Thunderation!

I worked 7-4 today, but had to take a quick break at 10:30 am to come home and bring Suki in from the back yard because it was thundering. When I arrived, she was very agitated, standing in the middle of a flowerbed, and shaking like a leaf. She was also panting heavily. I left her inside for the rest of the day, which seemed to calm her down considerably. This evening, the thunderstorms returned. Suki came upstairs, panting and shaking, and tried to hide underneath anything she could fit under (the shoe rack was the only thing). She was quite inconsolable, although I tried singing her lullabies and Avinash talked to her. Here she is in the corner of our closet. Now she has quieted down and settled on the couch for the night.

Ned in purdah

Ned has exiled himself to the bedroom, as he did last time. He refuses to emerge while Darwin and Suki are out roaming about. We have had to bring him his breakfast in the bedroom, since he won't share the same floor of the house as the other creatures. Fortunately, this does not bother Darwin and Suki at all.

Bath time

Suki and Darwin arrived Wednesday night. Dad insisted that Darwin be left in the garage until I came home from work, so he became covered with oil from the garage floor and dirt from my gardening equipment. Here he is after his bath. He was happy to burrow underneath a towel all night until he was dry.

Darwin and Rowena

Here's Darwin simultaneously enjoying a sunbeam and trying to get into the office closet. Note the immense size of his belly.



Here's Rowena's reaction to his nearby presence:

Sniffy-sniffy

Here's a photo of Suki doing what she does best on a walk in Reedsburg, which is sniff. We have so many dogs in the neighborhood, and there are so many interesting places to sniff, a walk with Suki takes forever - no matter what the weather. Yesterday I was off work, so Suki got the luxury of five walks during the day. Despite that, someone left me a puddle on the floor in front of the fireplace. I'm not sure who that someone might have been, but I suspect Big White. Little White is also a possibility.

We had pulled up the wool rug which was in front of the fireplace, after the first time. Also, someone left a yellow spot on the dining room carpet, which is bigger and harder to clean. Also not the first time. It's possible it was Darwin at fault, although I've seen him head down to the basement to use the catboxes there. Or it could be one of our own cats, fearing to enter the basement while Big Scary Darwin is nearby. Who knows. Fortunately, we had just gotten our Bissell steam cleaner back from the hardware store (it was sent there to have a broken part fixed on Sep 12 of 2006) (!) (and cost $150 to have it fixed - cost $170 new!). I was able to shampoo the carpet after mopping the hardwood floors. The carpet steamer is a godsend for cleaning smelly puddles in a rug.

On one of our many walks, Suki and I went to the hardware store down the street. Although the temperature was hovering around 0 F (-17 C for all of you Celcius-o-philes) I tied her to a post outside since I was just going in briefly to buy a handful of washers. While I was in the store, someone (probably one of the staff) brought Suki a little green bone-shaped doggie biscuit. Naturally, she ignored the snack, as she always does.

When we returned home - I brought the biscuit with me, in case she changed her mind - the mail had arrived and I had received three samples of Canine Greenies dog treats. Since they are breath freshening, made with green ingredients such as alfalfa, Suki naturally turned them down. Suki had breakfasted royally on some disgusting breakfast sausages I had obtained free with a coupon - I couldn't stomach them - and she had declined dog food. I left her with one of the Greenies, and after a while I returned to find her all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and the Greenie had disappeared. I fed her the remaining Greenie and the green doggy-biscuit and she ate them all.

So Suki's tally for the day:
"lite" breakfast sausages - 8
dog biscuits -3
milk, Rowena's - 2 small bowls
burned bagel - none
dog food - none
dosa - none


We went for another walk in the afternoon. One of the music students I am accompanying stopped along the street to drop off her accompaniment music, and she thought Suki was just beautiful. She was shocked at how calm and mellow Suki is - she has a Boxer puppy. I told her that her dog would also be very mellow in 10 years. ;)

In the evening, we made dosai and watched Ice Harvest on DVD. None of our cats would cooperate in helping keep our laps warm, so Avinash pulled Darwin up onto our laps to enjoy an entire evening of laptime.

Tuesday

Suki did very well today with her breakfast. She ate about 80% of it, all of it DOG FOOD. She didn't do so well with the 5 hour interval between the morning walk and when I got home from work - she left me a puddle in the kitchen. Fortunately, it's easy to clean up there.

