Reclaimed Territory

I think that I forgot to mentioned that at first we thought Hannah Joy was sick because she ate something she shouldn’t have. She has–had–a list of priors. She once vomited for several days until she vomited up the red-striped dish rag she had eaten. Most of the time the things came out in her poop. We became like forensic scientists: “I see here that Hannah Joy has eaten blue yarn, a paper towel–and here’s a piece of the bookmark that I thought I’d misplaced.”

But Hannah also suffered from cancer. We thought we had the cancer retreating, but I think it was quietly taking over until suddenly it overcame her. She was doing well…until she wasn’t. We miss her terribly, but I’m glad Hannah is not suffering.

Before we adopted Hannah, we always kept our bedroom door open. But after Hannah came into our family, she barked at night whenever a cat entered the room so we kept the door closed and the cats out at night. Now that Hannah is gone, we are again keeping the door open. No reason not to.

Timmy is our oldest cat, the last cat remaining from those we had downstate before we moved north more than ten years ago. I can’t really remember the exact date we adopted him from the “free cats” cage in the reception area of our veterinarian, but he has to be around 15 years old, give or take. Hannah Joy always cuddled with me, preventing Timmy from getting close because she wasn’t fond of cats. He sat instead on EJ’s lap. But now black and white Timmy is reclaiming Hannah’s territory, sitting on my lap and also sleeping on me at night. He’s the most aggressive cat at reclaiming territory.

Yesterday our cat, Clara, walked through the living room where we were sitting. “She has a mouse!” I exclaimed to EJ. He glanced at her. “No, it’s just the toy mouse JJ brought when he left his cats with us.” “Noooo. I think it’s a mouse.” EJ looked again. “You’re right. She has a mouse.” I quickly rushed to close our bedroom door because I didn’t want her taking the mouse onto our bed. That’s a downside to now keeping the bedroom door open: the cats can potentially carry the mice they catch onto our bed while we are sleeping. Yuck.

But with the bedroom door closed, Clara took her victim into our home gym and played with it. I hate it when the cats play with mice because nine times out of ten the mouse escapes. “Just KILL IT, Clara!” I urged her. “If Hannah was here, SHE would have grabbed the mouse and ate it by now.” Hannah was a better mouser than the cats, although I hated when I saw the mouse’s tail hanging from her mouth as she tried to take it onto our bed, where she ate all her stolen treasures. Yuck. As expected, Clara’s bedraggled mouse escaped into the exercise room closet where some of JJ’s stuff is stored until he is able to take it back to Alaska. It looked mostly dead and we are presuming it died. I couldn’t find it but EJ said he will look for it tonight after work.

Today JJ’s cat, Astrid, knocked two small spider plants from the kitchen window into the sink. It was a mess. I scooped up as much of the dirt as I could, put it back in the pots, and stuck the plants back into them. The plants are two of three small spider plants that used to be one large one until JJ’s cats started destroying it. It almost died until I finally divided what survived from the one into three pots, hoping that at least one pot would survive. I figured that I’ve had the spider plant since before I married EJ so it’s probably around 40 years old. I’d hate to lose it/them. EJ said he has a few ideas to try to keep the cats out of the plant(s). I hope it works.