Happy Holidays 2025, Part VI: Who We Are As People

 Days until Christmas: 11
 Days until my birthday: 6

Daisy's mother is sick; she's been essentially bedridden since yesterday and doesn't know yet if it's an actual illness, POTS, or the four shortbread cookies she had for lunch. 

Mama gets sick quite frequently, especially in the winter months. Seeing it reminds us of our fleeting mortality, especially in the aftermath of losing our sweet Pete last week. I tend to struggle a lot more with mortality when one of our cats dies, or when a friend dies. I've lost a lot of friends over the years to various causes -- including but not limited to murder, cancer, car accidents, and diabetes. I've had two friends who were murdered by their exes. One is too much, but two is wildly unsettling. 

Eventually, my parents will die. Eventually, Daisy's parents will too. We're not looking forward to any of it.

Well, okay, I take that back -- my actual father can die anytime he wants and I wouldn't lose any sleep whatsoever over it. Do I look forward to it? No, but we'll just say I'm not opposed to it and will leave it at that.

It's been five days now since Pete's death and we're slowly starting to crawl out of our holes of grief a little bit. A month or so ago, Daisy ordered another cat DNA test because it was on sale, with the justification of "we know Pete's going to leave us soon, and I know we don't want another cat, but I also know who we are as people."

She's right. Damn it all, she's right.

I am not looking for another cat and don't want one. Daisy is not looking for another cat and doesn't want one. But we both know who we are as people.

We also have the knowledge that whatever cat we get next, when and if we do, will be our final cat. We say that because Hank is now the oldest, and he's not even three yet. Cats live a long time -- Pete was almost nineteen. Bare minimum, we've got at least another ten or so years before Hank kicks off. I actually expect I'll be close to sixty before he goes, or at least somewhere in that ballpark, and all of the other children are younger than him. After a two-year-long veritable adoption spree, we are now locked in with these five cats to raise them throughout their entire lives, keep them healthy, and hope they live as long as Pete (18.5), Maggie (16), and Sadie (17) did. We have one empty slot, and if we're ever going to get another cat, it has to be the endgame cat -- the cat that we absolutely cannot live without, the cat that completes us, the household, and our family. The cat to end all other desires for cats.

Except it's not my choice.

Charlie and Gary, the Double Trouble boys™ were my choices. Daisy really wanted Charlie, but it was absolutely possible that we would not have adopted him that day if he wasn't who he was, and as Sadie had just died, it was my choice. Gary told me that I was his dad and I decided then and there I would not be leaving him in that shelter. I made these decisions easily and quite carefree partially because I knew Pete would not be with us forever. I would never change those decisions on the boys and both of them are wonderful little men.

But, we had an agreement. Gary and Charlie were my choices and while we love them both very dearly, we made the decision that once Pete was gone, everything was on Daisy for when and if we got another cat. It was totally, completely up to her once he left this plane of existence. I told her she did not need my permission for it, I did not get a say, I did not reserve naming rights, nothing. It was all her decision if she found a cat she could not live without. In fact, I even told her she didn't even have to tell me about it -- she could completely surprise me with a new kitten in bed with me one day, waking up to a brand new goblin cuddling with me or chewing on my fingers and toes. It did not matter to me; I knew she would have her own reasoning for it all, I knew she would pick a good name, and I knew that I would love a new cat with my whole heart and soul, just as I had and have done for the other babies. But, more than that, I know that I can trust Daisy. I know that she's not going to go out on a whim and do something rash without thinking through absolutely everything.

I had but two stipulations, and considering the above, I found them to be very minor ones. 

One -- the new cat has to be a kitten, not an adult. I love raising kittens and the other cats in the house love kittens. Introducing an adult shelter cat to an environment of five other territorial cats is absolutely asking for problems. Kittens can be trained and shown the ropes by the older cats.

Two -- no matter what cat she gets, that cat goes on Frontline that day as soon as they enter this house and remain on it their entire lives. I don't care if they've done other flea-and-parasite prevention at the shelter -- we are not lapsing on it and we are not risking it with another kitten; those fleas will be terminated with extreme prejudice. 

Daisy agreed to these terms, and while I don't think we're going to be getting another cat anytime soon, there is that open spot, that hole left by Pete, that will always on some level beckon us.

But it will be the last cat. I'm now reaching the age where it's possible that some of these cats we have now will outlive me. I don't really think that's going to happen, but I am getting old now. I turn 43 in less than a week. Say one of the Double Trouble boys lives twenty years -- that would put me at 63. My grandfather died at 60. I'm already old and gray and slow; what am I going to look and feel like at 63? Santa Claus? Brandon Claus. 

Yes, this is a photo of me from 2021 that has been artificially aged, but come on -- it's likely not far off. 

I'm trying to get into the holiday spirit this year the best ways I know how. Losing Pete has made that difficult. Being constantly tired and feeling like the holiday season is just whipping by like a freight train without brakes has also made that difficult. Breathing space is just as important as enjoyment space. If it comes too fast there's no enjoyment in the buildup, no excitement and anticipation, and the crash of the bell curve when all the holidays end and there's still three more months of winter to survive through becomes that much more brutal. 

I have only received four Christmas cards this year so far, and sent out nearly seventy. I know I have said in the past that I don't do it in order to get cards back from people, and I don't, but it is shocking to me that this year we've received but four so far, less than two weeks out from Christmas. There are always the stragglers, of course, the one or two cards I get well after Christmas has come and gone, but usually by December 14th I've gotten more than four, at least I think so. Maybe people are just giving up on cards now. I mention this possibility every year; it seems that Gen X is the last generation who truly gave a shit about Christmas cards, with a few millennial exceptions. Truth be told, most of the cards I send are to boomers and older, who still value them, and they are all slowly dying off. I would imagine a decade from now that my cards will no longer be 70 per year, but 40, 35, 30, with numbers dwindling a few more per year as those people kick off the planet. At what point do I stop designing and ordering the fancy cards and just get a $10 box of them from Walgreens? Or more than that, a few boxes of new ones on deep discount from Walmart on post-holiday sales? Is there a cutoff point?

And yet, every year I get side messages from friends and family who tell me that they are so happy to get our cards, that the card I create every year is the card they look forward to the most. I have heard this, at this point this year, no less than five times over the course of the past two weeks -- and that fills me with love; that does, actually, put me into the holiday spirit. One of my close friends from work (the irony there is staggering, but I adore her and love her like a sister) sent me a picture of her fridge this past week -- on it is the collection of the last four years of cards I've sent her...and nobody else's cards. Just ours. I could have cried, not just because she saved all of them and continues to save them, but because...nobody else loves her enough to send her cards? That's so sad to me. She's a wonderful person, her kids are incredibly sweet, and...nobody sends her cards? Did she fuck up in a past life or something? 

That's why I do it. I want my friends and family to feel loved, to feel cared for and thought about during the holidays -- especially those who are divorced or widowed/otherwise alone, or those who never get any cards from anyone else. The love and compassion I can provide is who I am as a person. There were many years I hated Christmas and hated the holidays because I was alone and sad and bitter -- I never want to be that person again and I sure as shit wouldn't wish that on anyone else. It was Daisy who, with her compassion and her own love and holiday spirit, brought me back from the brink.

