A Black Heart's Romance

When one is unemployed, such as myself, one typically finds oneself to have a plethora of time on one's hands. This is a dominating reason for why I pushed myself back into the world of blogging to begin with. Too much time, in essence, can be quite an amazing gift, perhaps allowing for a super clean apartment, kitty spoiling, catching up with old friends, and job hunting of course. Yet this abundance of free time, in my case, has in reality led to immense amounts of oversleeping, lounging around in pajamas for most of any given day, an increased addiction to facebook, and eating just because there's not much else to do. This is a deceptive trick that my mind has continued to play on me - an epic failure on my part. And though I'm eleven days into the new year - eleven days late for making any sort of new year resolution - I am determined to break out of this lazy slump that I now find myself in. I have plenty to do with my spare time, and this past week has helped me to realize that even though I may feel like a worthless bum most of the time, this extra time truly is a gift from God. I think God knows that if I were to be working a full time job while simultaneously planning my wedding (on top of the various other stresses in my life right now) I would lose my marbles, or at least that's how I choose to view it.

This past week I began having some serious stress dreams about wedding planning and details. After browsing through some of my planning books/magazines and my own to-do list, I realized that we still have a TON to do in the four and a half months remaining before the wedding. Instead of browsing facebook for countless hours, I began researching again for all the details left to be sorted out. In the past week I've accomplished the following:

• Confirmed that all my bridesmaids have been fitted for, and have ordered their dresses.


• Had Alec arrange an outing with some of his groomsmen, which took place last Saturday, to figure out their wedding day attire.


• Changed my vision for our centerpieces after many long, unsuccessful hours spent trying to locate a 4 inch diameter by 2 inch tall lily bowl/floating candle bowl. After stumbling across a neat picture online, I revised all previous centerpiece plans, got the okay from my fiance, and was able to order all the pieces necessary for the new idea (and saved us hundreds of dollars!).


• Researched and booked our honeymoon spot.


• Got in touch with our assistant pastor (whom we've asked to perform our ceremony, and who is rarely in the state, or even the country due to his business). We should be getting some information from him regarding counseling within the next week or so.


• Researched some flowers and decided on what I want in the bouquets. I also booked an appointment with a florist, who happens to be a friend's aunt.


• Booked appointments with three different bakeries to do our cake taste-testing.


• Had Alec begin a series of test printing at a friend's house for our invitations/RSVP cards, which should allow us to order our cardstock by the end of this week.


• Confirmed my appointment for my second round of dress alterations in March.

In all honesty, I think I've been more productive this past week than I have been in the entire three months I've been out of work. Not only did I accomplish a bunch of wedding stuff, but I also began looking for a job again. Though I've had virtually no responses from anyone in the past, I have hope again, as my mom's boss emailed me out of the blue for my resume. Apparently there is a woman in the company who is planning to retire in March and they are looking to train someone to fill her position. Fingers crossed.

On top of that, I am also in the process of closing a deal in selling this wretched truck that's been on the market for the last three months. We were contacted by a guy involved in the wholesale auto industry who has offered to pay off almost the entire balance, leaving us with just over a thousand dollars to come up with on our own. If all goes according to plan, I will be meeting with him tomorrow to work out all the details.

Since I've decided to change my mindset and turn my attitude around, it seems that things have been coming together and working out great. God is awesome and prayer is an amazing thing. It's definitely saved me from the depressing view that I'm nothing but a lazy failure. It's gotten me going again - planning and researching and being useful. So if at first you don't succeed, try out a new attitude, or perhaps just a prayer.

Cowgirl eats everything. Almost literally, everything. Keeping food from her is an impossible task. She can be in the deepest of sleep, dreaming all sorts of kitty dreams, and if the fridge or a cupboard opens, she's there in an instant, as if she'd never been asleep at all. Anytime food is being prepared in the kitchen, she's hovering on the counter waiting for a scrap, or more likely shoving her nose into whatever is available for perusal. If the meal happens to involve the use of the stove, she (fortunately) stays clear of the counter and any danger of being burned, but is usually very near underfoot. Once the meal is served, she is back on the counter sniffing at bowls and plates, licking whatever isn't too hot for her little tongue, and sometimes sneaking away with pieces of meat.

The morning bagel ritual, as I've mentioned in previous entries, is her favorite. She lives to eat off of her Daddy's bagel (particularly blueberry with cream cheese) and though we shouldn't encourage her rude habits, we can't help ourselves. She's too cute and too sneaky sometimes for us to foil her plans. So what do we do? Snap photos and go about our morning business as normal.

