible while she lives it. She did suffer pancreatitis recently, and so I have laid in a new supply of Cerenia to fight nausea, and a standing order for ibuprofen is ready for pain.

None of this is known to Indigo, of course, who, since her recent trips to the hospital, has been exploring new locales in the Cosy Cabin. She found the house at the top of the cylinder-house cat-tree and, after I placed her on a middle-level platform, she climbed to the top of the tallest cat-tree, to have a snooze there. That was ended by Brazil’s unwitting intrusion; he thought the top was free.