That's part of why I'm looking forward to going to the Christmas Eve church service this year, finally, after missing it for several years running. I need that spirit in my life. I need the warmth and comfort of knowing I'm not the only one who cares about the holidays anymore. I need the safe space of being around other kind, loving people. Who cares that I don't share their religious beliefs? It's never been about that for me. It's always been about feeling seen, feeling loved and included. Daisy's parents know I'm not religious in any fashion whatsoever, and Daisy herself isn't exactly the religious type either, but it's about love. It's about inclusivity and feeling welcomed to join the traditions they've always had. I get so excited for the Christmas Eve church service, even though it's always relatively short. Family is everything. Love is everything. 

I say this though, knowing who we are as people, and knowing that if Mama's sick or if the weather is shitty or anything goes to the wayside that we will miss the service yet again. If we do, it is what it is and I don't tend to lose any sleep over it, but it is disheartening. 

As you all know, another large part of me getting into the holiday spirit is retail therapy, or as many other folks call it, the act of "Christmas shopping." I don't even really have to buy anything -- it's the going through the motions of it all that I love. I have told the stories here before about fond memories of Christmas traditions from my childhood and teenage years, about how we'd always plan a trip to Century III Mall or South Hills Village in Pittsburgh on or around my birthday every year, and how I would look forward to it with such excitement and thrill. It was the spirit, it was when I felt most alive during the holidays -- surrounded by other shoppers, immersed in the lights and sounds and decorations of the season and feeling the magic of 1980s and 1990s holidays before the internet, Amazon, and the death of the shopping mall ruined all of that. 

Last year we went to Westroads Mall here in Omaha -- the last big surviving mall in the area that is still somewhat thriving -- only to find that most of the stores and sights/sounds I was interested in were gone and the mall was far emptier than I expected it to be. I bought nothing, but took what delight I could in walking through corridor after corridor of stores and looking through windows of high end fashion shops. It was still aesthetically pleasing to my soul, comfort food for my Christmas spirit.

It is also something I don't need to do again; the mall days are over, and they live on in my memory only. The world has changed and I am an absolute relic when it comes to the things I take comfort in over the holidays.

This year, as mentioned, we're planning to visit the shops at Shadow Lake, which is about twenty miles or so (give or take, I don't know the exact distance) south of Omaha in the suburbs. I at least know what's there -- a PetSmart, a Ross Dress for Less, a really nice Burlington, Torrid, and a host of other stores that we may or may not go into. I have pivoted on my retail therapy, so to speak, to focus on this. Ironically we were down there two years ago as well -- the PetSmart there had a candidate for a cat who I thought might become Empress, but while she was sweet, she was not the one. That was after we'd already gone to Council Bluffs to their shelter and back and before we'd spend three hours in a pointless cat cafe -- it was a frustrating, tiring birthday.

It is what it is. We may or may not have a fun time in Shadow Lake next weekend -- my birthday unfortunately falls on the last Saturday before Christmas and I fully expect any shopping area to be a full-on crazy-ass madhouse of people doing last minute gifts. I don't want anything special, I just want a good, fun day of adventure. I'm not looking for anything in particular; I might find something for Daisy and I'd like to get something for each of the parents, but if I can't or don't, it's not a big deal. If I go into the adventure with no expectations, I cannot possibly be disappointed. My energy will be limited anyway; eventually I will have to come home and pass out to reset my sleep schedule for the last two days I'll work before my holiday vacation, and even before that we're still doing dinner with the parents. I just know who I am as a person, and I know that around 3-4pm on Saturday afternoons, my battery runs out no matter what I'm doing or not doing. This cycle will continue until I either no longer have to work on Sundays or no longer have to work at all.

I say that last part because a winning Powerball ticket on my birthday would be the best gift ever. 

There is a contingency plan, of course -- if one or more of the parents are sick or me or Daisy get sick, or if the weather gets fucked -- we will order Veg.Edible, watch something Christmassy on the TV, and love on the cats. And, likely, take Christmas and birthday photos with said cats (I would like to do that anyway). Here's last year's Christmas photos I got with Emmy and Hank:

Yes, I am absolutely wearing a Ghost t-shirt, because this is who I am as a person.

We didn't even put up any decorations this year, like the ones seen in the background of these photos. Truth be told, it seems too late this year to bother at this point. Usually to the left of the TV (essentially right behind where I'm standing) we have a small, LED-lit, Charlie Brown-style Christmas tree too. This year we didn't even bother unboxing any of the decorations. I don't know if Daisy just never thought about it or if she wasn't that into the spirit of the season either. Pete really did put a damper on a lot of things as he got sick this last time on Thanksgiving, so if it slipped her mind I wouldn't blame her. 

Anyway, onward...

Happy Holidays 2025, Part V: The Powdering

Days until Christmas: 12
Days until my birthday: 7 

Diatomaceous earth goes everywhere. 

It coats everything near or around it in a thin, dust-like white powder, not dissimilar to flour. It sticks on clothes, carpets, furniture, walls, baseboards, curtains, and anything it touches. The furnace will propel a thin coating of it throughout the house simply because it'll pick it up in the air. 

But that's the point, in our ongoing war with the fleas.

Yesterday I stripped my ottoman and chair, and doused them with the powder. I always keep blankets on and in my chair and ottoman because I like to be comfortable. All of those blankets were pulled off and washed, the furniture was, ahem, powder coated, and then they were replaced and were again powedered for another layer of protection and flea stoppage. 

The diatomaceous earth dries out everything -- your skin, your lungs, your sinuses, your eyes, the air -- everything. Which makes it that much worse when it's already dry in the house and you're already running a humidifier on both floors of the house so that you don't have nosebleeds every day.

I speak from experience, shall we say. 

I have never seen a flea in my office, mind you. But I know there are likely some stragglers, as Mable, Hank, and Gary like to spend as much time in here with me as possible, and when he was alive, Pete spent the most time in here out of all of them -- on the ottoman or the chair. So I'm sure they're hiding somewhere.

As a reminder, fleas don't like humans; they don't want our blood, and they don't want to breed on us or around us as a general rule. And because of that I am not as anarchic, "burn the place down and salt the earth" about eradicating them as, say, Daisy is. It'll take some time, and I'm just doing the prophylactic measures I can. So, my Friday was spent doing just that -- washing, powdering, replacing. I wanted to get to the living room too and do the same there, but I did not have the energy or the time -- our washer/dryer can only handle so much at once and they take forever to run their cycles. I am also but one man, and a tired one at that. Halfway through the work I was doing yesterday, I had to retreat to the bedroom and take a nap in the bed with Hank and the Double Trouble boys. Daisy didn't even realize I'd passed out for a while.

Gary and Charlie are pissed that my room had been off limits to them all day because -- especially for Gary -- it is a sanctuary for him where he can get alone time with the dad and eat all of the fancy Hill's Science Diet food he can gobble down. They all like this food; it is the one cat food that has apparent universal appeal in this house. This one is "sensitive stomach" non-prescription food, but when we had Gary as a very little kitten and he was on the prescription version, we couldn't keep enough bags of it in the house -- everyone ate it to the tune of a 3.5 pound bag per week. 