Cowgirl never ceases to amaze me. In all of her klutziness in running into things and falling off of things, she somehow manages to display an intense athleticism when she wants to.

She can often be seen racing through the apartment in pursuit of a fly that managed to get in the door. She is also often successful in capturing whatever winged bug she happens to be chasing. Though I have never actually seen her catch a bug, I have seen Cowgirl batting around a now-flightless, half dead insect when just moments before she was jumping at the walls and bounding off all the furniture in pursuit of it while it could still fly.

Every so often Cowgirl likes to hone her athletic abilities by chasing bugs that are still outside. Our apartment has two doors - a wooden door, and a mesh steel door. We like to keep the wooden door open (if it's not too cold outside) so the cats can get some fresh air and enjoy the sights and sounds of the outdoor world. If Cowgirl happens to catch sight of something buzzing around the door from the outside, she leaps onto the door and attaches herself with her claws, climbing as high as she possibly can. She often spends minutes just hanging on the door, her eyes darting back and forth in hopes of finding the bug again in her peripheral.

I've always managed to miss capturing this feat on film, but today I just happened to have my camera handy as I heard the familiar crash of the steel door. Cowgirl had scaled it all the way to the very top and was interested in what looked like a very large fly. The fly hung around long enough to keep her occupied while I snapped some pictures. I could never get bored living with my cats. They constantly keep me entertained.

My cats have a love-hate relationship with one another. Zissou was the "only child" for a good 9 months before we adopted Cowgirl. He gets jealous and irritated with her quickly, but she's just a kitten and doesn't know any better. So when Zeez gets some loving, Cowgirl feels the pressing need to make her presence known, as if by spending 5 minutes away from her means we've forgotten she exists. This, of course, irritates Zeez even more. Gosh, mom, can't I have just one minute of private time without her interrupting?!

When we first brought Cowgirl home, we didn't know what kind of behavior to expect out of Zissou. He'd always been a fairly independent cat. If he wanted attention he'd let you know, but he was over and done with it and would go about his business quite quickly. He has never been a "lap cat." He's very content to just be left alone. Zeez isn't a very social cat. He's leery of new people and it takes him a while to adjust to having a new person around. If a strange new person comes around (the plumber or my dad for instance) he spends a good deal of time under the bed until he feels it's safe to emerge. Zeez has always been more of a scaredy cat than one to stand his ground and protect his territory.

The day we brought Cowgirl home was the first time I had ever heard Zeez hiss or growl. And this continued on for quite some time. In fact, the hissing and growling still presents itself to this day, though it has greatly subsided. I can understand where he's coming from. He was used to having dominion over the entire apartment, used to getting all the attention to himself, used to things just the way they were. But Cowgirl was new. And she was rambunctious, curious, unafraid, and wanted to explore everything there was to explore - including Zissou. She was unrestrained and the boldness of this tiny kitten intimidated my large 14 pound cat. He immediately disliked her.

For a week we kept Cowgirl separated from Zeez by locking her in our bathroom while we were at work. I was terrified that, unsupervised, Zeez would destroy her if she got in his path. After monitoring their limited interactions while we were at home, we realized that Cowgirl was pretty tough for a 3 month old kitten and she could hold her own against Zeez. For the most part he just hissed and ran away from her if she approached him anyway. So they were both free to roam the house together.

It took a long time for me to feel fully comfortable leaving them alone together without worrying. Zeez didn't seem to be taking to her at all, though she persisted to make him a friend. Eventually Zeez began to come around to her and we would catch them wrestling every now and then, or tearing through the apartment in pursuit of each other - at first rare occurrences, now commonplace. I can't say that Zeez actually likes Cowgirl, but at least now he tolerates her, and they find enjoyment in terrorizing each other. Sometimes they even share the bed or the couch for a nap. And they can often be found grooming each other before or after a wrestling match.

Just this afternoon, I was sitting in my rocking chair contemplating Christmas gift ideas when I noticed that the blanket covering the couch was moving. Zeez had crawled into the blanket that I keep tucked around the couch and he was trying to make himself a cozy bed for a nap. Cowgirl found this unexpected movement thoroughly entertaining, however, and began an attack. They played and wrestled for quite some time, Zeez nice and snug under the blanket, Cowgirl happily trying to untuck him. It's these moments that I'm grateful for, because there were many times in the beginning where I believed they would never get along. It's these moments that give me hope that maybe they will get to be such good friends that I will come home to find them snuggling together. But for now we just take things one day at a time.