Darwin seems quite content now, after being accidentally shut in the workroom in the basement all morning. I had gone down there in the morning, to get a bagel out of the freezer, and apparently Darwin had followed me there. He enjoyed getting some laptime after that experience.

Busy Day

Linda and I had a busy schedule today. She had to come home during her lunch break to walk Suki. When I got back from work at 6:45 Suki was waiting for me, smiling and wagging her tail. I think she was desperate to go out for a walk. I walked her, shoveled snow from the footpath, and made some dinner for myself. Darwin greeted me with a big yawn. He had just woken up from his slumber.

I decided to feed the cats after I finished eating. Then the circus started. I gave Darwin his special food and along came Fatty to share. As soon as Darwin finished eating, I put away his food and gave Fatty her (cheaper) food. However, she wasn't interested in eating as long as Darwin was standing right next to her. Suki showed up and had a bite of Fatty's dinner. Linda gave Suki her own dinner, garnished with dog treats. Suki, as expected, looked away. Fatty, as expected, showed immense interest. While this was happening, Darwin decided that Fatty's food was much better than his own food. The only problem was that Fatty's food was by now on top of the kitchen counter. So he hopped on to the kitchen stool, gauged the distance between the stool and the counter in about 7 minutes, and with a gleeful look on his face jumped right up to Fatty's food dish. I took away Fatty's food dish, which made her miserable.

Meanwhile, Ned was carefully making his way towards the kitchen, like a sneaky commando on a secret mission. He was stopping and hiding beneath the closest piece of furniture every about ten feet, while moving in the general direction of the kitchen. He ran up against his biggest obstacle when he saw Darwin sitting right in the middle of the doorway leading to the kitchen. Darwin's mere presence stopped him dead in his tracks. His confidence took a nosedive and he took cover under the dining room buffet. From the shadows he issued a loud hiss and a big, angry growl. Darwin didn't budge. After a lot of hissing and growling, Ned decided to work up his courage to come out and sneak past Darwin. After a few halting steps and a few precautionary crouches in anticipation of an attack from Darwin, Ned slithered past his to the safety of the kitchen. It was a touchdown moment for commando Ned. After all this, THERE WAS NO FOOD IN THE KITCHEN! Darwin was still interested in Fatty and Ned's food, so their food was kept out of reach, while Darwin finished his own dinner. Upon realising that there was no food in the kitchen Ned ran downstairs to the safety of the basement as quickly as he could. Darwin followed him, only to be hissed at again.

Right now Darwin has finished dinner and gone back to his original, not-upright, plant-like sleeping position inside the folds of a blanket. Ned and Fatty are buttering us up for dinner. Suki is showing great enthusiasm for everything except dog food.

More later.

The Food Web

Food Web, originally uploaded by avinashbhat.

Nobody wants to eat their own food at the moment. I'm a great believer in diagrams, so I made one up to show you the complexity of the food situation here. Ned, being the smallest and and skinniest, gets the smallest and skinniest flowchart shape and flowchart text font. Darwin gets a well-rounded shape with bold text for obvious reasons.

The Food Web

Suki's visit this time seems to have been somewhat less frightening than her past visits. I'm not sure why. It may be something to do with Darwin's presence. Maybe Suki feels that Darwin is somebody more familiar, since she lives with him in Baraboo, and less intimidating than Ned and Fatty. She didn't follow us around the house the first couple of days, like she usually does. However, her food habits are the same. She refuses to eat anything.

The food situation is quite complicated right now: Darwin wants to eat Ned and Rowena's food; Suki wants to eat Ned and Rowena's and Darwin's food; Ned wants to eat Darwin's food or anything else that may be available when he tiptoes into the kitchen in the middle of the night; Rowena wants to eat any food she can find anywhere. Darwin's requirements are important because he can't eat ordinary cat food. The magnesium in ordinary cat food makes him sick. However, his prescription cat food is expensive, not something the other cats should be eating. Whenever he shows up in the kitchen with a hungry look, we feed him his special cat food. Usually upon hearing the sound of kibble on china, Fatty comes running to join the feast. We've to feed her then. Yesterday Suki was around and she wanted Fatty's food, ignoring her own bowl a few feet away from Fatty's bowl. We have to change their food bowls often to ensure everyone is eating the right thing.