We got the non-prescription version again because, well, as Gary grew up his stomach issues grew up with him and went away, but he still occasionally had diarrhea. Of course, Mable did as well, and Pete (because he was slowly dying) also did while his kidneys were failing him. So we figured, worth a shot, right? Well, they didn't forget how much they all love said food, and we have now switched to the seven-pound bags so they're not eating us out of house and home every single week. Daisy ordered another bag about two weeks ago, and I unboxed it today...shortly after ordering another one myself. Look, if the cats are gonna eat it and it's good for them, might as well let them enjoy it and stay stocked up. It also lets us completely wean them off cheaper cat foods and treats that likely aren't incredibly beneficial for them. Now, mind you, as Pete was in his final months, we let him eat anything he wanted, as much as he wanted, as long as it wasn't toxic to cats -- it was more important that he was eating period than what it was he ate -- and that is me almost directly quoting our vet there. Because of this, he got to eat like a king -- all sorts of different treats, multiple types of decently high-end cat food, liquid treats like Churus and Temptations Purr-ee, cat-food versions of all manners of bisques, soups, and gravies, and occasionally a can of tuna right off the shelf, cracked open and dumped into a bowl. The problem is that all the other kids liked this royal treatment as well, to varying degrees, and often would shove him out of the way to get to it themselves. Pete would not compete -- he was old and kind and never wanted to stop anyone else from eating, so he would hang back once the others were interested. So, slowly weaning all of the others off of this lifestyle of champagne wishes and caviar dreams may take a bit of time and patience for us. 

Today has, for once, been a very leisurely day; I don't think Daisy was out of bed longer than for a bathroom trip until around 3pm, and even then our day consisted of not much but lounging about -- this is exactly what both of us needed. The stress of Pete, and the stress of being go-go-go for everything recently has just torn both of us down. Add to this that it's currently single-digit cold outside and it snowed half the day anyway, and we're very grateful to just be indoors doing as little as possible. While it's cold now, we're supposed to get a warm-up over the next few days and temperatures are supposed to hit the high 40s and maybe even low 50s again later this coming week. This is good because of Daisy's jury duty and because we want the snow to melt off. We got a dusting, just enough to leave footprints and tire tracks in, but not enough to shovel -- but it's not going anywhere until those temperatures creep up enough to actually melt it.

I suppose I should be grateful; my hometown in West Virginia is getting blasted by a 6-12" snowstorm right now, the first big one of the season for the area.

We're a week out from my birthday now. Plans remain much the same at this juncture -- essentially Christmas shopping in Shadow Lake to appease my need for holiday retail therapy, followed by dinner with the parents and a quiet night at home before I return to work the next evening for a short two-day week before Christmas. This coming week is the last full week of work I'll have to do until well after the new year, and it couldn't come quickly enough. The same goes for Daisy, who has a similar schedule to me throughout the rest of the year. I've decided to go ahead and take off Sunday the 28th too -- I wasn't originally going to, but I have a spare day and we also have a dermatologist/skin checks appointment on the afternoon of Monday the 29th. 

What else is going on that I've neglected to mention due to stress and fatigue and a cat dying? Well...

A few weeks ago, in order to offset the time between now and my next doctor's appointment (and the refills that come with that), I found an online pharmacy that just charges a "doctor's visit fee" and will ship me my maintenance medications in bulk. So, after jumping through a few hoops from the comfort of my office chair, I now have bottles upon bottles of my three maintenance medications -- metformin, allopurinol, and rosuvastatin -- on my shelf here at home. The only one I cannot get this way is my Trulicity, and to be fair, I could get it, but I refuse to pay $1,800 a month for it. The other medicines are common and relatively inexpensive. 

You may ask why this was an option to me, and I'll tell you -- my insurance with my new job does not cover my doctor. She is out of network. Seeing her for routine things like bloodwork checks or prescription refills would be completely out of pocket, more or less. As I am not dying and my diabetes has always been well-managed, I am trying to let it ride for as long as possible until I can find a new doctor that is within my network, especially as my refill limits for my current doctor have now run out and I can get nothing else from her auto-refilled without seeing her again. There's no knowledge of the future involved here; I don't truthfully know how long Daisy or I will be at either of our jobs (I would assume a long time, for both of us, but that always remains to be seen) so I would really like to not jump through a bunch of hoops to see a new doctor only to have to switch healthcare plans yet again for another job and no longer be able to see them, either. Welcome to healthcare in the United States, folks. 

Daisy was skeptical about me ordering my meds in bulk until they arrived at the door. "How do you know they're American drugs and aren't some bullshit made in other countries?"

"[Daisy]," I said, "my rosuvastatin I get from Amazon Pharmacy legit says on the label that the manufacturer is Changzhou Pharmaceutical Factory. What's the difference? I don't care where they come from, I care that I can get them and that they work."

And this is the truth. I absolutely do not give a flying shit where the drugs come from. Are they what they're supposed to be? Do they work? Yes on both counts? Cool. Fuck it. It really does not matter to me. They could come from outer space if they're affordable and they do what they're supposed to do. 

However, per the website of the pharmacist I use, they are all US-made drugs and are shipped from one of their two laboratories -- Dallas, and Clearwater, FL. So, I guess we're in the clear, so to speak. 

I've got refills for a year before I have to re-up the "doctor's visit" fee. I've got enough in the house right now for probably eight-ish months when it comes to the metformin, and close to a year of the allopurinol and rosuvastatin. I plan ahead. You may be asking why I'm not particularly concerned about the Trulicity. Well...it wrecks my guts when I'm on it if I do not eat the same foods consistently, which bars me from enjoying restaurant food or holiday meals or really anything outside of the ordinary, and truth be told I hated injecting myself with it every week. I would come to dread it, and would come to dread the effects of it if I was off it too long and then stuck myself with it again. And over time, it only marginally affected my A1C and weight loss goals. I've not been on it since about a week before Thanksgiving and I've still lost eight pounds since November 4th, which tells me it's not as important in contributing to my weight loss as I thought it was previously. 

My weight is still slowly going down. I'm not going to be in modeling shape anytime soon, but if I progress as I have been, I'll be down close to 100 pounds versus eight years ago. Right now, I'm down 80. Eighty. That's wildly monumental to me. My goal for 2026 is to lose that last twenty and to then set a new goal. Will I get there? Eh, who knows. It's all about activity levels and diet, honestly. At least for me. I've been blessed and cursed with the type of metabolism that corresponds closely to what I'm doing in life. If I eat like an asshole for a month, I will gain weight -- sometimes ten pounds or more. If I don't, and I keep my food urges on a tight leash, get good sleep, and stay moderately active when I can...weight will fall off me. I also realize this is likely fleeting and won't last forever. As I get older, everything will slow down more and more. 

In other news, I am waiting for a drop shipment from China for the second time.

Let me explain.

Back in October -- before Halloween, in fact -- I ordered a ton of music t-shirts from a website claiming to be the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Store but ended up being a dropshipper from China cranking out bootlegs. I was mostly aware of this at the time due to the prices -- 15 shirts and two hoodies for less than $50 would always be too good to be true for authentic stuff -- but honestly, I've never really cared about a lot of that Chinese bootleg stuff as long as it looks fine and fits fine. It is what it is. And for $50 I was willing to take the risk on it.

Well, it shipped, and I tracked it halfway across the world, very slowly as it moved. It reached Omaha and sat in the delivery facility for a week, and then on Thanksgiving I was told it had been delivered here to my house. It was not. 

