Trixie – Page 16

Squeaky To-and-From

As adults cats meow to communicate with humans rather than each other. I had always assumed they all had a fairly similar vocalization, but only two of our six cats (Templeton and Sam) have had a traditional meow. Our first cat Templeton could be a bit talkative so I was surprised when we adopted Scout, who was almost silent and communicated mostly with soft grunts or a plaintive bleating, especially when she was scared or upset. Emma chirped, rather appropriate given her fascination with birds. Boo too is a quiet one and has an almost childlike cry.

Trixie continues the theme not only of quiet cats but of new vocalizations.

She squeaks.

She is tiny and energetic and affectionate. She especially adores her big brother Sam, sometimes more than he would like, and they are both sleeping on me at the moment. She is a full-on lap cat like Sam, a snuggler extraordinaire, a little lover. Like Em she likes the wildlife in the yard, although her obsession is squirrels.

She is also the slowest eater who has ever walked the earth. We have to sit with her to make sure the other cats don’t steal her food, although thankfully she is eating faster than she used to. She also isn’t as easily distracted, used to be you could forget about getting her to eat if she saw a squirrel running along the fence. And she eats in one sitting now, that was a battle of wills as she’d prefer to graze but between Ellie and Boo and Sam, we can’t leave food out unattended.

She’s been with us for over a year and has been an absolute joy. I took this picture a month ago when I found her in the guest bedroom sitting in a Trixie-sized opening between the pillows on the bed. She doesn’t usually hang out up there, but this bed was where she spent her first few weeks with us, as this is the room where we kept her in isolation.

Tangled

Sam and Trixie hold hands while snuggled up on my legs.

Wide-eyed

Trixie had been with us for a couple of weeks and was starting to get introduced to the house at large, but she’s wide-eyed not because of being overwhelmed at meeting the other pets (she was eager to do it, we kept the introduction slow for the benefit of her older brothers who were less keen on her arrival), but because I only had one small lamp on and her pupils were wide in the low light of the room.

She is demonstrating her quick mastery of a skill often on display in our home, a cat sleeping in a dog bed. I had brought one of Ellie’s beds into the room where we were keeping Trixie isolated as Ellie desperately wanted to be wherever I was, and she and Trixie got along well from the start.

A Cat’s Best Friend

When we adopted Trixie in late January, we kept her in isolation in the guest bedroom for the first couple of weeks, then slowly began her introductions to the rest of the household. We took her introduction slowly not for her sake but rather for Sam and especially Boo, who were not happy with the arrival of their new sister. On the other hand, and despite the appearances in the top picture, Trixie wasn’t afraid of our dog Ellie, and Ellie gave her no reason to be.

Our cat Trixie slips through the bars of the child gate — No prison bars can hold her

We put a baby gate at the door to the bedroom so the cats could greet each other without the stress of being in the same room, but the scrawny little Trixie could slip right through the bars. It did slow her down, so we could mostly keep her in the room, but it served best at keeping the other pets out and making sure Trixie always had a sanctuary she could retreat to.

A portrait of our black lab Ellie — Ellie by my side

When I think of those weeks I think of this scene as much as anything, Ellie snuggling beside my legs. Not because that is unusual, as it isn’t, but because of what was happening on the other side of my legs …

Our dog Ellie and our newly adopted cat Trixie sleep beside and on me in our guest bedroom — A Cat’s Best Friend

I’ve loved Ellie since the day we adopted her, but I don’t think I’ve ever been more proud of her than during Trixie’s first few weeks with us. She was extremely patient with the young cat, even when Trixie tried to initiate play by swatting her on the nose. She’d chomp her jaws together when Trixie was upsetting her and, even though they started out speaking different languages, Trixie soon learned what Ellie did and didn’t like. Sometimes in her excitement she’d forget her lessons but these two got along right from the get go, a relief since my wife was out of town for a week and I had to manage time with all the pets. She willingly put up with kitten mania as long as she could be by my side and befriended the kitten long before the other cats did.

Our cat Trixie sleeps on my legs — The Adaptable Adoptable

And how did Trixie adapt to having a dog inches away from her? It didn’t keep her up at night. Or at all.

What’s Old Is New Again

As the weather has gotten colder, Trixie has discovered the joys of this spot beneath the big picture window. Underneath the wooden grate is a heating vent, blowing warm air onto your belly as you sleep. When we moved to this house in 2002, our two cats were Templeton and Scout. Scout (the black-and-white cat) was the first to discover the vent, but Templeton (the gray tuxedo cat) soon discovered Scout’s secret and began sleeping here as well.

I’ve photographed most of the cats on this vent over the years, although it didn’t get as much use once we bought them heated beds. For some reason they haven’t used the beds as much since Scout died a few years ago (she adored hers and insisted it be kept beside me in my office), although they do sleep in Ellie’s beds quite frequently.

Trixie Meets the Christmas Tree

We adopted Trixie early in the year so this is her first Christmas with us. We weren’t sure how she’d do with the Christmas tree so when I put it up this weekend I left it without ornaments, just in case she knocked it over.

We have prior experience.

Not only is the tree still upright but so far she hasn’t tried to climb it.

