The general kittystate chez nous. (Kitty updates!)

December 6, 2016December 6, 2016That Asian-Looking Chick Leave a comment

Several of you request more frequent kitty updates, and I’m sorry I haven’t gotten better at this. I like to oblige when you make requests, so I’ll work on posting about the fur-kids more often! For now, every five-six weeks continues to be the norm.

So what have been the main points of interest around here?

1). We went out of town for Thanksgiving. While we were gone, our kitty-sitters never saw Nenette. Not. Even. Once.

We weren’t surprised. We were satisfied to hear that her food was disappearing between visits, and that her litter box was being used.

While she’s continued to get more comfortable with Callaghan and in the house, in general, poor Nenette still has a crippling fear of men and strangers.

If you remember, it was for this precise reason that our Feline Behaviorist recommended keeping Nenette here and giving someone else a chance to take Nounours home to an only-cat situation. Because of their comfort levels with humans, Nenette was deemed “not as adoptable,” while Nounours was evaluated as “very adoptable.”

(How right she was. Because of his personality, Nounours was indeed Mr. Popular at the shelter, and he was adopted by his ideal cat mom within two months.)

When we adopted Nenette, she was confined to a small see-through container in a window at PetSmart with nowhere to hide, so we couldn’t fathom how afraid she was. At the shelter, where visitors get to wander amongst the many available cats, she wouldn’t have been seen. Or she would’ve been seen cowering in a corner. Either way, people would overlook her. People are naturally drawn to cats who come up to say hello and ask for pets, like Nounours the Snuggle-Monster, who loves all humans indiscriminately.

Nounours is in Nounours Paradise with his doting Mom and no competition, but Nenette is still working on overcoming her severe social anxiety. At least our Thanksgiving kitty-sitters have seen pics of her!

That aside, she’s very happy when it’s just us.

2). On her part, Cita is very happy in the winter cabin we’ve created for her in her laundry room. I lined and padded the spacious, highest shelf and covered it with a soft blanket, and she loves it. She has little pillows up there, and at night, we make a cozy bed with a kitty bed (she likes to sleep against it rather than in it, which works well because of its high sides), her pillows, and her bouillotte (soft hot water bottle covered in cozy fabric). She has a space heater and a cat door and a lamp for lower, warm lighting. I spend the working hours of my days in there with her, as I use the washing machine as a standing work station. As far as she’s concerned, Cita is indoors.

She still goes out and gets beat up now and again, talking trash to other cats in the hood. She cannot tolerate other cats (unlike Nounours, who simply resented competition). Twice, we had prospective families for her, and both times, they fell through. But looking at the situation with clear eyes, we can see that she’s simply happy here, on her property, with us. We do what we can to minimize her chances of getting hurt.

Without further ado, enjoy some pics!

Inside fur-child (evidence that Nenette exists):

Nenette’s favorite place to sleep: In her kitty bed. On her chair. Next to my side of the bed.

It’s chilly now, and kitties are in full-on snuggle mode.

Nenette reached out to touch my face just as I was about to take this picture.

We put up a Christmas tree in anticipation of family from Europe coming to visit for the holidays. As far as we know, Nenette had never seen a Christmas tree. We haven’t decorated it yet… so far, it just has the lights that came with it.

Nenette doesn’t know what to do with this fake tree in the house.

As for Cita, our outdoor fur-child:

Cita reminds me of a cartoon character in this pic. I just can’t think of which one.

She loves plants more than anything.

Plants are Cita’s favorite things on earth.

And she loves her bed in the laundry room!

A sudden sound outside caused Cita to make this face just as I was about to take her picture.

That’s it for now! I’ll try to post kitty updates more often in 2017. I can’t believe we’re within weeks of the new year. Yikes.

“Who saved who?” Nounours’ happy beginning! (Kitty updates.)

September 20, 2016That Asian-Looking Chick Leave a comment

Nounours. Precious Nounours.

When we gave him up for adoption, our dream scenario for Nounours was that he’d go home with an older lady who lived alone and loved cats and wanted just one cat on whom she could lavish all of her love and attention, all day long.

“Everyone wants that for their cat,” said the adoption manager. “But unfortunately, that very rarely happens.” She imparted the reality gently, with careful kindness.

But six weeks later, our perfect dream for Nounours came true.

A group of donors visited the cattery, as groups of donors do, meeting and interacting with the cats. One of them emerged from Nounours’ room and remarked that he would be perfect for her mother-in-law, who lived alone and wanted a cat who would sit quietly on her lap. After just a short visit, it was clear that sitting quietly on a lap was Nounours’ area of expertise.

The mother-in-law came to visit Nounours. She went into his room and stayed for an hour. Then she came out and said that Nounours was The One. When she returned to complete the adoption process and take him home, they opened the kitty carrier, and he “strolled right in.”

Nounours had spent six weeks snuggling and purring his way into everyone’s hearts. He had been very popular at the cattery. He was a rock star, literally… because of his personality, looks, and ability to sit still, he’d been chosen to appear in the shelter’s 2017 calendar. The photographer loved him. All of the shelter workers and volunteers loved him. They were happy for him when he met his Mom and went home with her, but they were sad to see him go, too.

That is Nounours. He is an angel with healing gifts. We knew that Nounours would be the one saving a life… and he did.

Nounours had several other adoption opportunities, but because of the shelter’s excellent vetting and matching-up process, he went home with exactly the right person for him. Nounours now has all the love, lap-time, and undivided attention he deserves. We are grateful beyond words.

Sweet Nounours.

…and we still love him and miss him so, so much.

As for updates chez nous, things have come full circle. Cita has returned to ruling her backyard, where she has the run of the land… and Nenette now has the run of the house.

We gave it a good shot, a solid shot, but all of our procedural efforts were to no avail. Cita is fearful and defensive and cannot cohabit peacefully with another cat. As always, our goal is for everyone to be happy, and her happy place is her (our) backyard. So we took her back to the vet for her booster shots and a flea & tick treatment. She’s now fully vaccinated, flea & tick’d, microchipped, and name/phone number tagged, and she’s back to rolling in the dirt, as happy as a clam. She truly loves to roll in the dirt.

Trend-setter!

But she does clean up nicely.

Cita: Methinks the bougainvillea pot is incomplete without me.

And this lawn.

And this cinder block.

She rarely leaves her beloved backyard. It is her kingdom, and the patio we’ve begun to enclose in greenery is her house. She eats on the cloth-covered table, and for sleeping, she has her choice of four chairs, two barstools, and a cushioned seat. Her preferred bed of the moment is one of the barstools. It’s cool enough for her to go into her laundry room, now, too. We keep that door open for her.

So that is Cita.

And here’s the current state of Nenette:

Nenette’s “Why aren’t you playing with me” face.

Testing out the new rug under Mommy’s “desk” (dining room table)

Mom! IS NOTHING SACRED?

The end.

Nounours: Noon rising. (Kitty updates.)

August 12, 2016That Asian-Looking Chick 4 Comments

It’s time for a kitty update, and I don’t know where to begin.

