Category Archives: Pets

Diamond Sparkles; 1996 – 2015

Animals, Family, Life, Pets

Our cat Diamond was 19 years old when she left us in September. 2015-09-20 15.57.07

This cat was one in a million. Kerri was her human, and Diamond was very possessive of her. Diamond would attack her American Girl doll, another Native American doll she owned with hair down to her ankles, puppets, electronics, anything that Diamond viewed as a threat. But when Kerri got sick at age 14 with with an immune deficiency that would keep her home for 5 years, the first 2 practically bed-ridden, Diamond was with her nearly every minute of every day. On the days Kerri was home in bed or on the couch sick, and that was most days the first 2 years, that cat was on her all the time. When Kerri would move from the couch to bed at night, Diamond would go up with her. After about 15 minutes, Diamond would come back downstairs looking so proud of herself, like she was saying “There, the child is asleep. Now for a cup of tea!”

Diamond was also a weird cat who loved Romaine lettuce and other greens, a bitch kitty who wouldn’t let anyone touch her while she was sitting on her human (except Vin; she bit him once, just once), a spritely cat who climbed our Christmas tree every year until she passed that tradition along to Pixel, a very spirited cat who used to have to get her veterinarian shots through the cat carrier slots, and the perpetual “big sister” cat who was always being tormented (all in good fun) by the other pets Buster, Jack, Dot, Maggie and Rollie.

When Kerri moved to London for graduate school and stayed, Diamond was heartbroken. We weren’t even sure she’d survive the transition! But we coddled her and gave her anti-anxiety drops, and she ended up living for several more years. Anything Diamond wanted, we gave her: eating ice cream out of our bowl, licking the butter if we left it on the table, lying on my desk when I was working, and even stairs to climb up to her bed on top of a cabinet and a litter box up there so she wouldn”t have to walk through the dogs to get to the laundry room. This was one cat that truly had earned her keep.

Rest in peace, my sweet honey.

Hot July

Animals, Life, Pets

A heat wave. I suppose nothing really new, although with hazy, hot and humid days and late afternoon thunderstorms, I feel like I’m living in central Florida again. My garden is dying, we are going to have a huge electric bill due to the constantly running ACs throughout the house, I have been taking showers at the end of the day instead of the beginning, and the animals are pretty much wiped out.

Here is Dot sleeping on her back. She tends to do this a lot anyway, but these days, almost every nap is like this.

Dot

Pixel spends most of the day in the TV cabinet.

pixel

We can tell Diamond’s hot because she spends most of the day on the desktop as opposed to her bed.

diamond

And Schrodie, our scardy-cat, won’t subject herself to the heat of a closed cabinet (her usual hide-out is the bottom of the china cabinet) and instead exposes herself to potential capture by Dot while hanging out in the pantry, which for some reason has always been cooler than the rest of the house.

schrodie

At least it should cool down to the 80s next week!