I got with customer service, who told me that they had the same tracking as I did, and it had been confirmed delivered, though they did not have the options for photo proof of delivery or anything like that. I told them, again, that it had not been delivered, nobody had come to my house to deliver anything to me, and if it was delivered to another address nobody had let me know or brought it to me (and our neighbors are generally pretty cool; if they'd received a package for me/us they would've brought it over and dropped it off). 

Despite the fact that all of this sounds scammy, the tracking website is not; I have used it to track other shipments from China in the past, like when I was ordering vapes in bulk through FastWeb -- the site is legit. 

After a second email back to their customer service saying that yes, I had checked everything thoroughly and no, my items still had not arrived, they agreed to re-ship everything again at no cost and expedited shipping of 7-15 business days. Okay, sure, I'll play the long game here. Within 24 hours I had another tracking number for another shipper and confirmation that it was all the same items, the same sizes, etc being re-shipped. The second shipment is currently traversing the planet (or so the tracking says) and I'll see if it ever gets here. If it does, great. If it doesn't, it's a "live and learn" sort of lesson and I'm only out $50 that's already been paid for three billing cycles ago now. I'll keep you folks posted either way, because the suspense of the long game here is amusing to me if nothing else. 

I guess I can always go in and do a charge dispute via my credit card if it doesn't get here the second time. I don't know how that works for stuff that's several months old though. Maybe that's part of the long game -- get the money from the unwitting consumer and then when they don't get the goods, it's too late to dispute the charge. Whatever. $50 isn't gonna make or break me anymore, it's not 2011 and I'm not poor scraping by to survive anymore. It's simply a lesson to learn these days. 

Anyway.

Daisy says she's been working on a final Christmas/birthday present for me in secret. It's something she has to design and has been doing for a few days now, but hasn't been able to get it completely right. I assume it's something art-related, and I'm guessing it's a mural of the cats -- or likely more accurately, a mural of our three dead cats. She asked me what I thought she was working on, to tease me, and when that was my first guess she immediately dropped and changed the subject -- so, I'm guessing I was a little too close for comfort there. 

I delight in knowing that there's no way Daisy will know what I got her this year for Christmas, because it's so outside the box of things I've gotten before. It's also mostly things I know she's wanted and/or has asked for over the past year or so, in passing and probably not even thinking about it, with the exception of a few small extra items and one thing we both needed in order to stay with the times. I'll leave it at that, but yeah -- we're very blessed to have relatively few wants and needs. 

The first gifts from my parents arrived today; they consisted of two very nice cobalt blue dishes and a set of glasses-cleaning microfiber wipes. We thanked them graciously. Because of the weather and time constraints, I must admit that I have yet to pack, seal, and send their Christmas box to them and as we are now in the home stretch before the holidays hit, I just don't know when we'll be able to do it. Daisy wants us to go out to lunch on Friday (the day before my birthday), which she took off -- but I told her I can't commit to that yet, and neither can she -- who knows if she'll still be stuck on a jury or if I'll be feeling okay and have energy, or if the weather will cooperate with us. Any of those things could snarl our plans. 

So life marches on -- tomorrow I'll do my normal household chores and watch the Chiefs (likely lose), and will return to work for my last full week of the year. Daisy may or may not go to the shelter for kitten feeding as they haven't had kittens for her to feed for the past two weeks, and they're now on a "hey, let the next person know via our email chain if there's none to feed so they don't have to come in" sort of thing. On Monday, Daisy will report to jury duty for however long they need her, and sometime within this next week I expect us to get a call stating it's time to come pick up Pete's ashes and keepsakes. There's never a dull moment in this household, it seems.

Happy Holidays 2025, Part IV: The Emptiness

 Days until Christmas: 13
 Days until my birthday: 8

The holidays are coming too goddamn fast this year. With Daisy's possible jury service thrown into the mix, time is at a premium to try to get everything done and ready in the less than two weeks we now have before Christmas. I don't know if it can be done.

I am done shopping for her and for my parents; barring any other little things I find for Daisy between now and December 25, I'm good for her. My parents will get their box shipped to them from the local post office sometime over the next few days, if not today (time permitting). 

However.

I still need time to wrap presents, I need time to unbox packages, open mail, run the shredder, and clean the things in the house that I normally do -- and clean deeper now that we're attempting to fully eradicate any fleas with diatomaceous earth on and in/under everything. I also want more time to write and more time to sleep, and the normal care of the cats still is necessary even if it's a lot less time-consuming with Pete now gone. On top of all of this, I've still got six more working days before I am off for my far-too-short holiday vacation. 

Daisy is doing a wonderful job with flea control on the cats; she combs each of them out every day and gets some living ones and eggs off each cat every day (some days they don't have any, and some days they have several). I told her how much I appreciate that effort and work, and also reminded her that it's a process; there's a life cycle for fleas so they're not going to disappear overnight even with the cats on the Frontline meds, even if there's a day or two she doesn't comb any off the cats. Frontline will eventually kill them all, and every egg and flea she combs off the cats every day helps greatly reduce new ones, but it is a process. Hank and Charlie are the worst as their fur is super-thick and it's the perfect fur for fleas. 

I guess without Pete, though, one less cat means that much fewer fleas? Possibly?

To those ends, I ordered $221 worth of Frontline in bulk from Amazon this week; it is enough to protect all five cats for five months. Frontline is ungodly expensive, though, and I'd like to see if there's a cheaper generic option that has the same meds in it. We did try something else for a few months a while back, and it worked just fine for the cats, but I can't remember now what it was. 

Anyway.

We miss Pete terribly. There is a great emptiness in the house now that the old man previously occupied with his presence for 18.5 years. 

With his passing, a lot of things went into motion -- for example, he had to be removed from the city registry for tax and vaccination purposes. Our vets had to be notified that his prescriptions and refills can be canceled and closed out. He needed to be removed from our Chewy.com profile(s) for the same reasons. Those are the things that most people would consider, and are all already done.

The things that most people likely would not think about are some of the things I took care of yesterday and am in the process of caring for today -- swapping out foods and food bowls, water bowls, and washing the water fountain is part of that; I'm sure they all smell like him still. Same goes with the cat beds and couch blankets; they are all Pete-scented. Whether actively or passively, all of the surviving cats look for him and know he should be there when he's not. Getting rid of his scent from most things in the house will help them move on. 

When Maggie and Sadie passed, I did the same thing each time. Pete lost his mind with anxiety searching for Maggie when she left us, howling and wailing for her, trying to get into rooms with closed doors just to see if she was in there, etc. When I cleaned the house of things that obviously smelled like her, that anxiety greatly lessened and eventually went away. 

I know the other cats know Pete is gone. They don't understand why or where he is because they can still smell him. They don't seem to be experiencing any anxiety or restlessness, but Daisy and I have both realized that all of them have become more lovey and intentional with us. Gary has awakened me the past two days by climbing up on my chest and kneading. Charlie came to bed with us yesterday morning and slept in Pete's spot, in almost the exact same position, and has taken up residence in Pete's spot on the couch, laying there with me and with Daisy like Pete did. Mable has become even more of a secret daddy's girl and has wanted to spend almost all of her waking hours with me in my office when she can. Emmy, surprisingly, has become a lot more loving towards Daisy when previously she was mostly standoffish with everyone but me, Hank and Pete. Hank, while it's not completely out of the ordinary for him, has become far more enamored with "dad time," and will sneak away from everyone else to come in my office to get love and rubs and chest cuddles -- but he won't do that if any of the other cats (or Daisy) are around. 