My 6 month old kitten, Cowgirl, is not your typical cat. She is bounce-off-the-wall-zany, has a never-ending source of energy, and she is most definitely - above and beyond all else - a dog trapped in a cat's body. Ever since we first brought her home at 3 months old, she has always seemed to me to be more dog-like in her characteristics.

Cowgirl lacks the dignity, grace, and elegance that I'm prone to seeing in cat behavior. She runs into walls turning a corner too fast, rolls off the bed or the couch in a playful fit, misjudges her jumps, and is constantly underfoot - often leading to accidental kicks and missteps by Alec and I. Her klutziness and her seeming unawareness give her a personality all her own - one that Alec and I find charming.

She makes up for her lack of cat-like attributes by constantly amusing and surprising us with her quirkiness. Whereas your stereotypical cat is aloof of all things human and quite fickle, Cowgirl desires the companionship of either Alec and I over playing with our other cat, Zissou, and over having her own quiet alone time. She is as loyal as can be. Whether we scold her for being a bad kitty, or whether we accidentally kick her in the dark hallway in the middle of the night on the way to the bathroom, she never runs away and never expresses irritation or anger with us. Instead, she follows us around, meowing happily at our feet until she gets a scratch on the head. She lives to be loved by us.

Cowgirl also never fails to be waiting at the door with loving meows when we come home from a day out. I've often watched her when I've been home alone and both of us are awaiting Alec's arrival from work. Before I even hear the gate to our apartment complex open, she is up and pacing in front of the door. I don't know how she always knows, but within a few more seconds, the gate opens and closes and the footsteps stop in front of our door, accompanied by jingling keys.

Cowgirl turns practically anything into a toy and finds joy in hours of mindless play. Though she does have a favorite cat toy (a small, round, furry, leopard pouch with pom-pom legs) she also enjoys chasing and batting around gum wrappers, bottle tops, pieces of loose carpet that she's torn off her scratching post, straws, shoelaces, whatever necklace I happen to be wearing, my hair, and probably her most favorite of non-kitty toys, her own tail. Cowgirl has spent many an hour running in circles, grasping and nipping at her tail, somersaulting around until she catches it in her little paws. On more than one occasion we have pulled Cowgirl out of a nap just by taunting her with her own tail, sending her into fits of self-attack.

Cowgirl also likes human food. All of it. Whereas Zissou turns up his nose at practically all of our food (except for yogurt), Cowgirl literally has her face buried in our plates to try any and everything. She also has a thing for yogurt, but we've also discovered she has a passion for plain turkey, very spicy chicken, Panda Express, and chili. Her favorite food, as far as we can tell, is a bagel with cream cheese. Her morning ritual is to perch on the counter and hover over Alec's breakfast plate, licking the cream cheese right off his bagel, and even tearing off some of the bagel itself. The only thing she hasn't taken to is lentil soup. Go figure. Cowgirl also prides herself on beating me to the fridge every time I step foot in the kitchen, and as soon as the door opens, she eagerly jumps in to explore the contents of each shelf.

Cowgirl's most dog-like qualities, however, are her keen ability in, and her deep love of the games of fetch and catch. When she is in play mode, Cowgirl will often pick up her favorite kitty toy (the leopard thing I mentioned earlier) and drop it in front of one of us, often right in our lap in the middle of whatever we're currently doing. The toy is then thrown to a distant corner of a room and Cowgirl charges after it, retrieves and delivers it directly back to Alec or me. This is her favorite thing to do. I was surprised the first time she brought the toy back, thinking it must be a fluke. Who had ever heard of a cat that played fetch? But it was no fluke. The game often continues for at least 10 minutes, or until Cowgirl exhausts herself with running all over the apartment and finally flops in a heap on the floor. She is equally adept at catch. One lazy evening Alec and I were playing fetch with her in our room. Alec began tossing the toy just barely beyond her reach and to our surprise she began diving after it. We started tossing it just a little bit higher and Cowgirl would snatch it out of the air, catching it between her front paws. We kept throwing the toy higher and higher and every time Cowgirl performed amazing leaps and flips but always came away with the toy tucked in her paws, or in her mouth. This is a game that she has become quite fond of. She often makes amazing jumps off the edge of the bed to catch a toy that is about to land just out of reach. She rarely misses unless we wear her out and she gives up.