I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel putting up the tree, I last took it down right after Emma died in January, and she so loved the tree that I can’t help but think of her when I see it. It reminds me too of Templeton, as the day we put it up in 2007 was the day he died. He loved the box the tree was stored in as much as the tree itself. It reminds me of Scout too, when she was young she used to like to climb up into it and sleep near the top. She learned we didn’t want her in it since we kept chasing her out of it, so she’d slink up near the center of the tree as she could then climb without disturbing the branches or ornaments, and she’d sleep in a spot facing the wall where we couldn’t see her. I only discovered her secret spot when I found the flattened branches when I took the tree down.

But nobody loved the tree like our sweet Em.

In the end it made me happy to put it up and see the three cats hanging out peacefully below its branches, and to remember the three cats who are no longer with us. It’s the tree that we bought when we got married and it’s gotten battered by the love our cats have shown it over the years, so we’ll replace it at some point but decided to give it at least another year until we see how Trixie does.

So far so good.

Sam Offered Me $1,000,000 Not To Post This Picture

I’m amazed at how far Sam has come in accepting young Trixie.

It has been a long and slow road to be sure. She is relentlessly affectionate and if he gives her an inch of acceptance, she takes a mile. Back in the summer he started letting her curl up next to him (at times), then gradually over the months he’d let her sleep with her head on his legs, then against his chest, all leading up to what she really wanted: sleeping face-to-face. And I mean literally face-to-face, she pushes hers right into his. And bless him he’s allowed her to do it on multiple occasions now, I could hardly blame him if this was a bridge too far.

Which is not to say there aren’t occasionally tears. Sometimes he’d prefer a little more space, and while Trixie has gotten better about reading his moods, there is still more work to be done. And sometimes our young cat just has a little too much energy for her older brother.

They’re curled up next to each other on my legs at the moment after earlier hanging out together under the Christmas tree. How thankful I am that this is the new normal.

Stopgap

Eight years ago, after accidentally smashing my 24-85mm lens on a hiking trip, I narrowed its replacement down to two Canon lenses, a 17-55mm lens and a 24-105mm lens. The 17-55 was a better fit for my crop camera but making some guesses at Canon’s future plans I figured I would be moving on to full-frame within a couple of years, and so ordered the 24-105 lens.

Looking back I might have made a mistake for I’m still shooting with crop cameras. My reasons for thinking I’d be moving to full-frame weren’t far off, it’s just that it was Nikon who went down the path I thought Canon was going to take. While I like my SLR (the Canon 7D II) quite a bit, I’ve been increasingly frustrated by the limitations of my Canon M mirrorless camera (I guessed wrong on what Canon would do with that system as well), but am not quite ready to commit to a different system yet, so in the meantime I adopted a stopgap solution.

The lens I bought was a Sigma 17-50mm f/2.8 lens, similar to the Canon 17-55mm I looked at all those years ago, but it was both vastly cheaper (it was on sale for the holidays) and can focus closer, important for the pet photography that will be one of the primary uses of the lens. This is our youngest cat Trixie curling up (literally) on my lap while our oldest cat Sam sleeps on my feet. The 7D II I will use it on is much larger and heavier and noisier than my M, but it has a nice Live View mode that lets me hold the camera away from my eyes, and the Sigma strikes a nice balance in being almost as fast as my prime lens on the M, but with the image stabilization of the zoom. This picture was taken at a quarter of a second in the dim lighting of my office, so a fast aperture and image stabilization let me get a picture I often couldn’t get before.

While Canon has been moving in a different direction than I’d prefer on several fronts, I’m very thankful for my cameras, it’s remarkable what we can do today compared to when I started in the mid-90’s. Sony is getting pretty close to having a camera that does most of what I want, and rumors are Canon may get serious about mirrorless next year, but in the meantime the Sigma should tide me over.

Boo the Pillow

Trixie using Boo as a pillow. It took a long while to get Boo to accept Trixie, but our two youngest cats are now friends and can frequently be seen (and heard) running and playing throughout the house. Even so I was a little surprised that Boo let Trixie climb on top of him as they took a nap.

In Which Boolie Destroys the World

Our cats Boo and Trixie play with an old leather shoelace — It was a major effort to get Boo to accept Trixie, but eventually he not only grew to tolerate her but now even enjoys playing with her. Here they’re goofing around with an old leather shoelace.

A few weeks back I had the worst nightmare I’ve ever had. The earth was going to be destroyed if I didn’t kill Boo and Trixie. They didn’t just have to die, they had to die at my hands. I learned from my mentor that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few — or the one — and since their young lives were forfeit no matter what I did, I agreed to do it. I picked them up and held them in my hands. They gave no resistance.

But I couldn’t do it. I would give my life but I wouldn’t take theirs.

I don’t remember anything else, so presumably the earth was destroyed by whatever malevolent force threatened it. Sorry about that.

A couple of weeks later I had the gentlest nightmare I’ve ever had, consisting of me walking around with my pants pockets overstuffed with pennies. That was the entirety of the horror of the dream, me walking around with jingly-jangly pockets weighed down with worthless currency. As much as I hate pennies, that’s a pretty easy cross to bear.