Scratcher of heads, rubber of bellies
I’ve been thinking a lot about Templeton lately and missing the way he would curl up on my lap and purr himself to sleep.
After I got home two nights ago, Scout climbed up on me when I sat down and curled up for a nap. Last night Sam climbed up first and then Scout came up, they were purring and rubbing all over each other before settling down.
And then tonight, Sam’s curled up in my lap as I type this.
God bless my kittens.
Sam and Emma have been with us long enough that their personalities are really starting to come out. It’s been fun to get to know them and see them blossom as they truly understand that they have found a home for the rest of their lives. All three cats are getting along well and in the mornings they’re usually all snuggled into bed with us. And even though I’ve been glad to see them develop their own distinct personalities, I have been amused that they each share a trait or two with our dear departed Templeton.
Emma has mellowed out a bit, she used to follow us underfoot every time we went up and down the stairs, which was good exercise for her, but I’m glad she’s comfortable enough now that she can see us leave the room and be OK with that. She won’t let me go to the bathroom without opening the door and coming in, but Templeton used to do that too. He didn’t push the door quite so wide open though, he at least left with me a shred of dignity.
Emma’s not the best groomer, something we suspected when we first brought her home. She does OK with the parts of her body she can lick directly, but the top of her head and back of her neck don’t get quite so clean. Scout is a fastidious groomer (almost too much so), but she won’t groom anyone else. Little Sam, though, appears to share another one of Templeton’s traits, in that not only is he a good groomer, but he’ll help you out too. He loves to lick your hand if he thinks it needs a cleaning, and I’ve seen him give Emma a little help too.
Today though he wasn’t bashful about it, he grabbed her head with both front paws and went to work. It all went well until he got a little rambunctious with the sleepy Emma. Emma had been sleeping in an Amazon box, one of Templeton’s favorite places to sleep. She’s been sleeping there a lot lately and doesn’t seem to mind the gray fur that lines the edges of the box from Templeton’s many hours in there, I just can’t bring myself to clean it out.
As far as greeting me at the door the way Templeton did, Emma comes the closest as she often sleeps near the door around the time I come home. I don’t know if she’s doing it on purpose or if she just likes sleeping there, but she’s usually at the door by the time I get it open. Sam follows Scout’s approach and usually comes running in from wherever he’s been sleeping.
It’s at those moments, though, that I wished God had blessed me with three arms to pet the three cats who come running up to welcome me home.
This picture of Sam is from his first week with us when he was still quarantined from Scout. He was too tired to play, but wanted to play too much to go to sleep. When he got like this, I’d lay down on the bed and then he’d climb into my lap and fall asleep, but then I couldn’t get anything done as moving would disturb him.
He reminded me of our dear departed Templeton. Sometimes when we were playing Crinkle Bag (his favorite game), Templeton would be so tired that he literally wobbled on his legs as he tried to stay upright, his head bobbing as he tried to keep his eyes open.
Sam seems to have at least one other of Templeton’s traits, as several times I’ve seen Sam climb into my chair if I get up to go get something. Templeton was the true artist when it came to chair stealing, often going so far as to lure me out of the chair in the first place and then doubling back to hop up into the seat and take my place, looking at me with the purest innocence.
At first I thought he preferred the one chair over the other in my office, but he’d do it with both chairs. Then I thought he just wanted the one I had warmed up, and perhaps there is some truth in that. Sometimes, though, I think he just wanted to prove who was the master.
As if I needed the reminder.
I’m the one who’s upside down in this picture, I was laying down on my back on the hardwood floor and waited for Sam to lean over from his window seat and look down. He likes sleeping on the seat, he’s sometimes there when I come home from work and he certainly seemed to enjoy watching me work in the flower beds the other day.
I had President’s Day off a couple of weeks ago and the weather was unusually warm, so after heading up to Ridgefield in the morning and working outside in the afternoon, I cleaned out the inside of the Civic and prepared to wash the outside. Realizing I had forgotten to replace the broken hose in the front of the house and with it too late to go hiking, I decided to let the cats out into the backyard for a little bit.
Scout is an old hand at backyard time, but it was the first time for Sam and Emma. I quickly realized I wouldn’t be able to keep a close enough eye on both the kittens to make sure they understood that they were to stay in the yard, so I gathered them up and dropped them inside while I let Scout stay out a bit longer.
Turning from the door and seeing Scout alone in the yard I was overwhelmed with the thought that Templeton wasn’t there. A sudden wave of grief hit me and I was thankful Scout didn’t want to stay out long. The grief passed quickly, but it was so strong and so unexpected that I felt it physically long after. Every day during the warmer months, we’d go out back when I came home from work, so we spent a lot of time together there. Back inside, I was unable to concentrate on anything and eventually went up to take a bath and not think about anything.
The cats came up when they heard the tub filling up, they always look at me like I’m half-insane for intentionally submerging myself in water. They took turns sitting outside the bathroom door and sitting beside the tub, waiting for me to come to my senses and get up out of the water.