It’s been an emotionally turbulent summer.

We wanted to do everything right for our cats, and in the end, it was recommended that we allow our beloved Nounours to be an Only Cat in a household with no other cats.

But it’s not “in the end.” Because for him, it’s the beginning. It took weeks of gentle encouragement and sometimes bizarre twists and turns as we navigated our confusion to come to terms with this, and I’m still grieving his absence from our lives.

It started in June when I called a Feline Behaviorist to ask one question: “How can we get Cita to stop growling?” We thought there would be a straightforward answer to our straightforward question, but she asked more questions about each cat, which led her to focus on Nounours.

Her questioning took us back to the beginning. Nounours loved his Ronnie James (Wrah-Wrah). Wrah-Wrah had been ill the whole time we had them both, though we didn’t know it until he arrived at his last nine months as a cat.

What we mostly saw – and what we mostly remembered – was Nounours nurturing his brother during that time of advanced illness. We remembered the depth of his grief after Wrah-Wrah passed. We remembered his magical love that he continued to express by cuddling with Wrah-Wrah’s urn. Our hearts broke even more as we saw that Nounours’ heart was broken, too.

Nounours’ boundless love and caring for his brother crowded out other memories. We didn’t remember things like Nounours always trying to eat Wrah-Wrah’s food, and taking over playtime so Wrah-Wrah would be chased out of the game, and pushing Wrah-Wrah aside to make room for himself on our laps, even though there was more than enough love and food and playtime and lap-time to go around.

Our expert consultant explained that these things weren’t the little, petty things we thought they were. They were indicators that Nounours would be happiest in a house with no competition, and we should let him have that chance. She explained how we could enter him into the best no-kill shelter with the best adoption placement program in Arizona.

Both times I had this conversation with her, I sobbed, and both times (and in emails, too), she reminded me that none of this was about us, Callaghan and me. It was about Nounours, and what would be the right thing for him, rather than for ourselves. We had to leave ourselves and our own desires out of the equation.

So Nounours has embarked on a new journey. Sending him off was one of the most difficult things I’ve – we’ve – ever done. I have never done it before, and I never thought that I would.

I wrote my last kitty update post in the middle of July, and the next day, we put Nounours into the arms of a compassionate woman who assured us that he’ll be matched with the perfect family for him. We went to the vet first so we could deliver him with a complete copy of his medical records. We gave a monetary donation to the organization on his behalf. I asked if I could write Nounours’ blurb for his gallery profile, and they told me that I could. I was grateful to be able to do.

Nounours is staying in a new, state-of-the-art cattery, where he has a small room all to himself with a revolving door of volunteers and visitors who go in to lavish attention on him. We were very, very lucky to be able to secure this space for him. He is not in a cage. He is not on death row. He is not unloved or forgotten. But neither is he with us, and selfishly, I wish that that could be different.

Hindsight is the cruelest beast. If we could travel back through time, the one thing we would do differently is we wouldn’t have adopted Nenette. We adopted her for Nounours thinking that giving him another sibling to love would help to ease the pain of his loss. We made the wrong decision with the best intentions. Had we not adopted Nenette, Nounours would be the Only Cat he needed to be. We mistook his despondence for grief and loneliness, but it was just grief. We didn’t know then what we know now.

Unfortunately, life is not a Choose Your Own Adventure book where you can go back to change your decisions if you don’t like the ending you got. You can only go forward.

We always promised Nounours that we would make sure he’s happy and safe. I didn’t think that honoring that promise could ever mean giving him up for adoption. No matter how true it is when someone says, “You have to do what’s right for him,” or “You have to take yourself out of the equation… it’s not about you,” I still feel like we failed him.

We miss Nounours beyond words. We miss our big teddy bear who is such a formidable armful of cuddly love. But now it’s someone else’s turn to hug him, kiss him, and stroke his pink nose. We had our turn, and we have our memories, and we’re grateful.

We’re grateful to have had Nounours for the time that we had him, and we’re grateful for the beautiful facility that took him in. We’re grateful for the Feline Behaviorist whose compassionate wisdom, counsel, and encouragement helped us through this difficult realization and process. We’re grateful for the love and understanding of those of you who already know about this.

This might seem like a silly comparison, but it’s meaningful to me, since I’ll always only have furbabies: As an adopted person, I now have a renewed and stronger sense of empathy, appreciation, and respect for my mother who put me in a foster home when a social worker told her that it would be the best thing for me. I now have an inkling of how she must have felt. She relented to let me have a chance at a better life, and I am eternally grateful to her for having had the strength to allow for that.

I did not feel strong when we took Nounours to see him off. I fell apart.

No one but Callaghan and I can know what we all went through in the making of this heart-wrenching decision. No one can possibly know or understand the complexity of the situation, the extent of it or the history behind it. There’s much more to our story, and it’s too much to recount here.

All anyone can know and trust is that we did as advised to complete Nounours, and that it was tremendously hard, and that we did it with tremendous love.

We requested to have Nounours addressed by others as “Noon” because it’s less confusing and easier to pronounce. He can answer to it. We didn’t want the sight of his name to stymie visitors. But that’s neither here nor there. We were told that with his outgoing personality, Nounours will be adopted, no problem. Socially outgoing cats attract would-be cat parents much more readily than skittish cats who are fearful of humans. Nounours is a lover-boy who adores everybody, and he’s afraid of no one. These traits make him very adoptable.

We’ve also been assured that the adoption placement program’s protocols include the screening of potential cat parents. Nounours will start his new life in a healthy and stable environment; he will not be given indiscriminately to just anyone.

We will be notified when he’s adopted.

Finally, we’re comforted to know that Nounours’ new life will save someone else’s. Nounours is truly magical. His love and purrs have powerful healing properties. Some lucky person or people will hug him and kiss him and snuggle him and bury their face in his fur and come to know that power, and they will have it in their lives to cherish and be grateful for, as we were grateful. As we’ll always be grateful.

Nounours-Noon.

How I manage my mental illness.

July 8, 2016June 11, 2018That Asian-Looking Chick 10 Comments

I’ve touched on some of this in various posts in the past, but I’ve been asked to share an actual list of tactics I use to maintain my mental health.

First of all, I accept that PTSD and clinical depression are a part of who I am. Mental illness and the management of it are “my normal,” and this acceptance helps a lot.

It also helps to accept the fact that just as there are great days, there are horrible days, and days ranging between the two. Sometimes, all the meds and talk therapy and things on the list below just aren’t enough. When this happens, I try to recognize that “this, too, shall pass,” keeping it all in perspective. (I know that this is so much easier said than done. I can say it easily now, when I’m not at the bottom of the abyss of hopelessness and despair. All we can do is try.)

That being said, here’s my list… things I do to manage my mental illness:

1). I avoid alcohol (with few exceptions).

Alcohol is a depressant. It also counters or otherwise negatively interacts with medications taken for mental illness. Consuming alcohol on a regular basis is never advisable for the mentally ill.

2). I take medication and talk to my therapist on a regular basis.

