Can’t Buy Me Love

But…Santa bought/brought me a new coffee mug from Anne Taintor’s latest line of whimsical, retro-inspired products.

“If I had wanted to be ignored, I would have bought a cat,” is the quizzical statement that confronts me every time I raise my brand-new mug to take a swig of some Starbucks Christmas brew. I have yet to meet a cat who ignores me!

I did not receive the other mug featured here, although I should have.

I am dreaming of next Christmas, by which time Ms. Taintor will have consented to my request to manufacture the “I Am Cat Lady” coffee mug. I would buy it in multiples for all of my Cat Lady friends!

Query of the Day: Will you sign my petition to Anne Taintor?

I Love My Cat

It's Christmas at Catland and, per usual, all of the creatures are stirring. Linus, in particular, is having a great time playing with his new red-and-green mouse.

Cat Man and I don't fill the cats' stockings. We throw the feline-only presents on the carpets, and the cats greedily fetch them. Thank you PetSmart, once again, for offering everything that cats could possibly desire.

Back to the matter of the cats' stockings: The six monogrammed socks hang by the tallest bookcase with care. Where else would an art-book editor hang holiday stockings? In the garage apartment, the four stockings are hung by a bookcase, too. Martha Stewart might not approve of our decorating decor, but our cats do, and that's all that matters.

It used to be, in the "olden days" (circa 2000), that we planned for a Christmas morning with only one cat. Yes, you guessed correctly: Lucius was the cat for whom we preordered holiday gifts. Then along came the others, and the first stocking I purchased, which proclaims "I Love My Cat," was no longer operative.

But even though we now have ten stockings to show for our family of cats, the same, simple sentiment rings true.

I love my cat, times ten.

Query of the Day: Did you catch Santa Claus kissing Cat Lady?

Virtual Yule

I’m grateful to AT&T U-verse this holiday season for the gift of the “Virtual Yule.”

Every night, about 8:00 p.m., our cats gather ‘round the virtual hearth—otherwise known as a 32” flat-screen TV—and listen to classic holiday carols that play on channels 400 and 800 (at least in our Houston-based universe). In spite of what you may think about Lucius, he is not the Grinch who stole Christmas. In fact, Lucius’s face lights up at the sound of “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.”

What is the pre-Christmas playlist at Catland? “O Come All Ye Faithful” tops the charts, perhaps because our felines consider this carol to be Cat Lady’s personal anthem for assisting creatures in need. Our ten rescue missions were successful because ten cats decided to put their trust in me (with a jolly shout-out and a “Ho Ho Ho” to my [crazy] Cat Man).

I keep hoping that the Virtual Yule will play Michael Bublé’s new version of “Feliz Navidad,” accompanied by Thalia. Both L.B. and Linus love the Latin vibe. Lydia, Lillie, Leo, T.J., Perkins, Miss Tommie, and Alvar are ecumenical in their tastes for holiday sing-alongs.

Well, it’s time to go feed the cats and to throw some more logs on the fire.

Until Christmas Eve!

Query of the Day: Do you sing holiday carols to your cats?

What Price Lucius?

An article in USA Today last week about the costs of veterinary office care hit home. For feline caregivers, the average cost of a visit to the vet is $558.

Recently, right before the Thanksgiving holiday, our one and only Lucius became ill. Because he has been in remarkably good health (aside from long-term insecurity and other issues symptomatic of neurosis) since we rescued and adopted him eleven years ago, we knew that something was wrong when he stopped eating completely. Nothing in the Cat Lady’s bag of tricks worked: canned tuna, Gerber’s baby food, treats. Lucius shunned them all.

Dr. O. ran a full range of tests on Lucius, and the associated costs were far from inconsequential, with the total coming close to $1,000. At one point during his treatment for what was diagnosed as chronic, as opposed to acute, pancreatitis, Dr. O. suggested that Lucius might need to be hospitalized so that an IV drip could provide sustained nourishment. Two days and two nights would cost about $2,000 for starters.

I couldn’t imagine putting a price tag on Lucius’s life, yet I found myself wondering desperately if investing more of our savings could indeed buy Lucius a longer stay on earth. I also couldn’t bring myself to ask Dr. O. explicitly if pancreatitis was ultimately a death sentence for a cat, no matter the costly intervention to offer comfort.

Fate has intervened once again for Lucius and me and Cat Man. There is no other way to explain Lucius’s rapid, impressive turnaround than to say that the cat had a will to live longer, aided by a few days’ concentrated dosage of anti-pain and anti-nausea medications.

What price Lucius? No QR code is necessary. And you can’t buy gratitude of this magnitude.

Query of the Day: How do you budget for annual pet care?