WWTBAM Bored

I am catsitting 3 cats, one of which needs pill twice a day. Cat who needs pills is 17-year-old adorable darling. Who hates pills but comes & sits on me afterward to show he owes me no ill will. He sits on me quite a lot.

Cats are 27 miles away up an expressway from my house, so I'm going up there at night & leaving in morning to get the pills close to 12 hours apart.

Repairmen are coming to house this week when I'm not there, which I am very concerned about but that's how cats' person set it up. They say cats won't escape. I'm praying. They don't want cats locked anywhere, & several otherwise lockable places have cat doors built in.

Workmen came yesterday but their key didn't work w/ one of door locks. This was apparently exciting to one of cats. So exciting that they knocked over a bottle of Blue Dawn detergent, which had stood where it was for 1-1/2 weeks where their person had left it, wrestled the cap off & covered their butt region w/ Blue Dawn.

I was really happy when I found the puddle of Blue Dawn, which is not paint. Or blue rat poison. My atempts to wash it off (it *is* soap after all) did not go well, let's leave it at that. Since Blue Dawn had hardened white Persian cat's butt-area hair into blue spikes, making cat look very punk, I decided to cut them off. Cat not happy with this either. I am just trying to keep them, & their cat mates who might groom them, from being poisoned.

I stayed up most of the night fearing cat, who doesn't materialize much even in normal times, was lying poisoned somewhere. But cat is not. Cat is very good at escaping, for a potentially poisoned cat.

Yes, their person has been told, & doesn't want me to capture uncaptureable cat & bring to vet, at least not for now.

As a public service to everyone, I would like to remind all humans to please not sit on cats...

I will fix typos when I get to computer where I can, but in 40+ years around cats, I have never had something like this. My only comparison is when a vet had us rub supposedly edible medicine onto much more reachable-by-cat regions than butt, so that cat would lick it off, & cat never did. We eventually had to wash it off.

My hope is that Blue Dawn tastes even less good than supposedly-edible cat medicine, & chasing Persian cat w/ blue punk butt-tail spikes w/ scissors will eventually pay off.

Cat got its head stuck in a vase, freaked out, broke the vase, and was left with this.

No joke. My real cat, Tucker, sticks his head into bag handles. If they're paper handles, eventually he backs back out. At worst, he could rip himself out. If they're plastic handles, usually on plastic bags, he gives every evidence of intending to strangle himself with them. Its an effect much like those woven-fiber tubes, a trick at fairs, with which if you put an index finger in each end & try to pull them out, which makes tube opening narrower, instead of pushing, which makes tube opening wider, you can't get them out.

What Tucker does is claw at the bag, thus pulling the handle tighter into his neckline.

I've told all people caring for my cat that plastic bags must be hidden from him.

We used to cut the handles off any bags in the house for previous cat - Dub would stick his head in them, and he loved to lick the plastic bags for 20 minutes. They say cats's sense of smell is six times broader than ours, and he could smell/taste the fats in the plastic.

Tucker does not lick the plastic bags. He just likes them because they're bags. He also loves cardboard boxes; he'll pry them open, after I've carefully closed them; I might be returning the merch, I might be planning to store my own stuff, & sit in them, beaming 'cause he did it, I guess.

What he loves to lick, in addition to the inside of the bathroom sink & the bathtub (so I guess I already knew, if I hadn't panicked last night, that a little soap *won't* kill a cat) is windows. From the inside, of course, as that's, if you count out the porch, the only side he has access to. I can't find much community on *this*, even on the internet.

You are a wonderful cat helper to make that trip twice a day.

I had to laugh about the Dawn. I gave Bigfoot a bath in Dawn when he got himself skunked. After a while, he gave up trying to escape and gave his drowned rat imitation. He liked the drying off part.

Ody wrote:As a public service to everyone, I would like to remind all humans to please not sit on cats...

PSA not necessary. I had a beautiful tuxedo kittycat on my lap this afternoon at book club, very fun while it lasted, even though he weighed about 18 pounds -- almost as much as CaseyGrrl.

followup report on blue-streaks punk cat is that cat won't let me near her. I lost control of cat on the day after her intersection with the Blue Dawn (which happened when I was back home in Somerville) because I was trying to clip off Blue-Dawn spikes while talking to workperson whose key didn't work. I never caught cat again.

She now hides when I'm in building. The closest she's come is to sit on the indoor stairs in the unit. watching my main charge, the little guy who needs pills, & her own mother get all the love. I tell her she can come on down & get some petting too, but she's having none of it. Meanwhile, the remaining spikes are getting less-blue, which can only mean she's licking them, which is exactly what I was trying to avoid by clipping her.

She's obviously still alive, at any rate.

It could also mean her mom & my main charge are licking her, but I'd not seen that previously. My main charge seems a little less lively lately, & I hope hope hope its not from licks of Blue Dawn. He does socialize with blue-streaks cat, her Mom not so much. It was explained to me that since he met her as a kitten, he kind of took her under his wing(paw), but her Mom he regards as interloper still.

Since workpeople are now at least theoretically coming in & out of unit (though I can't see much evidence in the very-visible water-damaged kitchen they're repairing) I have to count cats when I'm there. I have to because I am OCD about escaping cats. So of course Isabelle, Ms. punk-stripes hiding from me doesn't exactly help the cat-count. I have eventually seen her each trip, though.

She let me touch her head tonight. I am done with clipping. Attempted clipping. Her person will be home Sunday, & will maybe be allowed to remove the rest of the blue hair.

You are exactly the type of catsitter I would look for if I leave the Boyz for any length of time

Good job!

Aw shucks; thanks.

The workers are here in force today. I guess my friend knows their cats, 'cause the 2 Persians hightailed it upstairs (where their food & litterboxes currently are) almost immediately. Little Alistaire, my main charge, allowed me to give him his pill early (with the usual struggle; I find wrapping him in big towel so claws can't get out works best).

Then he escaped upstairs too.

But he came back down, to sit on my lap for comfort. He is such a dear.