The Story Of Our Dangerous Pet

One night in 1994 I had a dream in which I found a kitten and in the dream I knew his name was Ozark and in this dream I also knew that this was supposed to happen in real life. I woke up and told Philip that it was time for us to get a cat. The cat had to be orange and we had to name him Ozark. This is when Philip truly got that he had married a mad woman, but because he is always in need of more sleep he said "sure" and rolled over and drifted off into his own cat-less sleep.

Interestingly enough very shortly after this dream I had, a friend called up to invite Philip and I to come look at a large gathering of semi-wild kittens which were the shameful result of her boyfriend's mother's habit of feeding feral cats in her back yard but not getting them fixed. My friend tried to reason with her boyfriend's mother about how she either needed to stop feeding all the strays in town or she needed to take proper responsibility for them. She was feeding approximately 15 feral cats. Many of them were females having kittens.

I told her I would only come up if she could confirm whether there was an orange kitten in the lot of them because I was determined that the cat must be orange and we didn't want to drive two hours for anything less.

She got back to me to say that there was at least one orange kitten there. So we went. We met Ozark. Ozark was the member of a three kitty litter who we realized (over the course of several hours of observation) was abandoned by their mother. No mama cat nursed them or came to see how they were doing. This litter was distinguishable by the fact that they were the only three kittens with orange on them. There were thousands (OK, maybe twenty) frisky semi-healthy looking black kittens and it must be said that our good sense told us to pick a healthy kitten.

But we saw Ozark by himself trying to get at some water. We saw him not get a scrap of food when the gravy train arrived. He was the smallest and sickest kitty there. It's true that I'm a sucker. I couldn't leave him there. He was tiny and had no mama and didn't seem healthy.

So we took his mewling self home with us and we promptly fell in love. We immediately took him to the vet where they ripped us a new one for removing a 5 1/2 week old kitten from his mother. Which made us angry because we would never have taken such a tiny kitty from it's mother before it was ready but we were sure that this kitten would have died if we left him. The vet told us that Ozark was very sick and too young to be weaned and had a 50% chance of surviving the parasite in his stomach, the upper respiratory infection in his lungs, and the infestation of fleas. Which confirmed our gut feeling in the first place.

Ozark is the feistiest scrappenist kitty that ever lived. Although he loved us and would snuggle with us and fall asleep on us and all good kitteny things, he was not particularly affectionate with anyone else. In fact, he quickly got a reputation for being a cranky cantankerous and combative cat.

He is famous for inviting strangers to touch his unbelievably soft belly and then attacking them when they made contact with his fur. When introducing people to Ozark we would always provide ample warning, which many people immediately ignored. It goes something like this: "This is Ozark. He looks cute, he'll sidle up to you, he'll invite you to pet him, but don't fall for it because he will almost certainly scratch you." Or "This is Ozark and he wants to kill you because he finds all humans annoying." Or "Watch out, the orange guy is dangerous." And most importantly "Never ever pick this cat up."

For some reason people often interpreted our warnings to really mean "While Ozark will harm most people- you are clearly special and this warning is not meant for you." Or "Please, pet the cat!" And best of all "Pick the cat up because he only scratches the eyes of people who aren't YOU."

It's amazing we've never been sued. We have a special knack for having pets and kids who come with warnings. We don't care. We've always loved our special needs cat.

In spite of his vicious reputation (his vet files are stamped with the giant red letters: "W A R N I N G", he managed to deal with the "thing" pretty well. Once he finished having a midlife crisis over it.

Ozark with "the thing" that changed his life. This is back when I had a pretty tidy house and even had houseplants. Ozark let us know that "the thing" was barely tolerable to him. We expected Max to be mauled by the cat and were expecting neighbors to report us to social services for keeping a dangerous animal near our kid. Shockingly, Ozark has rarely scratched Max. He has endured a lot of indignity at Max's hands that he would never have taken from anyone else.

Ozark was neutered when he was four months old. We hoped that this would help him to mellow out. Which, obviously it didn't. Ozark not only fought with people, he also fought all the time with cats twice his size. He's spent many an evening at the pet urgent care getting wrapped up or examined for puncture wounds. We really didn't think he'd live to be seven years old.

The scrapping is why he has FIV. Vaccinations for FIV are relatively new and he had already been a fighting trouble maker for many years. We didn't realize they were giving vaccines for FIV until we found out he already had it. It is lucky for him that he has not been fighting in the past two years or we would have had no choice but to euthanize him for the safety of the neighbor cats because it is impossible to keep him inside. He's mellowed quite a bit in the past two years. He still comes with warnings though. Because this is a cat who will take on raccoons.

We take him to the vet today. Maybe we'll come home with a miracle in our pocket. Maybe this decline he's in right now is something fixable. I'm not holding my breath. It's weird though that Max and Ozark have become so close in the past two years since we moved here. Ozark sleeps with Max every night. Max is very gentle with him and doesn't try to sit on him like he does with the dog. Max loves that Ozark doesn't eat his toys. Although Max is a pretty fastidious person in some ways and one way is that he really hates that Ozark frequently vomits in his room. Yet if Ozark wakes up and leaves Max's room (which means we have to let him out, he wakes us up by banging on the door) Max will wake up and not go back to sleep.