The house feels so lonely, so quiet, so empty without Pete. I don't feel his presence here at all. I felt Maggie's presence when she left us, at least for a brief time (here and there, for a few weeks after she passed) and I had such a bond with Sadie that I still feel her presence around the house, as if she's laying at my feet or on the couch next to me, on a pretty regular basis -- as if her spirit is there watching over me. It is an intense feeling that she's just there with me still, as if I could reach down and rub her ears and actually feel her there. 

But Pete? I don't feel him here at all. It does not feel like his spirit came home with us when it left his body. I expect to see him laying on the couch or drinking water from his bowls, like if I just squint enough or let my peripheral vision take over -- but I don't, I can't. I don't see him or feel him there. Where he used to be there is a deafening silence, an empty hole.

Daisy, for the record, disagrees with me. She feels his presence, and believes he still came home with us when we left the vet's office. She said that his presence felt very strong when she was laying on the couch mourning him, after we returned home, and that she told him it was okay to go upstairs and sleep with me. 

If he's here somewhere, it's so faint I can't sense it; I can't feel him. And I wish I could. I keep expecting to hear his little cry and his paw scratches on my office door, and I don't. I keep expecting to turn and look at the couch while I'm working at my desk downstairs and see his big green-yellow eyes looking at me with love, as he always did, or see him sitting on the long part of the couch next to me just because he came over and wanted love and chin scratches. But he's not there.

The night after he left us, I caught myself saying "I love you, old man" aloud to an empty room, because it's such a habit for me to look over to him and tell him that multiple times a night -- it's muscle memory. 

But he's not there, and if he is, I can't feel it. And on some level that is just as sad as losing him in the first place. 

Regardless, he'll be back with us physically in a week or so, albeit in an urn. There's not much to him, especially since he had lost so much weight, so I would imagine it will be a small urn.

I will heal in time; we both will, of course. He was just such a sweet old man. Pete was the most unique cat I've ever known -- a cat that had human-like intelligence, emotions, and empathy. It was very hard for either of us to picture a life without him in it, and now we have to. I will love Pete forever, just like I love the departed girls -- but it's a different kind of love now that all of them are gone. 

It's also the beginning of a new era -- for the first time ever, there's not an older-generation cat in the house with us. All of the cats here now started with Hank as the first member of Generation 2 back in 2023. That just seems so wild to me. I found a picture from December 2023 -- a mere two years ago -- that was labeled "all four, 12.23" and opened it up. It was Pete, Sadie, Maggie, and Hank all lounging on the couch in the living room, and my first thought was wow, three of these four cats are now dead. In the span of two years. I can pinpoint the exact date to between Christmas and December 28 too, because also in that picture is the stack of Daisy's already-unwrapped but neatly organized presents, and the "all four" denotes that Empress wasn't in the house yet -- we adopted her on December 29. 

In fact, I made the observation to Daisy yesterday that we're "breaking even" for the year -- we lost two cats and gained two more all within the year 2025. Sadie died at the beginning of the year, leaving us with four again -- then we got Charlie, five; then we found Gary, number six -- and then at the end of the year Pete died. So we're breaking even at least when it comes to cats. It is a slightly amusing observation if nothing else. 

I am thankful for the time we got with Pete; some of the last words I said to the old man were "thank you." We thought we were going to lose him three different times this year due to his health issues, and each time he bounced back for a while longer -- but it was always going to be diminishing returns each time, and we knew that. I am also thankful, in a sense, that he went down now instead of in another week or two, because (again) the selfish part of me did not want his death to ruin my birthday or the holidays.

I think Pete is a large part of why my enthusiasm for the holidays this year is quite diminished anyhow. My stress levels have been really high and my energy has been low, and time is ever-marching forward. All the time we spent taking care of him and making sure he was okay and comfortable was time we could not spend taking care of other things or getting quality rest. Daisy was a trooper through it all, her near infinite patience and love/compassion for that old man draining her energy reserves as well but still soldiering on. For me, to suddenly be released from Pete duties, the routines of it all -- making sure he had his meds and Churus and clean water and treats and all the love and attention I could possibly give him -- having those suddenly stripped away and removed from my proverbial to-do lists would normally give me breathing space to relax and decompress. But, because all of those tasks were for Pete, I just feel empty and hollow inside; I am saddened that my time does not revolve around him anymore.

You may ask if there's relief -- and there is, to an extent. It is a guilty relief. I know he's not in pain anymore and each day is no longer a struggle for him, and taking care of him was indeed a lot of work -- but it was a labor of love; that work was me pouring love into the old man and letting him know that yes, he was seen and cared for, and very very loved. So it just leaves an empty hole. I only hope he understood at the end that we just wanted him to rest and no longer suffer. I hope his spirit, wherever it may now reside, can forgive us for ending it for him. 

I told Sadie she could go, that I loved her and always would, but when the fight got to be too great, she could go and we'd understand. And I think she got that, in some strange way. I told Maggie the same thing, and I think she understood that as well. When I told Pete, he did not seem to understand. He fought hard for each new day with us. He did not want to leave us. I think that's part of what makes it so much harder with Pete. 

But, as I have said before, life goes on. The sun set tonight, and it will rise again tomorrow. The holidays and cold weather, snowstorms, and biting temperatures will turn to the warm rains and tornadoes of spring and summer. Soon Pete will be back in this house, inside a cat-shaped urn, and he will be silent witness to all of these things again.

Happy Holidays 2025, Part III: Civic Duties

Days until Christmas: 13
Days until my birthday: 8

 A few months ago, when we were in Canada, I was sitting in the sunroom in the family homestead one morning checking my email. I saw, through the USPS informed delivery email I'd gotten that day, that Daisy was being summoned for jury service. 

This in itself is nothing new or surprising; Omaha is a big place with a rather robust court system, and both Daisy and myself receive a summons approximately every 4-5 years. I've gotten multiples over the years and I have never even had to go into the courthouse for selection questioning -- I've always been chucked out with the first group, usually by number only -- with confirmation via email, text, or phone call. So far. My last summons was in 2023, so my next one is likely coming up sometime soon, and that train is never late. 

Daisy, however, is not usually this lucky, and has now had to go in for jury duty work two of the three times she's been called since we've been together. The first time was about a decade ago, and the second time was a few years ago (she was dismissed after a day or two). This time she called and was told she would need to come in, no question about it -- a letter had also been sent that arrived the same day that confirmed, yes, she needed to be there that next Monday morning no matter what.

So, the Monday morning after Thanksgiving -- after we'd gotten a snowstorm over the weekend that we'd just finished digging out of, Daisy was up and dressed in work clothes (sort of a shock for me as since we both got new jobs this year and we both work at home, I never see her wearing more formal clothes anymore unless we have to go to a wedding or a funeral). She left for the courthouse shortly after I got off work, Pete came and curled up in bed with me, and I passed out.

When I awoke in the afternoon, she was still gone and I therefore assumed that yes, she'd made it through the prescreening processes and she was indeed selected, as otherwise I likely would've heard something from her (or she would've been home already). About twenty minutes after I woke up, I got a text from her sending me a grocery total from Trader Joes, and then heard the garage door roll up. 

Daisy was not selected for that round, but this is a special trial jury selection process that runs from December 1 to January 1, and she must call in every Friday morning this month to see if her presence is requested again on the following Monday, throughout the end of the month -- even though she was not selected the first time around.

Do you understand how inconvenient that is? How stressful it must be to not know if you are going to have to dress up and brave the cold, leave the house and spend hours in a courtroom possibly for no reason once a week? Or, if selected, for as long as the trial goes? I can't imagine that.

Well, I can, I just haven't had to do it. Yet. That's a nightmare scenario for me -- it involves doing multiple things I want no part of, ever:

1. driving in the winter in the dark

2. driving downtown in the winter in the dark

3. driving downtown in the winter in the dark and needing to find a parking garage, then 

4. needing to walk in the cold, in the winter, to wherever the courthouse is in relation to said garage

5. being forced to wear respectable clothing

6. being forced to leave the house in general

7. being forced to wear respectable clothing, leave the house, and be questioned by law enforcement

8. sit somewhere in a courthouse for untold hours with nothing to occupy me

9. go through the selection process

10. be around people I don't know and won't necessarily like 

11. be around people in general

12. if selected, drive back home and do it all again day after day until the service ends

I am not a fan of any of that. A lot of it seems like a meeting that could've been an email or a Teams call. 

Well, this past week -- in addition to the stress of Pete dying, Daisy was called and a voicemail was left telling her that this coming Monday she would be required to come back in again for more screening. She didn't even have to check this time, she was being voluntold.

"So," I said, "did they like...not have anyone they liked the first time, and they're now down to the second stringers of people they thought were too opinionated for the first go-around, but not for the second?"

Daisy did have a week off in between; last Monday, she was told she did not have to report. This second time around seems more urgent in a sense, and I assume if they're calling her back in she's likely not going to be able to get out of serving a second time. That would put her in jury service all (or most) of next week, leading right up to my birthday next Saturday, and maybe then again all the way through Christmas week (with, likely, the exception of the holiday itself) and again during the dead week between Christmas and New Year's. Obviously, nobody wants this. But it is what it is. 

The Death of Pete

 Trigger warning: you all knew this post was coming at some point -- and much like I did with Maggie and Sadie, I am going to be spending some time here talking about a cat's death. If you do not want to read about this, then scroll onward and skip this one as I am sure I'll talk about Pete again in the future in a less depressing light. 

Pete's final photo

At about 8:30 yesterday morning, Pete left this plane of existence while snuggled inside the blanket in the above photo at our local vet's office, while Daisy held him and cried. He will be privately cremated and his ashes returned to us in a cat-shaped urn, and we may or may not have him back before Christmas, given the timeframes involved and the holidays themselves coming up. We were told 5-7 business days, but who knows, honestly. 

He is survived by the remaining five Gen-Z'er cats we have left, as Pete was the last of the original generation of our children.

So, here's the story. It's rather heartbreaking, but you knew it was coming.

Over the weekend, Pete began exhibiting signs of weakness in his legs. This was nothing new, really -- he's been pretty wobbly for a couple of months now. That was partially due to his age and arthritis, of course, but also heavily affected by his advanced kidney failure, which makes the limbs weaker. We knew this, but, he was still mostly able to get around fine. He just seemed like he'd lost a lot of his strength, and getting up onto the couch or bed, or my ottoman, was a lot harder for him. Still, he was able to get up and down the stairs and was mostly status quo.

By Sunday night, it became apparent that he was having far more trouble than usual. He would attempt to jump up on my ottoman and fail, and he would slip and fall getting in and out of the pans. He would recover after a few moments and hobble wherever he needed to go, but I was keeping a close eye on him.

On Monday morning, he came upstairs with me and went to bed with me, curling up as my teddy bear as he always liked to do. He slept with me almost all day on Monday as per the usual, cuddled in tight like the black little furnace he always was, warm and secure and happy.

By Monday evening it was very apparent that something was wrong. It was suddenly much harder for him to get around, and he took great time and effort to walk across the room to the water bowl or food bowl. I carried him downstairs because he was so wobbly instead of letting him walk on his own. He seemed nauseous and a little out of it, but he happily laid on the couch and got up to get treats and then went over to lay inside the little yurt that Daisy had gotten from Chewy's Black Friday sale. I mentioned to Daisy then that we needed to keep a much closer eye on him. 

By around 10pm his back legs had given out on him and were essentially no longer functional, and he was walking on his right...wrist, I guess? I could straighten out his front foot and he would remember he had a foot there, and he'd use it to balance himself. However, as soon as he took another step, it would fail him. He was essentially operating on one leg out of four and would slip and fall if he tried to make it across the couch or across the floor.

"It's time," I told Daisy. "His legs don't work anymore. He can't walk or stand."

At first, Daisy didn't fully agree with me, as she thought there might have been a little hope left for him. After another hour of him being essentially unable to move without our help, she understood that it was time, it was over, as well.

Daisy stayed up all night with Pete while I worked, next to the two of them. His condition quickly deteriorated. He lost his furnace-like body heat and became cold. This is a telltale sign that the body is shutting down. He was splayed out like a Beanie Baby with non-functioning limbs, which is also a telltale sign of kidney shutdown -- when the toxin buildup in their bloodstreams becomes too much, the limbs just splay out and become immobile. He would look at us with his big round eyes like I don't know what is happening to me, I just want to eat and drink and be loved.

It was time to let him go. It was a heartbreaking decision.

As the night went on, and he got slowly worse, Daisy and I began discussing our options. Originally we wanted to call the "do it at home" people and schedule it for Saturday, but as we watched him get progressively closer to death throughout the night, we nixed that idea. We then decided on calling our normal vet's office as soon as they opened, to see if they could get him in to take care of it there, but they didn't open until 8. Daisy did not want to wait that long. The emergency vet we took him to in October when he was very sick had extended hours, but they were also prohibitively expensive as they were an emergency vet. 

"There's the VCA," I said. 

The VCA vet hospital is just down the street from us, they are a normal vet's office in addition to being an animal hospital, and before we got all the children, they were our primary vet. They have records on all of our cats there, and it was there we took Maggie for her own end back in 2024. They opened at 7, as soon as I would get off work.

We decided, eventually, to call them first -- as soon as they opened -- because neither I nor Daisy wanted Pete to suffer any longer than he had to, and it was clear he was going to the longer we waited. If they didn't have an opening, we could call our normal vet at 8, but it hurt us so much to see him deteriorate and see the sadness and fear in his eyes as he didn't understand what was going on, just that he felt bad.

In the interim, Daisy carried him to the pan, where he used it normally -- laying down because he couldn't stand, but using it normally -- and to the water and food bowls, where he drank a lot of water and ate a ton of food while Daisy lovingly held him up so he could do so. He then summarily projectile-vomited most of that food and water back up .

"I know you love it even if I think it's dumb," Daisy said, "but if you get the hat and scarf we can get a few last Christmas photos of him."

It is a very cute photo, but you can tell he is not feeling good. He was playing along with us because he loved us. Looking back on it now, since he has passed, it is an oddly haunting photo to me. I get no sense of comfort or sweetness in looking at it, and in fact it just makes me sad. 

Daisy laid with him on the couch and lightly napped off and on while I finished my work night -- and we both noticed how much his temperature had dropped. He was very clearly dying. It was only a matter of time. 