I've always been highly entertained by Cowgirl's antics, but today came a new surprise. I was writing an email when I noticed Cowgirl on her back tearing at something under the front door. After a few minutes of desperate effort, she finally came away with something in her mouth. Thinking she was about to eat a bug, I rushed over to see what it was she had. It was a stick. I returned to my email, only to be interrupted by Cowgirl dropping the stick in my lap, stepping away, sitting on the ground, and looking up at me expectantly. She was waiting for me to throw the stick. Not only does my cat play fetch, but now she was playing fetch with a stick that she went out of her way to uncover.

I wish I had all her crazy capers caught on tape, but for now I just sit back and enjoy watching all the nonsense - how she's learned to scale the dresser drawers by pulling herself up by her front paws from drawer to drawer until she reaches the top, when she could very easily just jump up from the bed (which she also does, but climbing is just so much more exciting), how she's learned to actually open the dresser drawers and climbs inside to explore the area behind the drawers, how she enjoys eating pieces off of our Christmas tree, how sometimes she just stares for minutes upon minutes at her litter box, how she loves to lay across my shoulders like a giant live scarf, how she spoons Alec's arm while he works and eventually falls asleep splayed across his body, how she immediately runs into my closet whenever she hears the door slide open, how she squeezes herself behind our desktop computer when we are using it just to be close to us, and the hundreds of other things she does daily. Anyone who says that cats have no personality have obviously never met Cowgirl.

Zissou went the the vet last night and we returned home almost as in the dark as when we arrived there. The coughing can be a number of different things, but the vet seemed to think that my cat is showing signs of asthma. I don't know how I feel about this decision, seeing as how I've had him for about a year now, and he's NEVER coughed in the past. His symptoms seemed to come out of nowhere, so it's hard for me to go along with the diagnosis of asthma. So Alec and I prodded her more questions to see what else could be possibly going on. This is what we came away with:

• Asthma


• Possible food allergy (the only change in his diet recently had been a little piece of turkey that I gave him last weekend which seems to be when the coughing began)


• Possible bacterial infection


• Possible heart problems, though unlikely

She basically told us there's nothing we can do about the asthma aside from adding a nutritional supplement to his food to help strengthen his immune system and to possibly invest in an air filter for our home. Our only other option was to pay about $300.00 for a chest scan and blood-work which would either confirm the asthma or not. It seemed pretty pointless to take that route, since there's nothing we can do for him if it IS asthma. So we bought the supplement and she wrote us a prescription for an antibiotic which we can pick up if his coughing gets worse (and we won't be charged for another office visit, thank God).

I'm hoping the coughing will just go away on its own. I'm hoping that I can just attribute it to the random bits of turkey that I fed him. The vet said that if he had an issue with the turkey, it could have caused inflammation in his tummy, which may have led to his dry heaving.

In any case, we will be monitoring him over the next few days to make sure he's not getting worse. If he remains the same or gets worse, then we will pick up the antibiotics and hope that those do the trick. If that doesn't help, then I guess we are living with a cat who has asthma.

Poor Zeez hates being in his carrier. He isn't typically a very talkative kitty, but as soon as he was put in the carrier and taken to the car he wouldn't stop meowing. I worried because this was his first trip to the vet as long as I've had him, but he did surprisingly well. He came out of the carrier immediately and let the nurse and the vet inspect him without trying to escape. He then wandered around the exam room while we talked to the vet. But as soon as he was put back in the carrier and put in the car for the ride home, the sad/terrified meowing began again. Alec decided to experiment and let him out of the carrier to wander the car. He stopped meowing and seemed to actually enjoy the car ride. He wedged himself between Alec's shoulders and the back of his seat and just looked out the window for the ride home. I kind of wish I had thought to take a picture. When we got home, he didn't run and hide, but hung around until I gave him a treat. He was such a good boy.

So my 3 year old cat, Zissou, has had this weird cough for the last couple days. I've never heard anything like it come out of him before, so of course being a worried parent and all, I've been monitoring him like crazy. It's like he's trying to cough up a hairball or something that seems to be stuck inside of him. It's almost like a dry heave. Yesterday there was a tiny hairball on my living room floor, so I was hoping that was the end of it, but a few hours later he started with the coughing again. I called the vet this morning and will be taking him in at 7pm tonight, but I'm still worried. He's been hiding under my bed all afternoon, which is really rare for him to do. Until today, his behavior seemed normal, aside from the coughing, so I'm praying it's not getting worse. Anyone with cats have any ideas/advice for me?