Meds and talk therapy are basic, first-line tactics of controlling mental illness. It’s critically important to adhere to such a routine and to have my external resources at hand. I regularly visit my doctor at the V.A. hospital, and I know that I always have access to emergency help at a national veterans’ crisis line.

3). I work out and try to eat well (within reason, making sure to maintain a healthy balance).

Exercise heightens our mood by way of its effect on our brain chemistry. It leads to improved physical fitness, which improves our physical health. (For this reason, more and more companies are including gym membership coverage fees in their employees’ benefits packages.) Improved physical health reduces stress and makes us feel more energetic and better about ourselves, in general. Choosing healthier food options most of the time comprises the other half of this picture.

4). I have routines, and I stick to them.

Routines are underestimated and even sneered upon. We like to say that spontaneity is critical to quality of life, and there is certainly something to that, but the fact is that routine can provide us with mental health benefits, too. Routines are valuable. They can be soothing when everything else is chaos. Routines can give us a sense of control and accomplishment.

5). I eliminate toxic factors in my life (to the best of my ability).

The word “toxic” is overused in our current vocabulary (instigated, I suspect, by self-help gurus, but that’s beside the point) – and yet, it captures this point well. In a nutshell, a toxic factor is that which makes us feel badly about ourselves. It’s a negative and destructive force and presence in our lives.

Toxic factors can include situations, places, and/or people and relationships. It’s not always possible to eliminate such factors; when we can’t, we can seek out ways to lessen their negative impact. I recently liberated myself from an utterly demoralizing situation, and that leap hugely improved my mental health and quality of life.

6). I engage my creative energy to the fullest extent possible.

If you have creative juices, let them flow. If you have hobbies, indulge in them. If you don’t have a hobby, get one. Losing ourselves in the physical act of doing something we enjoy goes beyond mere escapism. It often involves honing talents with which we’ve been blessed. The act of doing something physical that requires the creative part of our brains is beneficial to our mental health. There’s a reason why occupational therapy is a part of an in-patient mental illness patient’s prescribed agenda.

7). I have cats.

Connecting with animals on an emotional level and caring for them has proven to be a powerful stress reducer, improving our mental and physical health. Our relationships with our pets can actually extend our lives, improve the quality of our lives, and even save our lives. I can’t think of anything that can compare to cultivating the love and trust of an animal. (I say “animal,” but this applies to birds and fish, too.)

Nounours: Please to not underestimate the healing powers of my purrs.

8). I actively express my compassion for others in one way or another, however small.

Example: I don’t have time to physically go and volunteer at homeless shelters, so I choose to do my part by providing with water. I make sure to have one or two small bottles of cold water with me when I leave the house, especially in the hot months.

We buy generic water in bulk, keep the bottles in the refrigerator, and give them to the homeless when we see them on the street or at a red light. (Admittedly, I try to identify those homeless who are vets, though I’ll give water to any homeless person, of course.) Every time, without fail, the person takes the bottle of cold water with visible – sometimes overwhelming – gratitude and joy, which they express in such an open and heartfelt manner that I’m instantly put in empathetic touch with their plight. Water is never an unwelcome thing. The person usually opens it and chugs it immediately.

Kindness is invaluable for the human spirit.

Giving water to drink means and accomplishes much more than giving change or a dollar. Giving water with a smile is an act that says, “I recognize that you’re a human being and deserving of this basic, life-saving thing. Someone cares about you and your well-being.” I don’t think it’s necessary to explain how showing compassion to the needy can be anything but beneficial to all involved.

9). I set goals for myself and plan things to anticipate.

I believe I devoted an entire blog post to this. Having agenda items to look forward to is a pleasurable thing. It can also, in the worst of times, give us a reason to keep on keeping on.

10). I try to get 7-8 hours of sleep every night. (Still trying. Still mostly failing. But still trying).

This can’t be stressed enough: Adequate sleep and quality sleep are important for optimal physical and mental health and well-being.

11). I count my blessings and nurture my relationships with loved ones.

One word: Gratitude.

Being grateful for what we have – and who we have – is an incredibly powerful reminder that things could always be worse.

Keeping it real.

That sums it up: In addition to acceptance, meds, and professional talk therapy, I manage my mental illness by working on physical health, stress reduction, and gratitude. I try.

Changes in the hizzy. (Kitty updates)

June 24, 2016August 4, 2016That Asian-Looking Chick Leave a comment

I usually present my kitty updates on the positive end of the spectrum of current feline happenings. Today, I’m here on a more subdued note, but a positive one nonetheless. Things are not always sunshine and happy bunnies throughout. Things are sometimes dark rain and miserable bunnies, but even on those days, you can usually find a sun-splashed cloud somewhere.

[/cheesy metaphor intro]

After my kitty update post last week, things amongst the felines took a turn from the challenging to the Very Challenging. But we are working through it.

It’s funny. I thought I was knowledgeable about cats and inter-cat relationships, and my knowledge was on point at one time… but now it’s out of date. I mean, it’s funny how you don’t realize that your information is outdated until you trip and fall on the evidence right in front of you. With my knowledge lagging back in the Dark Ages, and Callaghan following my lead, we’ve made some mistakes in the last two weeks.

In short, it’s been a Rumble in the KittyHood.

It’s been the KittyPocalypse.

It’s been exhausting.

It was time to call an expert.

I consulted a renowned Feline Behaviorist, and with her compassion, talent, expert analysis, and guidance, we’re heading back to the ol’ drawing board (cats in hand) to start afresh. As far as we’re concerned, no one up in here knows anyone.

Goals! Lots of goals.

At present, I’ve got some new kitty pics to share.

Cita:

Cita, “Cat with big paw”

Cita exploring the mysteries of life on the table of death.

Before I moved my working set-up out to the dining room table…

Nounours:

Nounours, our teddy bear with glassy eyes.

Our beloved Nounours.

Nenette:

When Nenette hears her name.

When Nenette doesn’t hear her name. “Cat draped over a living room speed bump”

Obligatory upside-down kitty pic.

Our goal… all we want!… is for everyone (meaning the cats) to be happy together.

Nounours is a badass in Nounours clothing, and other kitty updates.

June 10, 2016June 10, 2016That Asian-Looking Chick 2 Comments

These last two weeks, man.

I went to my eye doctor – my REAL eye doctor this time, for the first time in years – had all of the tests done in a full examination, and ordered some new glasses that I’m excited about. That’s the plus. The minus is that the tests yielded some disappointing outcomes. (More on this later, perhaps.)

That along with national news items more sickening than usual, and I’m very glad to post a kitty update post today… pics included, of course!

Nenette’s New Things:

~Stalking and stealing my hair ties.

~Drinking from our glasses of water… to the point where she mostly shuns her water bowls. To the point where she’s trained us to set out glasses of water in certain areas around the house. But hey! Providing Nenette with glasses of water (25% room temperature, 75% chilled, mind you) in hot weather is a small thing to do for a thirsty kitty.