It hurt us so much because he was eating, drinking, and using the pan; he wanted love, he was cognitively there with us still. He wasn't foggy or disoriented like Maggie and Sadie were; he was still Pete, trapped in a body that was quickly failing him all at once. Daisy put a diaper on him in the event that he were to lose his faculties like he'd lost the use of his limbs, and we waited for the clock to hit 7. 

The VCA said they could get us in without an issue. I went upstairs and changed clothes, so I could wear something a little warmer for the trip to the vet's office, and when I came back downstairs, Daisy was holding Pete in the kitchen, in her arms, and he was on his third Churu. He got to a fourth before he was done and didn't want anymore. Daisy's reasoning was something along the lines of he's going to die, let him die with a full stomach if he wants it. And I can't disagree with that logic.

We wrapped him in a thick towel and carried him out to the car, where he rode to the vet on my lap -- not in the carrier. The carrier and being in the car has made him very carsick during the last few trips we took him on, to the point where he'd vomit and shit himself. He had the diaper on still, but as he was already sick and Daisy had just given him multiple Churus because he'd wanted them, we opted for a ride there on my lap and then placed him gingerly into the carrier when we got to the parking lot. 

The receptionist girl Daisy spoke to on the phone was there and helped us process the paperwork. The euthanasia and cremation/urn were separate expenses and were performed by different parties; they do the euthanasia at the vet's office, but the cremation and urn and processing are all done by the Humane Society's "Rainbow Bridge" program, and you have to go to their website and pay for that separately. 

We were taken to the little room where Maggie was taken care of, and they took Pete into the back to run the catheter into his arm so that the final drugs could be administered. When they brought him back to us, they had him wrapped in that thick brown blanket he's in in the photo at the top of this post, and he seemed quite comfortable. We got a few more minutes with him, where Daisy was able to take a few photos of me holding him (the one above is the best one of those) before I gently let Daisy take him from me and hold him in her arms for the last time.

The vet came in -- the one who'd seen Pete in the spring when he'd had his first bad bout of sickness this year -- so she knew us and knew his history. She very lovingly and sweetly injected him with his final medicine and within ten seconds, he was gone. Daisy held him -- her most beloved son, her oldest and most loving child, as he slipped into the ether.

Once it was done, I confirmed with the vet that yes, he was gone, and Daisy said they could take him. The vet swiftly removed him from the room at Daisy's request, and for the first time in almost nineteen years -- and the first and only time since Daisy and I have been together -- we were without Pete. We were alone in the room with just ourselves and his empty cat carrier, the towel he'd been wrapped in stuffed inside.

I don't think I've ever seen Daisy cry so violently in my life, in all the years we've been together. They were desperate, screaming cries of unimaginable loss. She was doubled over and screaming as quietly as she could into her hands, and I was there with her, fingers tangled in her hair, trying to hold her and comfort her as best I could.

She kept apologizing to me, saying she knew he was my baby too. I'm not sure, however, that the apologies were as much to me as they were to Pete, though. And I understand that. 

I was mostly numb. I still am, actually. Losing Pete hasn't really set in yet. Even when you know it's coming, you can only brace and prepare yourself so much for when it actually happens. 

After a few short minutes, Daisy was able to compose herself enough to leave the grieving room, and we quickly exited the building after some thanks to the girls at the front desk. Daisy couldn't look at anyone, she didn't want to talk, she just made a beeline for the door. 

We were both able to be more composed in the car, and called her parents on the short drive back home to let them know it was done. Neither of us wanted to talk about it.

I brought the carrier in and put it in the chair in the dining room while I made sure everything was situated. Charlie came to the carrier looking for Pete and was confused when he found that Pete wasn't in there. 

I went upstairs and undressed so that I could go to bed; Daisy was not as lucky. She is in training this week for a new part of her job, and thus could not just take the day and rest -- no, she had to be presentable and social on video training all day after being up all night the night before and after the death of one of our cats. 

She told me that as I was getting ready for bed, Hank and Emmy wandered through the house crying and looking for Pete together -- a search party, if you will. 

I went to sleep a short time after -- and Daisy was able, very briefly, to join me in getting a little rest before she had to be back up for work. Charlie and Gary, apparently, would not leave her alone; they knew she was upset and wanted to be on her to try to make her feel better.

So that's the story. 

The carrier still sits in the dining room chair, empty. I did wash the towel that we'd wrapped him in. 

Daisy worked all day despite severe sleep deprivation and a headache likely not helped by that, and was awake well into the night after I started work. Yes, I went back to work as normal -- taking the night to grieve would not have been productive and would not have helped, and it's not like it was magically going to bring him back.

Emmy spent the overnight hours staring at me as if to ask WHERE IS HE? Every night, Emmy spent most of her sleeping hours curled up holding Pete or having him hold her; she adored the old man. She doesn't understand why he would just suddenly be gone. She and Charlie both took turns sleeping in Pete's yurt last night, and sleeping on "his" blanket on the couch. Neither of them can fully comprehend why he's not there or where he could have gone. We've tried to explain it to all of the cats, but of course the concept of "he's gone and he's not coming back" is likely mostly lost on them, and those places and things still smell like him. 

Gary and Mable, surprisingly, do not really seem to have noticed Pete is gone. I am sure they know he's not here anymore, but it doesn't seem to have outwardly affected them in any noticeable fashion. Hank is the same way -- once Hank grew up and Emmy came into his life, his time idolizing Pete was pretty much over. 

We feel it though. We feel the loss hard. The couch and bed are so much more empty without him, more empty than I thought they'd ever be. It is so lonely and quiet without him here -- and suddenly I find myself not needing to check on him multiple times per day/night, not needing to make sure he gets his pills and Churus on a certain timeframe/schedule to prevent him from feeling sick or nauseous, and not hearing him quietly howl and paw at my office door to get in and flop out on the ottoman. 

Suddenly I feel so very alone. 

Pete was the first cat that was actually mine, the first cat to really love me. He was not the cat that made me love cats; that was Kittybell, the cat that ended up being my mother's cat, who showed up on our porch in the middle of a snowstorm when I was in college and who just died a few years ago at an age close to, or older, than Pete was. I did, of course, have a little Persian kitten named Priscilla too, back in the 80s, but I was so young then. Pete was the cat who made me feel like a father, the cat that made me realize just how much love and compassion I could have for animals. 

It is because of Pete that my ex got the girls, and tangentially because of Pete why Daisy and I got Hank, Empress, Mable, Charlie, and Gary -- Pete started this proverbial family. Pete was the snowball rolling down the hill. 

It is very difficult for me to write about all of this. For almost the past two decades there has never been a time where I didn't have Pete. He was always there, through every move, every state, every relationship, every snowstorm or severe thunderstorm, every road trip, every plane trip, every life event -- no matter what I did or where I went, or how long it took for me to come back, I knew Pete would always be there on the couch, or on the bed, waiting for me to return. Even in his more problematic days, when he would attack Sadie frequently or go pee on things to show his displeasure, he was still there. To know he's not there anymore just leaves a great hole of emptiness that I do not know can ever be filled or know if it will slowly heal closed in time.  

Charlie's 1st Birthday

 

That's it, that's the post -- our little white boy is one year old. 

Happy Holidays 2025, Part II: De-Louse the House

Days until Christmas: 18

Days until my birthday: 13 

Charlie's 1st birthday

The cats have fleas. 

