Day in the Life of an Idiot

 As some of you may remember, I started a comic called Void Cat when Shawn and I were taking a doodling course Domestica. Shawn bailed out on the class and so I quit with her, but I am thinking about returning to it, because why not? We paid for the whole thing. One of us should see it through. 

At any rate, I dug up this pre-printed comic book I bought. (Like THIS ONE, but not exactly.) And just jumped into to see what I could come up with. Here's some of what I ended up with.


Image: Title page of a chapter entitled "The Interloper."


Image: Full panel spread of the introduction of rhubarb


Image: Close-up image of a panel with a cat howling, "Ahhhhhhhhh"


Image: Possibly the best picture ever drawn of Rhubarb.

 Saint Paul only just now called a snow emergency, which means they won't even start plowing side streets until 9 pm. I just shoveled an additional 7 inches of snow from my sidewalk. Shawn and I estimate that about ten or eleven inches. (25.4 cm or 30 cm) fell in the last day.


Image: the snow covered tree in front of our house. (The little blue sign is our "We protect the Mississippi," thing which really just means that Mason adopted a storm drain when he needed a volunteer project a few years ago in order to get into the honors program in high school. I think his favorite part of that program was getting to name the drain. These are in Rochester, but explain what I mean: https://www.postbulletin.com/news/local/funny-storm-drain-names-grate)

So, yeah, it snowed? 

I have not tried to move the car, nor do I intend to. Since St. Paul won't even be dusting off the plows until after 9 pm today, I am parked on the "night plow" side of the street and that's where I plan to stay. Technically, D&D is tonight, but I am hopeful that either we will ALL move to Discord or they can let me "phone it in," as it were.

All this snow started falling yesterday. Shawn was supposed to go into work for her performance review, but that meeting got shifted to virtual so she bailed at around 11 am.  She worked from home all day yesterday, but Mason and I (neither of us who normally have work do to right now) treated it as a snow day and spent the day watching TV (he is re-watching and I'm watching for the first time FullMetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. I'd seen FullMetal Alchemist a long time ago, but, even though everyone TOLD me how much better "Brotherhood" is, I never got around to watching it. GUYS, IT'S A WHOLE LOT BETTER.)  I tried to do some quilting, but was stymied by the angry peanut.


Image: Rhubarb (who is actually very sweet these days) loafing in the middle of the quilting hoop.

I should say that even though Willow and Rhubarb still stalk each other around the house, we have mostly settled into a détente. Rhubarb no longer holds any ill-will towards the people. I can't remember the last time she swiped at us with claws out. It's all been play bats. Willow would still like it very much if this interloper would move along, but she's settled back into snoozing under the covers by my legs at night, and otherwise TOLERATING this other cat. Buttercup is still baffled why his two favorite black-haired ladies don't love each other as much as he loves them.

I hope you are all being safe out there, if you are also experiencing snow (and even if you're not.)

When we asked the vet for advice for integrating our cats, we were given a flyer that was written by a behaviorist who had pretty good advice. Some stuff we knew and already were doing and a few other little tricks that might help. However, the funniest part was the suggestion that any time there was a neutral or good interaction between Willow and Rhubarb (formerly known as Clover/Six) we were supposed to give them a treat (make sense) and burble, "Happy Cats!"

So, of course, immediately, Shawn and I started with the somewhat-ironic "Happy Cats!" declaration. 

Mostly, we are being patient. We've had some actual happy cat moments or at least, "I didn't realize you were in my territory because I was sleeping" moments, and continued snapping and hissing. But, the flyer was actually reassuring that integration really can take a long time and that you basically have to go at the pace of the cat who is the most traumatized.

Sometimes that's little loaf:


Image: Rhubarb (a black cat) in a box, being a little loaf.

Sometimes that's big loaf:


Image: Willow (a black cat) in a box, being a big loaf.

This has become our lives. There's been a lot of "Ope! Time for a timeout!" and "Oh, look at you not snarling! Happy Cats!!" around our place, and probably it will continue like this for some time. We want a household where everyone is at least decently tolerating of each other and, as Shawn and I keep reminding ourselves, there's no need to rush since... well, this is basically a lifelong project. There's no deadline. We're in no hurry.

In other news, I adapted a recipe from the Overwatch cookbook to make "bear scat" cookies for my D&D group tonight. For those not reading the D&D/Elf icon posts, basically last adventure we fought a mama bear, so this is just a silly reference to that. There is not bear poop in this recipe, only chocolate, peanut butter, honey, and rice crispies.


Image: round balls of chocolate, peanut butter, rice crispies, and honey.

Happy CATS!!

 
Image: Willow and Clover eyeing each other on the bed. Clover is hiding behind a green comforter, her ears forward with wary worry; Willow has murder glinting in her yellow-green eyes. Blade of the Immortal lies open between them.

We are committed to a slow introduction.

The friends who were possibly interested in Clover came by on Sunday, had a short, if somewhat unfruitful introduction (more on that in a bit) and still are, but, for reasons, can't take her in for another week, regardless. Meanwhile, we have been having more and more moments like the one above where the two ladies warily regard each other in close proximity with only a small amount of growling and hissing. Our friends are very patient and kind and are willing to remain as back-up in case we simply can't introduce these two no matter what. In the meantime, we have scheduled a spay for Clover on Monday next, with the intention that we keep her. 

So, our friends came by on Sunday around 1 pm. They got a little lost because St. Paul repels anyone from Minneapolis. It's just the nature of the rivalry between the two cities, I firmly believe. (I used to be able to navigate Minneapolis no problem, but after decades of being a St. Paulie, Minneapolis now sees me coming and jumbles up the streets.) We had shut Willow up into the TV room in preparation of the visit. Likewise, we'd let Clover have the run of the house hoping that she'd make her way downstairs. She didn't. In fact, when I picked her up from the bedroom windowsill to show her off to our friends she grumbled and hissed in my arms.

I'm beginning to believe she has decided we are her people and is having none of this being shown off to other people.

Because, wouldn't you know it, the first time our friend very carefully reached for her there were growls and snaps... and then she literally turned tail and ran upstairs to hide under the bed. Said friend later went upstairs with Shawn and had, from all accounts, a much better interaction, but Clover remains very... I swear to all the gods, intentionally unlikable when in the company of other people, particularly other people whom have expressed interested in taking her away from us.

Despite all this, our friends are very willing to remain on stand-by. So, they are the good people we always knew they were.

In the meantime, a fascinating new cat dynamic has emerged in our household.


Image: Like a hidden object game, find all three cats in this messy living room. Hint: big orange tail on the floor, two voids on either chairs.

When Clover is on walkabout at the same time Willow is out, there have been a couple of times when Willow seems surprised to remember that there is an interloper in her household and she will actually make sudden aggressive moves towards Clover. Both times that this happened, I was moving to interfere when.... Buttercup got there first. The first time, Willow had been on the porch and suddenly spotted the smallest little girl out of the corner of her eye and freaked out. She made a mad dash at her. I was standing up to grab her when Buttercup flashed in-between the two ladies and physically blocked Willow's attack, allowing Clover to escape upstairs. He then bullied Willow back a bit before running upstairs to check in on Clover.

I have long joked that Buttercup was a Golden Retriever in a past life, but this is the single most "dog" like behavior I have ever seen him do.

Just to prove it wasn't a fluke, he ended up doing it again when Willow attempted to corner Clover under the dining room set. 

For the record, I am not afraid that Buttercup will hurt Willow. He is similarly fiercely protective of her to the point that, if I am giving medicine to Willow and she squawks at all, he will come up and give me a fierce stare like, "You'd better not hurt her." If any of you remember the story of when Willow swallowed a needle, you also will remember that he was the one who literally brought me to her, Lassie-like, when she was hiding in the basement and alerted us to the problem. 

So, I don't think he has simply shifted his affection. From what I saw (and granted it was only twice) he will made a jump at Willow, but only to get her to back off. They did not fight at all. Fingers crossed their relationship stays this way. I'm not depending on it, but I do think it's kind of amazing that Buttercup is acting protective like this to the littlest one. 

We are, of course, separating them immediately when this happens. We kept them apart for several hours, and we're still making Clover sleep in a shut room. We are trying to be slow and careful with our introductions so that we can have as few of these incidents as possible. Hopefully, Willow will get used to her. I suspect that even if she remains wary the rest of this week, that it all might change once Clover is spayed. 

Fingers crossed at any rate.

 
Image: A bright blue spiderwort blooming in a literal sidewalk crack.

I sent in my Lawns2Legumes reimbursement request for the pocket habitat that I spent a couple of hundred dollars on, and, lo, in a literal sidewalk crack on the side of my house, a bright blue prairie spiderwort, native to not only Minnesota, but specifically Ramsey County, where I live, has volunteered and bloomed. Rather than consider this THE GREATEST IRONY OF ALL TIME, I shall imagine that this lovely native bloom is a thank you gift directly from the Goddess. 

Because it's either laugh or cry.

In other news, we ended up spending a fuck ton of money on Willow, our Void, who had been throwing up a lot. Because this is the self-same cat whole swallowed an actual needle, I did tell the vet to go ahead and take x-rays just to make sure that she wasn't barfing because of some insane (insane intestine!) obstruction or another. Willow was perfectly clear, though the vet did see a lot of gas and whatnot in her intestines. The best guess was, in fact, a bout of stomach flu, or some kind of minor bowel infection. The vet prescribed some antibiotics, but Willow has been deeply resistant to the squirt (to be fair to her, is smells like that fake banana smell. Why? Why not, I dunno, tuna~!) and has taken to hiding under the bed for a lot of the day. It might be the humidity? But her hiding is not very like her and so now I'm all worried again. Does she have an actual infection? Should we be more aggressive trying to get the medicine in her? Or is the medicine what she's hiding from?? 

I wish she could tell me. 

Other than that, we spent the 4th hiding from the fireworks, ourselves. I've started another "ugly" Christmas quilt, though this one I like quite a bit more.


Image: red and green and white quilt, my second "ugly" Christmas quilt

Here's a close up on some of the fabrics:

Image: Close up on some of the fabric in the quilt, there are a lot of snow persons and creepy Santa clones.

And, yes, I did notice after I got this section together that the army of Santa clones are kind of all bunched together. At this point, I kind of don't care? It's visually (from a distance, at any rate,) more about the green and gold star bowties and the solid red bowties. 

Tell me what you think (so long as it's a compliment! I'm not in the mood for critique of my stitching or fabric choices right now, sorry!)

 
Image: Willow is just limbs and darkness

 
Image: Looking down at the big, orange, fluff belly


Image: black cat, being sleepy, manages to look eeeeevil.

First of all, Blessed Samhain to those who celebrate it.


Image: Me with my pandemic hair, showing off a pumpkin carving.

My Halloween was fairly uneventful. Since we decided to not hand out candy, we did our ritual and Mason and I played a bit of a video game and that was that.

Sunday morning, Mason had a deadline for an early action college which he got together in time, we hit the send together--the common app has a button called "celebrate" which allows you to sit there for a moment and watch confetti burst behind the YOU FINISHED screen. Not gonna lie, we pressed that button at least three times.

And, then things conspired to put me in a really crappy mood... not the least of which was discovering that our void cat, Willow, had swallowed a needle.

First: SHE IS OKAY. We got her to the emergency vet in time, she did manage to puncture her esophagus but they removed the needle (and thread still attached) with only the barest need for an incision.

The whole story of my idiot cat will appear beneath the cut.

( Read more... not gross, but maybe you don't need the stress today? )

Who eats needles?? Does Willow have some kind of past life as a DOG???

And, then, as I said on FB, she found an outside leaf stick on the floor and immediately tried to eat that. When I took it away from her, I said, "Are you suicidal!? Gimme that!"

IT'S LIKE WE HAVE A TODDLER AGAIN. 

We have since hidden all the needles and other sharp objects and... yeah, she seems to be doing fine? She has an allergy to sutures that I forgot to tell the vet about in last night's panic, but all that seems to mean is that the wound is puckering a little and is itchy. I might ask my regular vet is there's anti-itch cream for cats that would be safe to put on it. Last thing we want is for her to pull that out... and, oh my god, if any cat could, it would be Willow. We spent so much time after her spay running around yelling, "WILLOW NO, DON'T LICK THAT! You're not supposed to play rough....AHHHHH, WILLOW!"

The more I write about this, the more I am convinced she was, in fact, a dog in her past life.

But, here she is, just five minutes ago, still somewhat cross-eyed playing her favorite "mouse under the rug" game.


Image: Groggy Willow at play.