~Jumping up on my desk and posing exactly like the white porcelain cat. She does this a lot, and it’s slightly disturbing in a cute sort of way:

Nenette: “WHY does this weird white cat copy everything I do?!”

Still impossible to say no to this face.

Nenette’s halo was cut off in this pic, but you can imagine it there.

All of the cool, flat surfaces, all of the time.

Nounours’ New Things:

~Nothing.

Nounours is Nounours, and we’re just fine with that. The big purr-monster is perfect the way he is!

All of the rugs, all of the time.

Nounours naps like a boss.

Nounours: “I’m a badass in Nounours clothing.”

Cita’s New Things:

~Winning at adopting us. Closely related New Thing: being spoiled with love and concern, as every kitty should be.

~Methodically guarding the perimeter of her territory (our backyard) every night after dinner.

~Spending her days napping in the fort I made for her under the lounge chair on the back patio. She also enjoys hanging out next to the hibiscus plants.

All of the shade, all of the time.

Cita looking more and more like the cherished little girl that she is:

Cita: “Beneath my tough street kid exterior I’m really a pampered house cat.”

Like Nenette, Cita has a way of imitating non-animate cats.

Le Chat Noir on the left. Cita on the right. NOT UNLIKE.

To be Continued!

It’s a feline wonderland. (Kitty updates!)

May 6, 2016May 6, 2016That Asian-Looking Chick 2 Comments

Wow, guys… particularly you kitty-update-loving guys… my apologies. It’s been exactly seven weeks since my last kitty update post. I’ve been slacking.

Not to point the finger at anyone in particular, but NOUNOURS. That big purring ball of affection manages to look the same in every picture, and I don’t have time to stalk him with the camera all day waiting for a fluke to happen so I can get a pic that’s different… and I can’t do a kitty update post without pics of him! I have been trying, though.

Nounours’ eyes are bluer than yours.

[Sidenote: that hen hiding in the shadows in the back of the lower shelf? That’s a door-stop from France that I’d been trying to find. I only found it upon examination of this pic. Thank you, Nounours.]

One of Nounours’ favorite things is to snuggle up to articles of clothing the second they land on the bed.

Nounours snuggling Daddy’s jeans, because that is how the Nounours do. (nod to zfrank1)

Then there’s Nenette…

Nenette chilling on my side of the bed… or, should I say, modeling.

And look at this. YOU try to tell her “no” and shoo her out of the linen closet!

Nenette likes to jump up into the linen closet when I’m putting clean towels away. This is her idea of “helping” Mommy with the laundry.

She can’t even take a bad picture when she comes up and sticks her face in front of the camera.

Nenette in a split-second candid shot as she stretches her paw out to me.

One of Nenette’s new things is rounding up a few of her scattered toys and lining them up like toy soldiers. I kid you not:

Kitty toy soldiers.

Is it just us being proud kitty parents, or does everyone find this ridiculously cute?

Meanwhile in the backyard, Cita, our unofficially-ours kitty, has made herself more ours than ever. We’re besides ourselves about what to do at this point.

And so here, I guess, is her first real appearance in TALC:

Meet Cita!

I’ve been making it a point to spend time with her throughout the day, because she craves our company, of course… but not much arm-twisting goes into that. She is precious.

My attempt at a selfie with Cita. Awkward.

Cita has a small collection of toys, too. They’re cloth, stuffed, but they’re little stuffed shapes rather than stuffed animals. Several times a day, I go around the yard gathering them so I can group them together where she likes them (on the patio). The strawberry-shaped one is her favorite. It’s my favorite, as well… it’s red and easily detectable in the gravel. The donut-shaped one, though, is a different story. It’s brown and spotted and sometimes it’s a good while before I can find it. It would be so much faster if I had bionic eyes.

I took a picture one time when the donut finally materialized after I spent 10 minutes walking all over the backyard searching for it:

Found it!

It’s like staring at one of those pictures you used to see in the malls in the 80’s, where you stare at the finely detailed recurring pattern until the 3D picture comes into view. Remember those? Your friends could always find the sailboat. You couldn’t.

The donut on closer inspection…

I looked up those pictures; they’re called “autostereograms.”

and closer…

THE DONUT.

Alright, folks… kitty update post out! Until next time, then.

Nounours had dental work.

September 18, 2015September 18, 2015That Asian-Looking Chick 2 Comments

Three weeks ago, the fur-kids went to the vet for check-ups and vaccinations, and two things came of it: Nounours had to have dental work, and he had to go on a diet. We’d known he needed to lose a few pounds, so that part wasn’t a surprise. We’d suspected that he was due for a teeth-cleaning, so that wasn’t much of a surprise, either. We were fully surprised, though, to learn that he needed to have at least one tooth extracted. Pauvre Nounours!

We got home and entered the house with Nenette thrilled that we brought her back with us (she has residual abandonment issues, poor little thing), Nounours happily unaware that he was scheduled for major dental work in the next few days, and Callaghan and I feeling like the most terrible, negligent cat parents in the world. How could we not have known that he had a mangled tooth rotting in his mouth? He must have been in pain or at least uncomfortable for a while, and we could have helped him a lot sooner. But we finally took him in, and he had his dental work. The doctor ended up having to extract two teeth, but the operation went well, and the rest of his teeth “cleaned up beautifully.”

Nounours had dental work, and he’s on a diet.

Dieting Nounours minus two teeth.

Nounours had dental work, and the cops are always at the downtown Tempe CVS.

Nounours had dental work, and he and Nenette will now occupy the kitty chairs at the same time in tacit acceptance of each other’s presence.

Mine. Yours. ~Nenette
Whatever. I’m sleeping. ~Nounours

Nounours had dental work, and by 5:30pm last Friday, a stack of fake IDs had already been confiscated at the place where we met with work friends.

thatasianlookingchick.com-confiscatedIDs

That’s a lot of fake IDs so early in the evening.

Nounours had dental work, and there are parrots in the trees on campus.

He almost blends in!

Nounours had dental work, and Mommy got new reading glasses from Fry’s Electronics, of all places.

Nounours had dental work, and now he bears some resemblance to the Dos Equis Guy.

Same attitude. Same eyebrows. Same bottle of Dos Equis.

Happy Friday, All!

Callaghan vs. Nounours

August 7, 2015August 7, 2015That Asian-Looking Chick 2 Comments

Callaghan’s been embroiled in an ongoing struggle with Nounours ever since we brought the big guy home with Ronnie James to our Little House in the Rhône-Alpes in October 2012. It’s that ancient grievance of many a cat-parent: Kitty insists that you wake up when he wants you up, not when you wish to wake up. Sometimes, he wants you up long before you want to get up.

Some cats do this, some don’t. The Wrah-Wrah never did it. Nounours always has, and he mostly targets Callaghan. He doesn’t try it on me very often. When he does, he fails… I don’t get out of bed when Nounours demands it. Fortunately for me, I usually don’t even remember his efforts. I’m able to fall back asleep immediately if I’m abruptly woken up, which may or may not be attributed to the anti-anxiety medication I take before I go to bed. Whatever the case, Kristi – 300; Nounours – 0!

