Translations from the Feline
Feb. 9th, 2005 10:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
semperfionaContext is extremely important in feline.
Meow (insistent, repeated, while crawling all over the bed at
oh-god-o'clock in the morning after the alarm has gone off): I can see
you're awake, so how come you're not paying any attention to me me me?
Meow (insistent, repeated, while pushing at the food bowl): Feed me
already, dammit!
Meow (whimpery, while slinking away): I donwannahafta take my medicine,
mommy.
Meow (angry, when captured for the taking of the aforementioned
medicine): I *told* you! Leave me alone! I don't want any medicine!
Cat!Fiona is doing quite well with us. She has gotten more attention and
love in the last two weeks than I think she'd had for several months at
Ray's. She certainly has gotten more doses of her medicine on a more
regular schedule. She's got hyperthyroid and she's supposed to have her
medicine twice a day. When he returned her to me he gave me five doses;
upon calling the pharmacist I discovered that the prescription hadn't
been filled since September, and it's supposed to be filled monthly.
Cat!Fiona ended up with Ray after the separation. I had had two cats,
Fiona and Flora, and then when Ray and I got married we immediately
moved to England. Cats would have had to spend six months in quarantine,
so we had to find another home for them. Eventually my father agreed to
keep them. He would have volunteered immediately but my mother didn't
want pets. She's a perfectionist housekeeper, and the pet hair and
cleanup was a big problem for her. But in the end, when I could find no
one locally who would adopt them together, they went to Wisconsin on the
condition they be declawed. I was unhappy about that, but decided
declawing was better than sending them to the Humane Society where
they'd be euthanized.
On our return, we reclaimed the cats and they lived with us for a number
of years. Meanwhile, my dad got really lonely for cats around the house.
My mother bought him a litterbox for his birthday; Cat!Katze came a few
days later from the shelter. And everyone lived happily with their cats
until my parents decided to go to Peru and, again, there was no taking
the cat with them. So in return for his rescue of my cats, I took in
Katze. That was at about the same time as Rosie was born.
When, about a year later, I moved out, the apartment I moved into had a
hard limit of two cats. The logical division would have seemed to be for
me to take my original cats and Ray to keep Katze. She'd never really
gotten along with the other two. But because of my perceived obligation
to Dad, I kept Katze and Flora, and Ray got Fiona. Flora died in 2002;
Katze's been my sole cat from then until now. However, last year
sometime Ray said that he was getting frustrated with taking car of
Fiona; he's not really a cat person and she's kind of needy at this
stage in her life. He said something about giving her away. I said he'd
better not, that she was my cat and if he didn't want her anymore he
should give her back. So later he said he'd give her to me this (coming)
summer. When we-three decided to move, it seemed the kindest way to
introduce her to the new family of cats would be to do it at the same
time that they as well were moving into a new environment. And this was
done. Even so, she's been kept mostly separated; she's too frail to
fight the big young boys for food or even to play the kind of roughhouse
games that they like. So she lives in our (temporary) bedroom and
functions as an additional alarm clock.
It's strange for me to have a namesake about the house. When I named
her, fourteen years ago and change, it had not yet crossed my mind to
become Fiona on a permanent basis. The last few years that she's been
living with Ray, it's been a little weird for me already--"Fiona lives
at Ray's" gave me a cognitive dissonance. Now, at least, I don't have
that one. But I do have the issue of "Who's being addressed, anyway?"
Mostly we call her Kitty or Fiona-kitty to alleviate that.
(Wow, this post is about as appropriate for the "name cats" icon as it's
possible to get!)
Meow (insistent, repeated, while crawling all over the bed at
oh-god-o'clock in the morning after the alarm has gone off): I can see
you're awake, so how come you're not paying any attention to me me me?
Meow (insistent, repeated, while pushing at the food bowl): Feed me
already, dammit!
Meow (whimpery, while slinking away): I donwannahafta take my medicine,
mommy.
Meow (angry, when captured for the taking of the aforementioned
medicine): I *told* you! Leave me alone! I don't want any medicine!
Cat!Fiona is doing quite well with us. She has gotten more attention and
love in the last two weeks than I think she'd had for several months at
Ray's. She certainly has gotten more doses of her medicine on a more
regular schedule. She's got hyperthyroid and she's supposed to have her
medicine twice a day. When he returned her to me he gave me five doses;
upon calling the pharmacist I discovered that the prescription hadn't
been filled since September, and it's supposed to be filled monthly.
Cat!Fiona ended up with Ray after the separation. I had had two cats,
Fiona and Flora, and then when Ray and I got married we immediately
moved to England. Cats would have had to spend six months in quarantine,
so we had to find another home for them. Eventually my father agreed to
keep them. He would have volunteered immediately but my mother didn't
want pets. She's a perfectionist housekeeper, and the pet hair and
cleanup was a big problem for her. But in the end, when I could find no
one locally who would adopt them together, they went to Wisconsin on the
condition they be declawed. I was unhappy about that, but decided
declawing was better than sending them to the Humane Society where
they'd be euthanized.
On our return, we reclaimed the cats and they lived with us for a number
of years. Meanwhile, my dad got really lonely for cats around the house.
My mother bought him a litterbox for his birthday; Cat!Katze came a few
days later from the shelter. And everyone lived happily with their cats
until my parents decided to go to Peru and, again, there was no taking
the cat with them. So in return for his rescue of my cats, I took in
Katze. That was at about the same time as Rosie was born.
When, about a year later, I moved out, the apartment I moved into had a
hard limit of two cats. The logical division would have seemed to be for
me to take my original cats and Ray to keep Katze. She'd never really
gotten along with the other two. But because of my perceived obligation
to Dad, I kept Katze and Flora, and Ray got Fiona. Flora died in 2002;
Katze's been my sole cat from then until now. However, last year
sometime Ray said that he was getting frustrated with taking car of
Fiona; he's not really a cat person and she's kind of needy at this
stage in her life. He said something about giving her away. I said he'd
better not, that she was my cat and if he didn't want her anymore he
should give her back. So later he said he'd give her to me this (coming)
summer. When we-three decided to move, it seemed the kindest way to
introduce her to the new family of cats would be to do it at the same
time that they as well were moving into a new environment. And this was
done. Even so, she's been kept mostly separated; she's too frail to
fight the big young boys for food or even to play the kind of roughhouse
games that they like. So she lives in our (temporary) bedroom and
functions as an additional alarm clock.
It's strange for me to have a namesake about the house. When I named
her, fourteen years ago and change, it had not yet crossed my mind to
become Fiona on a permanent basis. The last few years that she's been
living with Ray, it's been a little weird for me already--"Fiona lives
at Ray's" gave me a cognitive dissonance. Now, at least, I don't have
that one. But I do have the issue of "Who's being addressed, anyway?"
Mostly we call her Kitty or Fiona-kitty to alleviate that.
(Wow, this post is about as appropriate for the "name cats" icon as it's
possible to get!)
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no subject
Date: 2005-02-09 09:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-09 09:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-09 09:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-09 10:09 am (UTC)Of course I know better than this, but it feels like tempting Fate or invoking Karma, and therefore I think it fairly unlikely that I'll ever do it again. I remind myself that the cat is not actually named after me, she and I are both named after the same fictional character, but it doesn't always work.
no subject
Date: 2005-02-11 12:14 pm (UTC)