I’m seriously beginning to think we have a ghost cat problem! Percy has become more and more of a bed hog and cuddler than ever before, and it all seems to have started when Lance died. Before Lance died, Percy would occasionally hop on the couch with me at night, or if I was sick and on the couch during the day come lay with me. That was about it. Lance was always the people cat. He was the one always on the couch. He was the one that would nudge you to pet him. He was the one who broke into the bedroom in the morning to come sleep with me.

Well since he died in April, Percy has seemingly taken over that role. He almost every morning breaks into the room to sleep with me after John gets up and leaves for the day. More recently he’s started coming in at night too! He’s also become more and more of an aggressive “pet me now!” kitty by doing the head bumping and face rubbing thing on your hands. Well last night when I refused to pet him cause it was time to go to bed . . . he began nibbling on my fingers!

Why is that important? Well first of all, he’s never done that before. Second, Lance used to have this toe fetish. If there were bare toes available, he’d nibble on them. He would often do it should he want petting and you weren’t accommodating him. I think I might have to take Percy to a pet psychic and possibly find a pet exorcist!

Post Note: Don’t get me wrong, I love that Percy has become possessed a people cat, as none of the other cats in the house are very people social. Plus Percy has always been “my” cat, he comes to me for food and attention. However, I still think he’s possessed!

Drove back to my Jersey home today. Just some random ramblings here

• The house shockingly isn’t a total disaster.
• The bunny had no water and almost no food left (John claims he had both last night).
• Percy had no wet food, so I had to go buy him some.
• I also had to get dry food and litter, which they were out of.
• Scrubbed cat puke out of the bedroom carpet.
• Picked up cat puke from the dungeon basement (this was old cat puke that John just ignores).
• Cleaned cat pans (so gross!).
• Washed silverware in the sink (I left it with no dirty dishes).
• Filled the feng shui fountain which was bone dry.
• Dumped the pet food water and refilled it (the cats knocked a food dish into it, it was gross).

Anyways, I am getting ready for the “Harper’s Island” finale now

So I figured I should do a follow-up post on how everyone is getting by. First up, Lance’s death wasn’t unexpected. He was getting worse since he was diagnosed with an enlarged heart back in February or so. I blogged about that incident back then, how we rushed him to the emergency room one night when he was having breathing issues.

He had been put on medicine and given an ecocardiogram. The news then wasn’t good, the doctor was shocked he had basically lasted as long as he had without treatment. They put him on more pills and we were to bring him in around now for a follow-up to see if they helped at all. However over the past week or so his symptoms were clearly getting worse and he was having breathing issues again, in spite of the meds. I knew it wouldn’t be long really. John woke up Sunday to find him basically unable to breath and spitting up blood

The other animals seem to have adjusted as far as I can tell (we have so many!). There are big age differences and personalities between them too. Lancelot and Galahad are/were the old men of the house. They were here before I was here! They had a third, Uther, who past several years ago. Lance and Galahad were basically brothers, so I think if this hits anyone it will hit Galahad the worst. He was howling last night as if he was calling out wondering where the hell Lance was. Of the five cats, Lance was the one Galahad probably hung out with the most.

Lance (grey) and Galahad (grey striped)

The middle cat is big ole Moo Kitty. Moo Kitty hangs by himself, because he only likes human attention. He doesn’t like the other cats that much and he definitely doesn’t like the dogs. He’s kinda of a shit actually and just enjoys attacking (or trying to attack) the others. He thinks he’s king of the castle, but he’s more of a tyrant.

Moo Kitty, taking over Princess’ crate

Percy and Grim are the youngest and are about a year 1/2 apart. They usually hang out with each other, playing with and chasing each other all around. Percy will sleep/cuddle with Grim, but that’s about it. Grim however will/would sleep/cuddle with Galahad and Lance on occasion.

Percy (orange) and Grim, Grim and Lance

Of course then there are the dogs, who have each other. The cats tolerate the dogs, but that’s about it. Grim usually just runs from them, while Percy likes to lay on his back to get them to play pounce him. I rarely see the cats sleeping with the dogs, except for Lance. Lance would always sleep with them

Princess licking Lance’s ears, her favorite thing to do to him

Last night I ended up sick as a dog, a combination of a lot of things, just got run down at the conference I guess.

I returned home today from the trip to hell to get a fitting end to what will go down as the worst trip ever probably. Our cat Lance had to be put down this morning.

I didn’t even get to say goodbye. Just fuckity fuck fucking great!