Callaghan – 0; Nounours – 732.

This has been Callaghan’s number one complaint in life for the last few years. If he had any hair on his head at all, he’d have long since ripped it out.

Every once in a while, he opens a discussion about what to do, meaning, he’ll tell me his ideas, and I’ll listen. His latest brainstorm was to shut Nounours in his studio/office with a bowl of water and a litter box.

“But I would ONLY do it at the time that he wakes me up,” he clarified. “Not before we go to bed. That way, he’ll know why he’s in there.”

That’s right… Nounours will know why he’s in there. He’s the Einstein of cats.

Callaghan cycles through phases of thinking that Nounours tries to wake him up because he’s hungry, but that theory always fades away in the face of evidence to the contrary.

1). Are the little bowls of dry food (“crunchies”) empty? –> Never. We always make sure they’re filled before we go bed.

2a). Does Nounours want his canned food breakfast? –> Maybe.

2b). If the answer to 2a is “yes”: Who feeds the cats their canned food breakfast? –> Mommy.

2c). Who does Nounours try to wake up? –> Daddy.

Theory blown.

My own theory is that poor Nounours tries to wake up Callaghan in order to verify that he’s still alive. Daddy has been lying in one position for 3 hours! Must make sure he’s not dead!!

He loves us both, but Callaghan is his favorite.

Nounours will wake up Callaghan by jumping on him. Or he’ll head-butt Callaghan’s face. Sometimes, he’ll sit on his face. Rounding off his repertoire, he’ll incessantly issue loud meows and yowls that reverberate throughout the house.

“He doesn’t stop! He won’t stop, and I can’t get back to sleep,” Callaghan grumbles. “So FINALLY, I get up.”

“But why…”

“As soon as I’m up? He lays down and goes to sleep! Why does he wake me up if he just goes to sleep once I’m up?!”

“Maybe he wants to make sure you’re still alive,” I suggest.

Some days, Callaghan is so wiped out from Nounours-related sleep deprivation that he’ll set about getting revenge. His favorite revenge strategy is to sneak up on Nounours during the day when he’s napping and pounce on him with his hands, doing his best Nounours imitation to “show him what it feels like”:

“Nouuuuuuuu-nours! Wake up! Wake UP, Nounours!” Callaghan sing-songs in Nounours’ ear, vigorously ruffling Nounours’ fur. “TIME TO WAKE UP!!”

I have photographic evidence of this, of course.

Before:

Pre-Callaghan Nounours, smooth and neat.

After:

Post-Callaghan Nounours, looking like a rug from the 70’s.

Callaghan’s logic is simple: “If I don’t get to sleep, then he doesn’t get to sleep.”

Nounours doesn’t respond to these random assaults on his slumber, though. At the most, he’ll crack open one eye, then close it again and resume sleeping. He is not phased. He is Nounours, laid-back to the point of obliviousness.

I try to help. I’ll sometimes intercept Nounours in the middle of the night if I’m semi-awake and he walks behind my head to get to Callaghan. I’ll grab him and hug him to my chest, and he’ll lay there purring for a while. I fall back asleep, though, and then Nounours continues on his way. Destination: Daddy.

“THANK YOU for protecting me, Baby,” Callaghan tells me the next day. I’m his bodyguard, protecting him from the big, lovable cuddle monster that is Nounours.

Callaghan did try putting Nounours in exile one time recently. He got up when Nounours jarred him awake, and he put him in his studio/office with a bowl of water and the litter box. He told me about it later, when I asked why there was a bowl of water in his office.

“It was just for half an hour, and then I let him out,” he told me, proud of himself. “And he didn’t meow at all after that!”

But the whole process was tedious, and the tedium mostly defeated the purpose.

We’ve since considered and ruled out several possible solutions. Then I went online to search for others. I came across some advice on an ASPCA page under the heading:

What to Do If Your Cat Keeps You Awake at Night

In the penultimate bullet point, it’s suggested that “…you might need to shut him out of your bedroom at night. If he cries and scratches at the door, you can discourage him by…” They complete the sentence with several options, including the following:

“…you can set a ‘booby trap’ outside your door.” A booby trap?

“Try hanging your blow dryer off the bedroom door knob, or placing your vacuum cleaner five or six feet away from the door.” I’m imagining how the ominous sight of a vacuum cleaner might ward off a cat. But the blow dryer? Where are they going with this?

“Plug the dryer or vacuum into a remote switch (available from Radio Shack).” A mental image is starting to form.

“When your cat wakes you by meowing outside your door, you can hit a button on the remote to turn on the appliance.” I’m cracking up. I’m laughing so hard, I can hardly get the words out as I read them to Callaghan.

“Your startled cat probably won’t return to your door after that!” Concludes the paragraph. No kidding?

I’m a little surprised at the ASPCA for suggesting this; in my opinion, it would be a traumatic thing to happen to a kitty who only wants to be with the people who love him more than anyone in the world. Poor Nounours! The idea of setting a scary booby-trap for him after he’s already upset about being locked out of the bedroom really kind of breaks my heart. Callaghan says I’m too soft on Nounours, and maybe I am, but that’s why Daddy is the main disciplinarian. What a cliché are we.

Nounours and Callaghan, August 5, 2015

Wrapping this up, I’ve got a new Nenette pic from the week:

Nenette gets sassier every day!

Happy Friday, All!

The (feline) state of affairs chez nous.

July 31, 2015That Asian-Looking Chick 2 Comments

Once again, I come to you with kitty news; while I don’t have an intention to always post fur-baby reports on Fridays, that’s how it’s been working out lately! Last weekend, we celebrated Nenette’s third week with us. We got her a new scratch pad. This one is for my office, since she’s taken to hanging out near my desk while I’m working, and she loves to lounge on scratch pads. She spends a lot of time on the ones in the living room.

In Nounours news, he’s still grieving the loss of his brother, and it’s painful to see. As I was telling a friend, he displayed an incredible show of longing for Wrah-Wrah last Sunday night.

He was lying on the bed with Wrah-Wrah’s urn, and I was doing the things I normally do to get ready for bed. One of those things is taking the urn from the foot of the bed and returning it to the dresser on the opposite wall.

When I did this on Sunday night, Nounours suddenly cried out, jumped up, and half-climbed onto the foot-board of the bed, stretching out his neck and leaning forward toward the urn, looking from it to me with a pleading light in his eyes. I was stunned. His vocalization, body language and expression articulated his desire so clearly that I quickly gave Wrah-Wrah’s urn back to him, placing it on the foot of the bed. He spent a few seconds head-butting the urn and rubbing his face on it before snuggling back down.

“Did you see that?” Callaghan asked, standing there in the same shock I was in. Neither of us could believe it. It was utterly heart-breaking.

Nounours watched over Ronnie James’ urn all that night. For the first time, I left it on the foot of the bed while we slept.

This is still a common sight.

Then, a few nights later, I went out into the living room and found Nounours like this:

Stretched out where Wrah-Wrah used to rest.

He usually doesn’t even sit on the couch, much less in that corner.