Back when we first discovered some bumps on Emma’s chest, she was rewarded with a trip to the vet and got the affected area shaved so we could treat it. She was also awarded this lovely bib to make sure she didn’t aggravate the area. This is what the bib looked like after two weeks, as you can see Emma didn’t think it quite the state of high fashion and often removed it on her own (the picture there shows the bib when new). I didn’t photograph the underside, even though it looked much worse, as some of that damage was done by Sam during their roughhousing.
Emma has been a rather shy subject so I’ve ended up with more pictures of Sam than of her. The only way I got her to sit still long enough for me to drape the bib over her legs was to play String with her (you can see the shoestring under her foot and trailing out of the bottom left corner of the picture). She stopped for a moment trying to figure out why the string had stopped moving while I moved the bib and snapped her picture. You can also see part of the shaved area on her chest.
The bumps went away with treatment and now we’re in the slow process of waiting for her fur to grow back.
Little Sam hasn’t seen too much sunshine in his young life with us (I mean that literally, not figuratively) but last week we had a spate of sunny days and he discovered the joy of sleeping in sunbeams.
Friday as we were about to leave for work, the rising sun created this shadow on our living room wall of Sam sitting on the window seat. I grabbed the camera for a few quick shots before heading out the door.
He and Emma had a good visit to the vet today, he charmed them right up until it was time for his vaccination and then he let out a pretty good howl. Emma has recovered nicely from her bumps, she had some darkened spots on her skin that we were afraid might be the phage but which turned out to be a harmless reaction to the bumps. Whew!
Scout is still struggling a bit with a respiratory infection that she got from the newcomers, her left eye started bothering her so she went to the vet last week. The drops have cleared up the eye nicely and hopefully she’ll beat the virus for good pretty soon. Fortunately she never learned how to take her medicine from Templeton, she’s not happy about it but she takes it pretty readily most of the time.
And despite the germ warfare waged against her, Scout has really warmed up to Sam and Emma. She actually instigated some roughhousing with Sam today, she’s snuggled with him for a while but this is the first we’ve seen her initiate play. All three of them were crammed into my window in the afternoon when I opened it up to enjoy the warm weather, the birds and squirrels provided good entertainment for the trio, who all got along happily despite the cramped quarters.
When I woke up this morning, pressed up to my side were Sam, Scout, and Emma. As I scratched the heads of Sam and Scout (Emma was out of reach), a cacophony of purrs reached my ears. As I rolled onto my back, Sam curled up between my knees and Scout lay down on my chest. I had only a few minutes before the alarm was set to go off, but it was a lovely few minutes. Sam is growing like a weed — a long skinny weed with sharp claws. I trimmed his nails tonight and got a nice cut on my finger for my efforts, this one can’t be blamed on invisible wolverines. I probably shouldn’t have done it right after I got him all riled up by playing with him, a lesson for next time.
Emma is also growing like a weed, but since she’s full grown we’ll need to cut back on the wet food she likes so much. She did need to put on weight when we first brought her home as she was too thin, but she’s filled out nicely now and we’d like to keep her that way. Her bumps have mostly disappeared so she won’t have to wear the bib any longer. She only had to wear the bib for short durations at the end, and she’d tolerate it just fine for a while but when she decided it needed to come off, she got it off. I’ll have to take a picture of it some day, it’s badly shredded and on its last legs. Some of that is Sam’s fault for when they roughhouse, but Emma certainly knew how to get out of it when the time came.
Emma’s black fur throws my camera’s autofocus for a loop — something I expected given how many mis-focused bear pictures I’ve taken in Wyoming. I certainly don’t expect the camera to be able to lock on dark fur, but I thought it would be able to pick up the line between her dark pupils and her green eyes. In strong light it seems to do okay, but in low light it does poorly, even with the focus assist light of the flash.
In this shot, I preset the focus on the chair and waited for her to pop up after the string. She caught the string and stayed for several seconds with the string hanging from her mouth, but the camera couldn’t find focus. Emma’s eyes are out of focus, which is the part of the image I really wanted in focus. In the image below, her eyes are in decent focus, but that’s because she moved and her eyes are near the plane of focus along the chair’s edge.
I’m going to end up with a lot of out-of-focus shots of Emma, on top of the number I’ve deleted already.
I suspect Canon’s pro line of cameras would do a better job here (not perfect, but better). I’ve long thought about upgrading, but to my dismay Canon has only put their pro autofocus in large, heavy bodies. I’ve been trying to lighten my load on long hikes, so perhaps I’ll end up with a heavy body for normal use and a lightweight camera like the new Rebel for hiking.
Nikon makes a body I like but switching would be expensive. Still, watching the bald eagles last week in low light and seeing how many pictures were not sharply focused, it makes me wonder just how much better the pro bodies would be.
Boolie 