So I figured I best check in before another week goes by without a post. As Summer approaches I should have more to blog about, both more free time and more going on. For example I finally plan on getting this house into long overdue shape by cleaning out the basement and redoing the guestrooms downstairs finally.

I have to get back to watching what I eat and make time to get to the gym. I hit 160 today. Not as bad as the 180 I was, but I was 150 back in December when I basically stopped running due to a nasty rash, which turned out to be eczema.

I do admit, I have been hitting McDonalds FAR more than I should lately, and that has to stop. In trying to eat healthier I’ve actually done something shocking, I’ve started eating fish! Okay actually one kind of fish, tilapia, which I can take because it’s so mild in flavor. However I need some good recipes for it, so please share if you have any you love. So far my favorite way too cook it seems to be blackening it with a yummy Cajun-creole rub I got off the net. Spicy goodness!

Finally a bit of cute news. I submitted some photos of the pets to Cute With Chris, a website about pets with a weekly video blog show. He posted a photo I took of Nikko and Lance! You can see it here on Cute With Chris!

Post Note: Emily and mine’s night of fun this past weekend got canceled, neither of us were feeling 100%. We are aiming to do it this coming weekend! So the cams should be on

Just an FYI . . . Lance came home last night, he’s doing much better. The vet has him on some pills for the time being and we are waiting to hear when the other vet can see him for a cardiac consult to see what the long term prognosis will be.

Thanks for all your well wishes

Pictured above is Princess and Lancelot. We had to rush Lance to the vet tonight For a month or so now he’s been pulling his hair out. This happened last year at this time, but he got over it. Not sure if it’s a food he’s allergic to or perhaps the dry winter air (we just turned on our humidifiers this week). Along with the ripping out of hair, he’s been making the hairball wheeze sound. I just assumed the two were related.

Well tonight he made the sound then went down, his breathing became rapid, he was gurgling and eventually coughed up fluid. We got him to the vet, where they realized it was his heart. Sure enough, his heart is enlarged, he has fluid all around it and he even may have punctured his diaphragm wheezing tonight with this attack. They said he probably suffers from what a lot of large male cats suffer from, some enlarged heart syndrome.

They gave him a shot to help expel the fluid from his lungs and he is in an oxygen tank where he’ll stay overnight. By time we left he was actually looking and doing much better. She’s going to call us in the morning to let us know how he is. We need to have a kitty cardiologist look at him to determine the best course of treatment (if it can be something that can be managed or not, probably kitty pills for the rest of his life I’m sure). That will be on Monday, though she said if something happens in between (something worsens) we might need to take him elsewhere to bee seen before Monday.

I of course am feeling loads guilty. I kept wondering if I should have taken him in before now because of what I thought was the hairball cough. Had I, we might have caught this before now We have two other fairly big kitties I will be taking in ASAP to be tested and checked out. Basically the entire crew of animals has to go in at this point for yearly check-ups. Cha-Ching!

I am just hoping tomorrow morning brings good news. I will otherwise not be able to concentrate on what I need to be concentrating on. Though we won’t know the long term prognosis till Monday really. I’m at this moment praying this supposed big snowstorm heading our way in fact does hit hard on Tuesday so I have a work snow-day.

We have some birthdays coming up in the house!

On Saturday Nikko will be three years old.

Grim is probably 1 year old now as well. He showed up last year a week or two before Thanksgiving. At that time he was estimated to be about 6 weeks old, because his eyes were changing color. So I am going to default and give him Nikko’s birthday as well.

Sadly because he was so malnurished when we found him, it seems to have stunted his growth. He was possibly the runt as well, which may have been why he was on his own. He’s a very tiny cat compared to all our other ones, which doesn’t really show in this photo I know.

I took these photos of Princess and Lance yesterday, engaged in Princess favorite thing to do to him . . . lick his ears! As you can see, Princess enjoys pinning him down and going to town. He’s the only cat that will sit still and let her do it to him.

Even though mother nature still can’t decide if she wants it to be rainy, cold or spring-like; one thing is for sure, it’s allergy season! The flowers are blooming, the crops are coming in and I’ve been really stuffed up. I vacuumed the house today to try and get up all the dust, changed all my air filters and bought me some Zyrtec-D! I think the later will do me the most good

Of course the fact that certain little cats attempt to, and sometimes are successful at, breaking into the bedroom doesn’t help. The door is kept closed because they like to sleep on the bed and their dander just kills me at night. One little stinker sits outside the door in the morning howling his little head off to get in.

That would be the culprit right there, Grim! He’s not about 6 months old and it’s time for him to go to the vet for the chop-chop!