That striped cushion was the cushion on which Ronnie James spent a lot of time curled up next to me in the last few days of his life. It was always lying flat, and he loved it. On Wednesday night, Callaghan leaned it up against the back of the couch for the first time since Ronnie James’ death, and this was Nounours’ response. We took one look at him and knew from his demeanor that he was deep in a place of sadness and missing his Wrah-Wrah.

Nounours snuggling with Wrah-Wrah’s cushion.

Poor Nounours.

We all need more time, and there may never be enough time. Ronnie James’ presence in our house is so real, it’s like he’s here, but invisible.

On her part, Nenette did the following this week:

She read some books…

Nenette with “As I Lay Dying,” one of my favorite works of literature.

…she played. A lot.

Not tired yet, Mommy!

She discovered catnip…

What’s this?

…and hugged her toys…

Mine! All mine!

…tentatively kept company with her brother…

Nounours and Nenette hanging out in my office.

…and introduced herself to houseplants Jerome and Barclay.

Nenette getting up close and personal with Barclay the plant.

I’d say she’s coming along pretty well, overall!

Nenette – Nounours’ 4th of July kitty

July 7, 2015July 16, 2015That Asian-Looking Chick 4 Comments

We suddenly have a little girl kitty. To put it more precisely, Nounours suddenly has a new little sister.

We knew we’d eventually have to adopt another cat for Nounours, but if the deciding criteria was going to be me being emotionally ready, I couldn’t see it happening, ever. Losing Ronnie James left an open wound with tattered edges in my heart, and the idea of putting something there seemed excruciating.

But on the other hand, it’s been upsetting to see Nounours so distraught. Nounours would seem okay one minute, then desolate the next. He’d start crying, and we’d rush into the bedroom to discover him rubbing his head on Ronnie James’ urn. Or, on the occasions I’d leave Ronnie James’ urn up on his favorite barstool in the bedroom, Nounours’ yowling-crying would summon us to find him standing on the bed, mournfully facing the urn as if it were an unreachable island barely visible across a vast sea. We’d set the urn back on the foot of the bed, and Nounours would snuggle up to it, quieting down immediately.

We didn’t know what to do. We didn’t know how to help Nounours. It got to a point where we started talking more seriously about adopting another sibling for him. I was starting to realize that my own reticence wasn’t fair to Nounours, who had never been an only cat. He was lonely and missing his Wrah-Wrah as much as I was.

Things happened quickly from there.

Saturday morning, the 4^th of July, we had the conversation again as we headed to the gym, Callaghan and I. “I’d definitely want to get a girl,” I said, echoing sentiments I’d previously expressed. I thought that a girl kitty would feel less like a Ronnie James replacement; moreover, it wouldn’t be a good idea to bring a strange Tomcat into Nounours’ territory. Callaghan agreed.

So we knew we wanted a girl. We also knew that we wanted her to be a full-grown adult, but one who was younger than 10-year-old Nounours. Nounours has a generous maternal streak, and we thought that allowing him to indulge it would help him to feel less lonely. It seemed that a slightly younger kitty would be a good fit for lovable, cozy Nounours and his penchant for cuddling. “Five at the youngest,” I thought out loud. “Maybe five or six….” Callaghan thought this would be ideal, as well.

But again, we shelved the conversation without making a decision. We got to the gym and went to Body Combat.

Not two hours later, we found ourselves peering into a clear Plexiglas case at PetSmart, where we’d stopped to get more treats for Nounours. Inside the case was a little girl whose tag read that she was six years old. (But she was so small!) Her tag also told us that she’s an Abyssinian/Manx mix. The Abyssinian part explained her beautiful, dark-golden ticked coat. The Manx part explained her lack of a tail.

She looked so sweet and sad. As we held her gaze, her waves of loneliness cut through the Plexiglas to touch us. We learned that she’d belonged to family who’d “run into hard times.” They were being evicted, so they surrendered her to the shelter. She’d been at the shelter for over a month.

When we left PetSmart, my heart had been replaced with a ball of mixed emotions, which I promptly expressed on Facebook. Some of my friends – you know who you are! – were so encouraging and supportive and wonderful, commenting and texting me. The conundrum was that (in accordance with policy) the adoption folks wouldn’t hold her for us for even half a day, even if we paid the fee; if we wanted to adopt her, we had to make the decision and do it tout de suite. It would have to happen quickly, lest someone else swoop in and adopt her!

We went back.

We changed her name. It was funny how we arrived at it: I suggested “Nenette” – we both wanted a French name – and Callaghan replied with, “My Godmother’s name was Nenette!” I hadn’t known that. (Also, we found out later when talking to Maman, Callaghan’s Mom, that “Nenette” had been slang for “chick” in France back in the 60’s and 70’s.) We both loved the name, and it suited the little girl. Nounours et Nenette. We purchased a nametag and fed it to the engraving machine at the front of the store before leaving.

She already knows her new name.

At home later that evening, we sat in the living room and watched as Nenette explored her new forever home.

Here’s one of the first pics I took of her:

Part-Abyssinian, part Manx, Nenette has no tail (a characteristic of the latter).

Sometimes, the way she moves her head reminds me, comically, of a velociraptor à la Jurassic World, and I want to call her “Blue,” my favorite (kick-ass female) character in that movie. Other times, her shy expression reminds me of Princess Diana, and I want to call her “Lady Di.”

Nenette on the small round ottoman in the bedroom (7/6/2015)

Her shy expressions remind me so much of Princess Diana!

As I post this, Nenette has only been here for about 60 hours, so she’s still getting acclimated to her new home and to the three of us. Nounours started showing interest in her within 24 hours, but his tentative approaches drew soft hissing. Nenette will need some time to develop trust and confidence. We suspect that she’d been either neglected or otherwise mistreated in her past situation(s).

Nenette has the uniform, ticked coat of the Abyssinian, with velvety soft fur.

She’s as much an Abyssinian/Manx mix in her personality as she is in her appearance. She’s talkative, but her conversational voice is soft and extremely feminine, and I do mean girly-girl-level feminine, with her quiet mewing and trilling sounds. At the other end of the spectrum, we never heard a cat yowl as loudly as she did in the carrier coming home from the shelter! It was funny to think that such a sound could come from this tiny, adorable little being. This kitty has quite the vocal range. She loves the scratch pads we have all over the house, even though she’d been declawed (to our horror). We’ve also observed that she’s intelligent, inquisitive and playful… and she’s quite skittish. When people come over, she disappears beneath furniture whether the visitors ring the doorbell or not. But overall, she seems to be adapting quickly.

We thought this pink heart tag said “Nenette” even before we engraved it, so it was the obvious choice.

As of yesterday, she and Nounours have been on nose-touching terms. Those brief touches are a magical balm for Nounours, as he seems to be more at peace now than before we adopted Nenette. We’re looking forward to the day we find him nurturing her!

I wanted to capture an image of Nounours and Nenette together, but it’s too soon for such an opportunity. Last night, when I went into the bedroom to take a picture of Nounours by himself, I found him like this, as usual:

Nounours still missing his Wrah-Wrah dearly.