Even with a miracle in our pocket we know that Ozark's time here is limited. Such is the nature of FIV. So I thought I would say here, before he's gone, how much we love him. I've been sitting with him and petting his bony back and putting my ear to his side like I've done since he was five and a half weeks old to listen to his enormous purr. I've never met a cat with a louder purr than Ozark's.

Although Ozark has been quite a bastard and has made me want to strangle him, I can honestly say that I think he's one of the best cats ever. Whether we get to keep him for a few more moths or only for a few weeks, or mere days, we will forgive the peeing and the attacks on the dog and love him til it's time for him to go.

Update: Back from the vet now. He either has a kidney infection or kidney disease. If it's an infection there's a chance he can live quite a bit longer if he responds well to antibiotics (FIV can make it hard to treat infections) and if it's kidney disease then he will slowly die and we will give him fluid injections and potassium pills for however long he lives to help him feel his best. The vet says that kidney disease isn't painful (someone here was just telling me that.). We will find out on Monday or Tuesday when they get the lab results. Fingers crossed!

The Universe Is On Probation

Philip got a job!

But before I go any further, let me just say that it doesn't pay enough to cover much more than just our mortgage. Now that I've made that clear...the great news is that it's a job working for a graphic design company in downtown McMinnville that Philip really likes, doing work he's qualified to do. They can't afford to pay Philip more than they've offered, but Philip is a loyal employee and a hard worker and if this company and he both end up happy with each other, it's the kind of company that Philip could grow with and really add to. So when you're looking at a choice between working in the local farm store for not enough money or doing a job that actually utilizes your skills, your brain, and that you enjoy doing for not enough money...there's only one way to go. He's very excited!

They have said it's fine for Philip to do freelance work on the side and since he's been getting some good freelance jobs lately, that may possibly add almost enough to the coffers for us to get by. My main goal is to not go outside the home for part time work, but stay here and be a writing urban homesteader and run my on line business, hopefully building it into something a little busier and more lucrative to make up the remaining balance of what we need to be comfortable. But obviously, if I have to go get a part time job, I'll do it.

I feel as though a spell has been broken.

The relief I feel is pretty deep. We'll still be scratching to get by but there's no underestimating the comfort of a regular paycheck. Knowing we'll bring in at least enough for the mortgage is a very important start. It's not quite the level of help I'd hoped for but I am so excited for Philip to work with people he really likes. He's waited a long time for this opportunity and we're grateful that this company is giving him work.

There's that word again. But make no mistake-I'm still pissed off at the Universe, so it's on probation in my books until things pick up enough around here that I don't have to live in fear of not making ends meet. Things are suddenly feeling vastly improved but I'm still feeling pretty bruised by life and I have no faith at all that there aren't more curve balls just waiting for us around the corner.

I must say that it's pretty incredible to have so many people send such good thoughts and wishes our way while things are so tough. Even when I turn into a bitter old crow. Even when I really start flinging the curse words around. I really appreciate all of that fantastic good will you all threw out there for me. Too too cool. Kind of makes me want to get all gushy and stuff. But I'm not going to because I have my reputation to consider.*

Yesterday was one of the suckiest days I've had in a long time. That was a very black mood I was wearing. It suddenly came on while paying the bills and getting a little nasty reality check from my credit cards. Lots and lots of tears were shed. I got the beautiful puffy red eyed look going for me. Always such a pleasure.

I also found out that my kitty has FIV (kitty AIDS) and while he may live for another year or two, that mostly depends on his ability to not get sick with anything. His organs are going to ever so slowly begin to shut down. Since he has become quite gaunt already, I'm not betting on having him around for a whole lot longer. He's my little ginger guy I rescued as an abandoned 5 1/2 week old kitten, and I haven't let myself begin to be sad for what's coming. At least he's not in pain right now.

Now, what I really need besides that pint of Ben And Jerry's peanut butter cup ice cream that's waiting for me in the freezer, and about fifty celebratory beers, is some information on how to promote an on line business. So if anyone out there has any good ideas, please don't hesitate to pass them along. And if you know of someone who consults on this for a living and is very good at what they do, please tell me who they are. OK? I'm going to get that studio up and running, and then I'm going to massively update and refresh the web store. Then I'll get busy making new stuff for it.

Right after Max goes back to school.

Yeah, now that Philip is going to be truly employed (yay!!) I will go back to being the full time child care provider. Oy. I plan to make a very complicated rigid schedule for me and the kid to stay too busy to notice how insane we are together all day long in each other's company. I cannot face four weeks of undiluted Lego time.

So there you have it. I thought I was going to need to take a long break from blogging to exorcise the foulness from my spirit, to find something good to say. The truth is, blogging is such an integral part of maintaining my mental health, I don't really think I could go more than two days without posting. It always makes me feel better. Except for yesterday. Or like when I deeply offend the parents of Max's classmates.

Anyway... thank you all for listening.






*My reputation as a cool handed, level headed, unemotional, logical thinker, with a curmudgeonly edge. I don't go in for all that frou frou lovey stuff. If you didn't know that then I am seriously falling down on the job as the resident curmudgeon.