Ned gobbled up Suki's food two nights back. A few hours later he deposited almost the entire thing on the closet carpet (he always finds a carpet to vomit).

Saturday news

Not much to report today, since I worked all day. Avinash reports that Suki had an accident in the kitchen while he was in the shower, so it looks like 4 hours without a walk is about her limit. At least the kitchen floor is easy to clean.

Ned must have indulged in a dinner of dog food last night, since there was a large pile of, uh, "recycled" dog food in the closet this morning. I obviously need to hide the dog food better after Suki refuses her dinner.


Today we had a heat wave with the temperatures reaching 15 degrees. Many people were taking the opportunity to take their cars through the car wash, as we did, now that the temps were above the sub-zero range.

Darwin has laid low all day, sitting on the blanket on the couch. Rowena seems to be adjusting to his presence - she has been using better language in the last day or so.

Last night, we watched a dvd on my computer in the office (our Philips DVD-R in the TV room is not functioning properly, only 14 months after we bought it). Darwin kept us company by sitting on my lap the entire time and emitting syrupy purrs.

Avinash says that Ned, in a testament to his Muslim faith, has decided to enter purdah. He now spends all of his time under the floor-length tablecloth covering the bedside table. He only emerges briefly, under the cover of darkness, when he is safe from encountering the great white peaceful one. (We think Darwin must surely be a Buddhist or a Jain.)

Here is a photo of Darwin helping me keep my legs warm. ;) While not particularly comfortable for me, Darwin was so happy that I couldn't move from this spot.

Picky eaters

Yesterday, Suki's diet consisted of:
5 crackers, poppy seed, stale
3 slivers of ham, elderly
4 bite-size pieces of apple pancake, week-old
cat food, nibbles while I was not looking
milk, a tad, while Rowena was not looking

Today, she had:
Piece of Canadian bacon from Egg / English Muffin sandwich
Circle of egg from Egg sandwich

I did a drive-thru breakfast mystery shop today and received the wrong item, so Suki was the lucky recipient of the bounty. She declined the English Muffin itself, even though it had cheese on it.

Darwin has been only interested in eating everyone else's food. Our cats have only been interested in eating dog food or Darwin food, but not their own.

Here's a photo of Darwin catching some z's in a blankie. I tried to pick up the blankie to fold it, because it had inexplicably gotten crumpled up, but found it immensely heavy for its size. Here is the reason.

Suki and Darwin get settled

Here is Suki on her favorite couch. Darwin has found his old haunt, the furnace ducts in the basement. They are warm and one of his favorite hideaways.

Darwin and Suki

When I got back home today, I found a smiling Suki sitting on the couch, wagging her tail. I'd forgotten that she was supposed to be there. She seemed a little less unsure about our house and the cats this time. Most times when she comes to stay with us, she spends a very nervous first couple of days. The nervousness decreases with each passing day, until it completely vanishes by the time she's ready to go back to Baraboo. I wonder if she's less nervous this time because Darwin is also here with her.

Darwin, as everyone knows, remains unperturbed by most things that happen around him. He is the Bahubali of the cat world. Rowena and Ned are both being quite rude to Darwin. He doesn't even seem to notice them, and goes about his business like nothing has happened. This makes Fatty even more mad, I think. We're hoping that Fatty will make friends soon. I wonder if Fatty is trying to defend Ned from Darwin. She usually feels very, very defensive about Ned, even though Ned feels exactly the opposite about her!

So, anyway, Darwin is exploring the house right now. He hasn't been here for a while, so he has probably forgotten everything about the house.

More later.

Suki returneth

Suki has re-joined our family for a two-week visit, while Mom and Dad go to Florida. They've picked a perfect time to go, since temperatures here in Wisconsin have been in the deep-freeze. Yesterday it was -22 F when I got up (that's -30 for all of you Imperially-challenged folks out there!). Today it snowed most of the day, though it didn't amount to much due to the temperatures never getting above zero.

Suki and Darwin arrived about 3 pm. Suki was her happy, smiley self, accepting snacks of 5 stale crackers and 3 smidgens of elderly ham left over from Christmas. Darwin was a bit more subdued, due to his cool reception here by the Chickering-Bhat cats - even genial Fatty hissed and growled at him this afternoon. He will probably take a while to settle in.

I just got back from a walk in the snow. It is too cold to risk taking the camera outside today, so this post is photo-free.

More tomorrow!