Wrah-Wrah will always be with us, and I like to think that Nenette understands that she has two big brothers to adore her. We love her, too. Nenette has been a blessing for us all. The only promise we can make to her is that she’ll be unconditionally loved for the rest of her life.

Ronnie James’ paw print, healed (and while I’m at it, here’s a look at some of my other tattoos).

June 12, 2015That Asian-Looking Chick 2 Comments

One month ago last night, my heart disintegrated. It shattered into the ether, and the fragments fell and settled into an urn, the dust of my heart together with Ronnie James’ ashes. Well, Ronnie James is my heart. They are the same, and they are in a little box, and I still haven’t figured out how to navigate myself from here.

Our three hearts are broken… mine, Callaghan’s, Nounours’. I took a picture of Nounours last night at exactly the time of his brother’s death:

Nounours with Ronnie James, one month later.

It’s like that urn is alive with Ronnie James’ pulse. We all feel him; his spirit and love are so strong.

Meanwhile, my tattoo of Ronnie James’ paw print has healed. I thought it was beautiful before, but now I can see that it’s an exquisite work of art. It’s smudgy and unevenly pigmented, looking, in other words, perfectly real – like Ronnie James left it there, himself. I’ll always be able to see the paw print of my (precious-angel-baby-bunny-dragon) Ronnie James, my petit Wrah-Wrah, my son who could never get enough cuddles or kisses.

My new tattoo has healed and transformed into an incredibly realistic imprint of Ronnie James’ paw.

I’ve never loved a tattoo more, and that’s saying a lot, because I have a lot of tattoos that I love. My collection of tattoos spans three decades; I had my first one done on my 18th birthday in 1987 (it was before tattoos went mainstream, a “bad girl” thing to do at the time, but I didn’t care what anyone thought), and this last one was done three weeks ago. 90% of my ink is on my back, though, where my eyes can’t reach. Every once in a while, I stand at an angle in the bathroom and admire what I can see in the mirrors.

I’ll show them to you, while I’m on the subject. I took the ones of my arm – may I just remark how awkward it is to take a selfie of one’s arm? – and Callaghan took the pics of my back. All of the pictures were taken yesterday, and they’re just of my arm and back. (Not pictured: pelvis tattoo, anklet tattoo.)

While the wind blew! Here’s a string of outlined hearts spiraling up my left upper arm. Callaghan drew them, and then I had them inked over by the tattooist.

The inside of my lower left arm… and now you know one of my favorite numbers.

I took those at lunch. We did the rest when I got home from work. This selfie was the last picture I took as the sun was setting (the window is behind me):

I took this by fading daylight in my home office. As usual, I did nothing to the picture… the alignment of the string of lights on my hair was a total fluke that I discovered after the fact.

And here are the back tattoo pics Callaghan took before that (I put on my very lowest-rise jeans for this, since the tiger at the bottom goes quite low):

It looks like a single piece, but I added to the work over time, starting in 1988 and ending in 2010.

My poor mother strongly disapproves of all of this ink. Close your eyes, Mom!

Here’s a clearer view. The Sanskrit script at the base of my neck reads, “om mani padme hum,” my favorite Buddhist mantra.

The dragon was my second tattoo (1988), and the first one to be done on my back. It was touched up by a different tattooist in 2010.

A talented friend designed my horse, which represents freedom and fortitude to me. I wanted the horse to be facing forward while looking back.

I’m kind of fascinated by how my phone’s camera managed to pick up little beads of sweat on my spine!

Happy Friday, All.

Callaghan and Ronnie James, bonding (instagram series)

May 29, 2015That Asian-Looking Chick 6 Comments

Just over a year ago, I took a picture of Callaghan and the Wrah-Wrah together in a companionable moment, and I instagrammed it with a b&w filter. I shared it on Facebook, and people loved it. Over the course of the year, I did this six more times. That first photo was taken before Ronnie James started coughing. The last one was taken on the 14^th of this month, the day he died… four days shy of the one-year anniversary of the first.

All along, I had no idea that I was capturing the last year of Ronnie James’ life.

Last night marked two weeks since good-bye. I wanted to share these pictures here today, together as a collection. There are only seven. I’d taken many more, but I’d carefully selected the images for this series with certain qualities in mind. Above all, the photos show the special bond between Callaghan and Ronnie James, each one spontaneous and now extra precious in its memorializing the enormous and profound love our feline son carried in his strong little lion heart.

I’ll say it again: Ronnie James loved like no other. He lived from cuddle to kiss, from nuzzle to hug. He measured his days in snuggles, rather than in minutes. He loved to be picked up and carried. He loved to be held, and, unlike most cats, you could hold him until your arms got tired, because the urge to get down never overcame him. He always had to be touching us, including with the unique way he had of flicking his butt to the side to brush against us when walking by. (We thought this quirk of his was so funny and cute.)

The Wrah-Wrah loved all three of us so much, Callaghan, Nounours, and me… and his love was such a huge, constant and present force in our lives that now, the emptiness where he used to be is just crushing. It is to me, at least. I’m having a difficult time with the absence of our “little lovebug” who was actually the greatest source of love I’ve ever encountered in a being, believe it or not. In that sense, he is divine. He’s with us somehow, I know… but still, when I walk through the house and see his favorite places, the realization of his physical goneness sucks the breath out of my own lungs, and I hinge forward under the weight of it.

It’s been rough, friends. Really, really rough. I don’t think that time could help me to miss him less, but it may help me to adapt, eventually.

Without further ado, here are the seven pictures in the “Callaghan and Ronnie James, bonding” series. At the end, I tacked on a pic of me with the Wrah-Wrah (and Callaghan’s leg!), and another of the Wrah-Wrah with his beloved Nounours, both from instagram, as well.

“Callaghan and Ronnie James, bonding”:

May 17, 2014.
The first photo in the series. Ronnie James hanging out with his Daddy in bed, each of them doing their thing.

June 2014.
Ronnie James often kept his Daddy company in the studio (Callaghan would place the second bar-stool there just for him). This was still back in our old apartment.

August 2014.
Looking up attentively at his Daddy, probably asking for more belly rubs. He loved his belly rubs!

November 2014.
Ronnie James was never happier than when being snuggled by me, Callaghan, or Nounours.

December 2014.
He loved to drape himself over us. Look at his paw on Callaghan’s arm! He loved to touch us.

March 2015.
Ronnie James and Callaghan sharing a moment right before we went to France for a week.

May 14, 2015.
Last photo in the series, almost a year since the first. This photo was taken the day Ronnie James died… just hours before he died, in fact.

And here are the two extras:

August 2014.
Ronnie James with Callaghan and me. I remember the ferocity of his purring, he was so happy.

March 2014.
One of many photos of Ronnie James and Nounours cuddling together.

Poor Nounours is so forlorn without his Wrah-Wrah. He still seeks out and cuddles with his brother’s urn and collar.

