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Non-craft/art entry, I think entirely. Just about one of the other important subjects for me in this world: Kitties.
Well, I was woken this morning by one of the cats making noise -- Hooker, of course, as usual. Then I realized it sounded like he was about to puke next to me on the bed, so I kicked him off, then the noise got very strange, and I had to check on him . . . hoo, boy.
Now, Berit and I have two of the most wonderful cats in the world. I've lived with many cats, and known many other cats, and these two are very special. I did once have another truly incredible cat, Rogar The Evil Behemoth, who died a few years ago, and whom I still miss greatly, but Hooker, our big, burly, handsome tuxedo cat, and Simone (Moni) our stunted, beautiful, demure tortoiseshell, are certainly above-average cats -- affectionate and (mostly) well-behaved (Berit will laugh and laugh when she reads that, I'm sure, but she's had fewer cats than I, she doesn't know how entirely good we've got it). They are named, since we're always asked, for John Lee Hooker and Nina Simone, each of whom had died in the week prior to our getting the respective kitties named for them.
However, we discovered . . . last year? the year before? . . . that Hooker is epileptic. It turns out it's not such a big deal, but it is really, really unnerving. During a fit, it looks like the cat is choking and dying, they spit up a lot, and piss themselves. The first time, we freaked out and rushed ourselves and Hooker to a 24-hour emergency vet, where we found out about the whole thing, including the fact that for some time after the seizure, the kitty is going to be blind (and that there's always a possibility the nerves will fry and the cat may remain blind). We got through the first time, then he had another fit about six weeks later (he had been cuddling on my legs as I slept, and woke me up as he had his seizure on top of me), then probably another while we were out soon after -- we saw only the evidence when we came home. Then . . . nothing . . . for over a year now, I think.
But when I looked down from the bed this morning, there's my kitty pitching a fit. I waited for him to settle, brought him up to the bed and set him carefully on a pillow, where he continued to be rather panicked for a while, so I held him and talked calmly to him until he seemed okay. He was indeed blind, and I had to keep manually blinking his eyes so that they wouldn't be hurt by staying open and staring the whole time. He was hyperventilating for a while, then he calmed down, and as before, couldn't move for a while. Then, almost exactly one hour after the fit to the minute -- just like last time -- he suddenly stood up and wanted to move around, but was still blind.
A blind cat is not at that much of a disadvantage. They actually have very poor sight to begin with, and it can be almost impossible to tell a blind cat from a sighted one if they're in a familiar setting -- they use their whiskers as much as their eyes. More, actually. Our friends Frank and Michele have a blind cat -- born without eyeballs -- and now that it knows their apartment, it runs around and jumps as actively as any sighted cat. You'd never know if you didn't look closely into its face.
So, Hooker wandered the bed for a while, carefully, cleaning himself of the pee for a bit (most of it got on him rather than the floor this time), then I lowered him to the floor, went into the bathroom and put out some new food for him. He wandered in, hugging the wall, checked his food, ate some, checked his water, checked his litterbox, then started wandering the whole apartment, hugging the walls to his right the whole way. Eventually, he wandered back to the bedroom, jumped up on the bed, jumped (carefully) over to the windowsill and back (I think he was getting sight back even quicker this time, and could distinguish light and shadow at least -- it took him almost a whole day the first time). Back to the bed, slept a while, back on the windowsill now, looking out -- I think he's attracted to the light now and sticking to it.
So he's okay, and I'm just coming down from the worry and fear that it wasn't just another seizure and that I was watching my beloved cat dying horribly.
In other news, I was pleased this morning to find myself added to the blogroll of Matthew Freeman -- the first listing for this "stealth" journal of mine anywhere (I didn't outright "announce" it anywhere except to my current cast and a few friends, preferring to link to it from my comments on other peoples' blogs and let them find it). Matt's site is the first one I go to every day (actually I first get there by going through nytheatre.com), and his list of other theatre blogs is the one I work off of in going through all of them, so it's nice to find myself right below Zay now. The only essential theatre blog I don't think Matt links to is Lucas Krech's, but apart from that, if you're a friend of mine and not yet a blog reader, go down Matt's list and check them out. I'm not linking to specific ones because while I don't read all of them now, your choices as to which ones to keep checking out may be different from mine.
Not as essential for theatre thoughts/info, but a lot of fun in any case, are the web journals (I actually hate the word "blog" but it's short and gets the job done) of other alums of the Todo con Nada space on the Lower East Side (albeit from a time before I was involved there), actor James Urbaniak, and writer Todd Alcott.
Maybe actual craft entries later today. Mainly, I think I'll be preparing for another three days of Adventures of Caveman Robot performances starting tonight. Enjoy doing the show; hate how wiped out it makes me. I know I'm losing weight, eating better, and getting into better shape, but I ain't nearly there yet, not by a long shot, and this is a hard show for me.
Well, I was woken this morning by one of the cats making noise -- Hooker, of course, as usual. Then I realized it sounded like he was about to puke next to me on the bed, so I kicked him off, then the noise got very strange, and I had to check on him . . . hoo, boy.
Now, Berit and I have two of the most wonderful cats in the world. I've lived with many cats, and known many other cats, and these two are very special. I did once have another truly incredible cat, Rogar The Evil Behemoth, who died a few years ago, and whom I still miss greatly, but Hooker, our big, burly, handsome tuxedo cat, and Simone (Moni) our stunted, beautiful, demure tortoiseshell, are certainly above-average cats -- affectionate and (mostly) well-behaved (Berit will laugh and laugh when she reads that, I'm sure, but she's had fewer cats than I, she doesn't know how entirely good we've got it). They are named, since we're always asked, for John Lee Hooker and Nina Simone, each of whom had died in the week prior to our getting the respective kitties named for them.
However, we discovered . . . last year? the year before? . . . that Hooker is epileptic. It turns out it's not such a big deal, but it is really, really unnerving. During a fit, it looks like the cat is choking and dying, they spit up a lot, and piss themselves. The first time, we freaked out and rushed ourselves and Hooker to a 24-hour emergency vet, where we found out about the whole thing, including the fact that for some time after the seizure, the kitty is going to be blind (and that there's always a possibility the nerves will fry and the cat may remain blind). We got through the first time, then he had another fit about six weeks later (he had been cuddling on my legs as I slept, and woke me up as he had his seizure on top of me), then probably another while we were out soon after -- we saw only the evidence when we came home. Then . . . nothing . . . for over a year now, I think.
But when I looked down from the bed this morning, there's my kitty pitching a fit. I waited for him to settle, brought him up to the bed and set him carefully on a pillow, where he continued to be rather panicked for a while, so I held him and talked calmly to him until he seemed okay. He was indeed blind, and I had to keep manually blinking his eyes so that they wouldn't be hurt by staying open and staring the whole time. He was hyperventilating for a while, then he calmed down, and as before, couldn't move for a while. Then, almost exactly one hour after the fit to the minute -- just like last time -- he suddenly stood up and wanted to move around, but was still blind.
A blind cat is not at that much of a disadvantage. They actually have very poor sight to begin with, and it can be almost impossible to tell a blind cat from a sighted one if they're in a familiar setting -- they use their whiskers as much as their eyes. More, actually. Our friends Frank and Michele have a blind cat -- born without eyeballs -- and now that it knows their apartment, it runs around and jumps as actively as any sighted cat. You'd never know if you didn't look closely into its face.
So, Hooker wandered the bed for a while, carefully, cleaning himself of the pee for a bit (most of it got on him rather than the floor this time), then I lowered him to the floor, went into the bathroom and put out some new food for him. He wandered in, hugging the wall, checked his food, ate some, checked his water, checked his litterbox, then started wandering the whole apartment, hugging the walls to his right the whole way. Eventually, he wandered back to the bedroom, jumped up on the bed, jumped (carefully) over to the windowsill and back (I think he was getting sight back even quicker this time, and could distinguish light and shadow at least -- it took him almost a whole day the first time). Back to the bed, slept a while, back on the windowsill now, looking out -- I think he's attracted to the light now and sticking to it.
So he's okay, and I'm just coming down from the worry and fear that it wasn't just another seizure and that I was watching my beloved cat dying horribly.
In other news, I was pleased this morning to find myself added to the blogroll of Matthew Freeman -- the first listing for this "stealth" journal of mine anywhere (I didn't outright "announce" it anywhere except to my current cast and a few friends, preferring to link to it from my comments on other peoples' blogs and let them find it). Matt's site is the first one I go to every day (actually I first get there by going through nytheatre.com), and his list of other theatre blogs is the one I work off of in going through all of them, so it's nice to find myself right below Zay now. The only essential theatre blog I don't think Matt links to is Lucas Krech's, but apart from that, if you're a friend of mine and not yet a blog reader, go down Matt's list and check them out. I'm not linking to specific ones because while I don't read all of them now, your choices as to which ones to keep checking out may be different from mine.
Not as essential for theatre thoughts/info, but a lot of fun in any case, are the web journals (I actually hate the word "blog" but it's short and gets the job done) of other alums of the Todo con Nada space on the Lower East Side (albeit from a time before I was involved there), actor James Urbaniak, and writer Todd Alcott.
Maybe actual craft entries later today. Mainly, I think I'll be preparing for another three days of Adventures of Caveman Robot performances starting tonight. Enjoy doing the show; hate how wiped out it makes me. I know I'm losing weight, eating better, and getting into better shape, but I ain't nearly there yet, not by a long shot, and this is a hard show for me.