Daisy first saw them and their spoor on Charlie a few nights ago. It's easier to see them on him because he's white, and while his fur is thick, he's not a longhair. Charlie has always been an itchy boy, but we just thought it was allergies. Well, it's not. He has allergies too that make him wheeze and sniffle and be snotty on occasion, but it's not just allergies.

Over the course of the past 48 hours or so, we have pulled them off of all the cats. No, we don't know how they got them. Daisy works at the Humane Society every weekend (and I used to as well), we've had multiple cats in to the vet multiple times over the course of the past few months, we had our Catsitter (who also watches dogs) here every day for a full week both when we were in NC and again while we were in Canada, my parents in NC have dogs who like to roll around outside every day, Daisy's parents have three cats who aren't on flea meds, and we occasionally like to take the cats for walks in the stroller if the weather is nice. We also lapsed on their Frontline after September or so, regrettably.

What I'm saying is there's not a singular source we can pinpoint and say "they came from here." We'd likely never have that anyhow.

Daisy is horrified. I am much calmer about it. Pete, Sadie, and Maggie all had fleas when they were kittens, and they were covered in them, as was my apartment at the time; I put the equivalent of Frontline on them back then, and it was no longer an issue -- the fleas died off quickly and we never saw them again. I figured we have more cats now, but the same principle applies -- get them all back on the Frontline, today, and the problem will eventually solve itself on its own as long as we don't lapse on it again. I've never seen a flea on me, on our bedding, clothing, furniture, or carpets -- and until this weekend it had been well over a decade since I'd seen one on any of my cats.

It is a problem, of course, but it comes with having cats; fleas are easy to pick up from nearly anywhere, but they're also fairly easy to get rid of if the cats are on medications (which they are, again, now). Large flea infestations inside homes can be difficult to manage and take more time to get rid of, but I can tell you that I've lived in places with large infestations of fleas and as long as you vacuum and clean things and treat the animals? Not hard, they're gone in a few weeks or months. As our house does not currently have a large infestation since I'd never seen or had been bitten by any of them, and never physically saw them on any of the cats until Daisy combed a few of them out of Charlie, we do not have a large infestation; it appears to be a small, fairly recent population of them that we're already taking steps to mitigate.

Daisy, of course, sprang into action and began doing research, had multiple calls with our vet's office and put down diatomaceous earth onto the floor and into the carpets -- if you don't know what that is, I wouldn't blame you; it is a flour-like powder that works as an insecticide and is a biomineral that's pretty harmless to humans and animals but will absolutely kill bugs of pretty much all sorts. We always have it in the house as in the fall months, we usually put lines of it along the windows and doors to keep bugs and spiders from trying to come in. Spiders hate the stuff. How it actually works is that it immediately dehydrates and kills bugs, I guess. At least that's how it was explained to me long ago. I can't say that I've done large amounts of research on it. 

Well, apparently, it is a very effective flea deterrent and will kill them quickly, and our vet's office agreed with Daisy that this was a wildly good first step to take. So, over this weekend, Daisy spent an inordinate amount of time vacuuming everything possible and covering every carpeted surface in the house, as well as the furniture, in a layer of this powder. The cycle is to vacuum it all up every 2 days or so and reapply, vacuum again 2 days later, reapply, etc etc until no fleas exist anymore. It can take a month or three for heavier infestations, but eh...again, we don't really have that. 

The side effect is that your home will look like street gangs had a knife fight while double-fisting bags of cocaine in-between vacuuming and reapplication processes. 

Daisy also dipped her hands in the bag, and massaged light amounts of the diatomaceous earth directly into the cats' coats. They all look slightly dusty now, although I will say that they're going to anyway given the amount of the powder Daisy put down around the house, in every room. These cats lounge on the floors and furniture, and there's powder everywhere they'd lay (Daisy even went to the trouble of coating the cat trees in it). 

It is what it is. I am not concerned with the problem as a whole, really. It's another thing in a long list of things that will be dealt with piecemeal, and even while I lived in two different houses with animals with fleas, I know that they can be mitigated and eliminated as long as you keep the animals treated. The diatomaceous earth can only help and will only end the flea crisis faster. It's a drop in the bucket compared to the multiple other crises and problems we have and handle every day. I find stuff like head lice and bedbugs (thankfully, neither of which have we ever experienced) far more terrifying than a few fleas on the cats, fleas we've likely had for much longer than we realized and are just now noticing only because Daisy got a few bites on her feet and started looking for them. It's not life-changing for me; I'm living my life the same way I have lived it every day, just now with powder on the floor and the vacuum running every two days.

In other news, today is Charlie's 1st birthday. I plan to get photos of him in the requisite birthday hat this afternoon or this evening, and once I do, I'll post them here. It's another thing to add to the near-endless list of tasks to do over the rest of the month, but it is important to me.

Oh, I should also mention that it was not Pete who was, as Daisy had dubbed them, the "mad shitter."

It was Mable.

Mable has been somewhat bullied by both Emmy and Gary -- aside from Gary, she is the smallest cat in the house in terms of size. But, she's also female and she's not really aggressive in any way, so that makes her a prime target for being dominated by the other cats. I've always said that Mable will never start a fight, but she will absolutely finish one. Pete, Hank, and Charlie don't go after her, but we're convinced that Gary has a crush on Mable and therefore likes to pounce on her back, dig in his nails and teeth, and try to hold her down/dominate her. 

Emmy, as the diva of the household and the only other female, has a classic sibling rivalry with her and will challenge her for spots on the couch, challenge her while eating, and will try to run her out of the litter pan -- which is probably the most telling reason why Mable decided to shit on the floor not once but twice, and in the cat tree twice as well.  How do we know it was her? A few nights ago she came over to me while I was working, got some love and scratches, then jumped into the pouch of the cat tree and laid down a thick pile of turds. 

How nice.

Daisy had ordered a brand new, giant stainless steel hooded litter pan off Chewy during their Black Friday sale. It was, ahem, not cheap. But she wanted to give Mable a pan of her own, so to speak, that would allow her more litter territory and hopefully ease some anxiety. When we got it and Daisy set it up -- it's so large that it takes an entire 40lb bag of litter all at once -- Mable began using it that night and the "mad shitting" stopped. 

From the moment I saw the first bunch of shit in the cat tree pouch, I knew it wasn't Pete. Pete may be old and has some senior moments from time to time, but he could not physically get in and out of that cat tree pouch. The old man is basically crippled from age and his body deterioration -- it's a good day for him if he can walk across a room in a straight line or jump up onto the couch, bed, or ottoman without falling, since his back legs are very weak and stiff now. 

In addition to a smaller cat tree for the kitchen, a cardboard cat house for the upstairs bedroom, a new cat yurt tent, and a new tall scratching post pole Daisy added to the corner of our dining room -- all other Chewy Black Friday purchases -- all of the cats now feel like they have more entertainment and territory, and a lot of the household tensions have ceased. The extra Feliway plug we got as well probably helps too. 

As part of her "do one thing every day to improve the house" plan that Daisy implemented a few weeks ago, today she is replacing the weatherstripping around our front door and is putting down a new door sweep to see if we can stop the draftiness of the bottom floor of the house. She did this for our back french doors a few weeks ago, too. The Double Trouble boys are enamored with her work and constantly try to get in the way or get into things while Daisy does it, no matter what she's doing. 

And so, life goes on..