We will get through this. On Monday, Callaghan left for France suddenly because of an urgent family situation, so he’s preoccupied with the goings-on over there. I’m here with Nounours, doing my best to nurture him through his grief as I work through my own. I value this time to bond more with Nounours. We’re helping each other.

We love you, Ronnie James. As I often used to sing to him: Precious-angel-baby-bunny-dragon-Ronnie-James!

Phenomenon: Nounours with his beloved Wrah-Wrah.

May 22, 2015May 23, 2015That Asian-Looking Chick 2 Comments

(First things first for you English-speakers: Nounours is our other cat, as many of you already know, and his name is pronounced “Noo-NOO’orse.” I’m afraid that’s the closest approximation I’m going to achieve in writing. The second two parts – the vowels – flow together quickly, pronounced as one syllable. “Nounours” is French for “teddy bear.”)

In the wake of Ronnie James’ departure, Nounours has been grieving along with us this past week. We feel badly for him. We’ve been trying to console him, giving him as much love as he can handle. He and the Wrah-Wrah were extremely close. They were attached close.

Two proverbial peas in a pod, Ronnie James and Nounours.

Nounours holding Ronnie James’ hand.
Now, we believe that Nounours knew things we didn’t know.

Nounours took such good care of his brother.

Nounours always nurtured Ronnie James.

Easy-going Nounours is a big goofball, and a lovable goofball he is, too. We often affectionately joke that he isn’t “the sharpest blade in the drawer,” but there are different types of intelligence. Nounours’ intelligence, it turns out, is other-worldly.

For instance, Nounours is the lone feline in the house now, but he doesn’t lie by the front door anymore, as he was wont to do when Ronnie James was away in the hospital. (That, in itself, was indicative of Nounours’ sixth sense. He otherwise never planted himself by the front door.) The reason? He knows that this time, Ronnie James isn’t coming home. He knows that his brother will never come through that door again. Nounours was with us when Ronnie James died. He was there and he witnessed the whole thing, and then he approached and sniffed the Wrah-Wrah’s lifeless little body. He understood. He knew.

However….

Two days after Ronnie James’ death, his cremains came through the door. His ashes came home to us in an urn – a small, locked box – last Saturday afternoon, hand-delivered.

A little padlock hangs beneath the heart name-tag, and there are two keys for it taped to the underside of the urn.

And somehow, Nounours understands this, too, at what seems to be a very deep level.

There’s a large, flat cushion lying in the inner corner of our sectional couch, a relic from the love-seat we had when we were living in Austin. We brought the love-seat with us from Texas to our apartment when we moved back to Arizona, then donated it when we moved into this house and got a new couch. We kept this one cushion, though, along with the matching ottoman. The two pieces add a touch of muted color to the beige-on-beige thing we’ve got going on in our living room.

In the last weeks of his life, Ronnie James loved to rest on the cushion when I was sitting next to it… and only when I was sitting next to it. It started because he would sit near me along the top of the backrest couch cushions. One day, when he was up there by my right shoulder, I set this oddball cushion down in the corner. He came down and arranged himself on it immediately. He wanted to be near me at all times, if not actually touching me or lying on me.

The cushion became Ronnie James’ special spot when I would sit on this section of the couch, and it’s still there today.

Stretching out on the cushion and touching me with his head and hands. He loved to be in physical contact with me, and he never touched me more than he did in those last three days of his life.

Nounours, on the other hand, never paid attention to the cushion. Its purpose was always decorative, so no one ever sat on it but Ronnie James once I set it down in that spot a few weeks ago.

Ronnie James sleeping next to me on his cushion on May 14 – his last day in this world.

We were steeped in grief when Ronnie James’ urn came home on Saturday, but we were grateful to have it so soon. It’d been less than 48 hours since his death. We received the urn and then left to attend a friend’s evening wedding – a welcome distraction, focusing on someone else’s happy occasion! When we got home, we sat next to each other on the couch. I was in tears again. Ronnie James’ cushion was terribly vacant next to me. Without really thinking, I set his little urn and his collar on it.

Then Nounours came out from the bedroom and went directly to the corner of the couch.

Nounours appeared when I set the Wrah-Wrah’s urn and collar on the cushion, and we couldn’t believe what happened next.

Nounours, who isn’t a cat who does things deliberately, like Ronnie James did (they were opposites… actually, Ronnie James was like me, whereas Nounours is like Callaghan), walked straight to the corner of the couch and jumped up to Ronnie James’ cushion. He found his brother’s collar. He found his brother’s urn. We’ve never seen him so curious, interested in or focused on anything.

First, Nounours discovered the Wrah-Wrah’s collar. He pulled it close to him before turning his attention to the urn.

We couldn’t believe it.

Watching this, our hearts broke all over again.

Rubbing his face on the urn…

Flipping it over…

He seemed to be confused and almost frantic trying to get the box open.

Callaghan and I were floored, to say the least.

It looks like Nounours is reading the label on the bottom of the urn. It’s printed with the Wrah-Wrah’s name and the date of his cremation.

After pawing at Ronnie James’ urn, hugging it, rubbing his face on it, turning it around and flipping it over twice, he pushed and nosed it into the corner of the couch and rested his face against it. He seemed sad at first, but then he started to purr.

Resting his head on the Wrah-Wrah’s urn, purring.

Callaghan and I were dumbfounded by this astonishing and obvious display of recognition. Nounours somehow knew that his brother had something to do with the urn. I picked my jaw up from the floor as I reached for my phone to catch a few seconds of Nounours purring with his brother’s ashes.

Apologies for the bad quality of this video… I don’t have the equipment or the experience to make good videos… but here it is, nonetheless:

Last night, I captured a second recording of Nounours snuggling with his brother’s cremains. He does it every day, no matter where we’ve placed the urn. In this video, they’re on the futon in my office. (Please excuse not only the bad filming, again, but also the airplane noise cameo at the end! We’re in downtown Tempe, near the Sky Harbor flight paths.)

Also, it just so happens that Ronnie James died one week ago in this exact spot.

We’ll often find Nounours sitting or lying with the Wrah-Wrah’s urn, hugging it or just touching it. Or, we’ll find him curled up with his brother’s collar, or actually holding the collar in his paw.

He misses his Wrah-Wrah so much.

A second phenomenon is that Nounours has taken on some of Ronnie James’ traits since Ronnie James died, including cleaning himself more, talking more, giving us eye-blink kisses the way the Wrah-Wrah did, walking near us to brush our lower legs with some part of his body, and occupying spaces and places in the house that Ronnie James used to occupy.

Poor Nounours.

He looks so sad.

Sometimes, we find Nounours lying on or next to the cushion, arm outstretched, paw resting on his brother’s urn.

And sometimes, we find Nounours just sitting protectively over his brother, like he used to.

It’s not just the cushion, either. Nounours will find and snuggle up to Ronnie James’ urn and collar no matter where they are.

When I placed the Wrah-Wrah’s urn and collar at the foot of the bed, Nounours went to them. We found him like this, holding the Wrah-Wrah’s collar close to him.

This is the last picture taken of Ronnie James and Nounours together: