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Melanie Fletcher

~ Mutterings of a Tired Mind

Melanie Fletcher

Category Archives: Cats

Oh, J.J….

19 Thursday Jan 2023

Posted by Melanie Fletcher in Cats

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The Ancient One has now reached the point where he will blissfully pee or poop on fresh bedding a few moments after it’s been laid out. I am doing a minimum of three loads of laundry a day in a household of two people because I have to wash all of his soiled bedding, not to mention the cushions when he somehow manages to scrunch up the pee pad and tag them.

So we’re trying something new. I’ve just washed both of the cushion sets on the futon and I’ve applied a large plastic tarp over them, tucking the ends of the tarp under the cushions. The pee pads now rest on the tarp, and the bedding on the pee pads (yes, I could just have him sleep directly on the pee pads but he’s old, it’s gotten nippy here, and I don’t want him to risk catching a chill) so hopefully the cushions and the futon seat itself should remain protected from his overactive bladder.

And yes, his vet knows about this, has stated that sometimes old cats do this because they have dementia (which we already know J.J. has), and as long as he’s not showing any signs of discomfort there’s nothing really that we can do about this except cover things with plastic and wash his bedding as needed.

Which is what we’ll do. And once he crosses the Rainbow Bridge I’ll be dousing everything on the futon in My Pet Peed to discourage the rest of the J Crew from commemorate Uncle J.J. by following in his footsteps. In the meantime, I have laundry to do and an old cat to pet.

Bathing a Cat

07 Saturday Jan 2023

Posted by Melanie Fletcher in Cats

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When I became a cat servant, I never expected a time would come when I would be regularly hoisting J.J. onto the bathroom countertop and scrubbing him gently with a hot, wet washcloth, and yet here we are. I know he likes it because he’s the one who instigates bath time by going to the bathroom door and howling at me.

Well, hey, who wants to sit there with pee in your fur? I certainly wouldn’t.

So I put down a towel so that he has something to grip, pick him up, fill the cats-only drinking glass with water and put it in front of his nose, and let him start drinking while I get the washcloth wet and start my chores. I clean his undercarriage (paying special attention to his pooper duper), tail, sides, back and neck, ruffling his fur so that I can wash the skin as well as the fur, then pick up the sides of the towel and give him a gentle but thorough toweling. By the end he’s slight damp, smells much better, and is angling for treats.

I have to admit, his fur has been incredibly soft and fluffy since I’ve been doing this. And he seems happier—in his dear addled mind it’s probably like his mom holding him down and washing him with her tongue. The only other cat who likes to be bathed this way is Jemma and that’s because she has incredibly thick fur and takes dust baths in the litter boxes if I don’t bathe her. So I’m not exactly the Cat Whisperer—I’m just working with the two who like a little extra help with cleaning (trust me, Jessica could give WWE pros a run for their money when I clean the poop around her butt. I pretty much have to wrap my arm around her tummy and clamp her down to the countertop while I scrub and she wails loudly that she’s being abused).

So that’s how my day began. How’s your Saturday going?

Playing Hospice Nurse to a 21-Year-Old Cat

05 Thursday Jan 2023

Posted by Melanie Fletcher in Cats

≈ 2 Comments

I would like to preface this by saying that I love J.J. to bits. He’s the cat of my heart, he’s been my bodyguard for over two decades, and I am so glad I had him in my life (the picture above features the mantel lights that we put up after taking down the Christmas lights because he can’t see very well anymore and it gives him a little more light at night. Also, all that bedding is so that I can switch it out after he pees on it).

That being said, he also turned 21 a month ago. He has kitty dementia, is moderately blind and deaf, and for the last six months has been increasingly incontinent in weird ways. He won’t go in the litter box, even if it’s just been cleaned or recharged with fresh litter. He’ll go up to it, then squat and pee within a foot of the box. He also pees in his bed at least a couple times a day, and poops in it or on the carpet.

And no, we haven’t changed the litter and yes, we’ve tried installing new litter boxes and all the other fixes that are supposed to stop this behavior. Doesn’t matter—he still won’t go in them. We’ve taken him to the vet. He’s fine. The vet basically said, “He’s gotten to the point where he’s gonna go where he wants to, and there’s really nothing you can do about it except clean up after him.”

So we’re spending a fortune on pee pads to put under the litter boxes and his bedding. Which is a pair of cushions covered with two pee pads and a towel or other fluffy fabric on the futon. This is his chosen spot—it’s right under an air vent so he stays warm in winter and cool in summer, he has vertical superiority and can see everything in the room, and we have a ramp set up so that he can get up easily to the futon. Which is fine, except that as of yesterday Jessie decided that she wanted to camp out on his bed so he moved to the other set of cushions on the futon. Now I have to check two sets of bedding for pee/poop and keep both covered with pee pads.

I also bathe him regularly with a damp washcloth to get pee out of his fur. And he yells at me (and I mean yells—no gentle meow) for fresh water/treats/petting every time I go into the kitchen. Which I give him, because I love him.

But between the fortune on pee pads, and the multiple loads of laundry I have to do every day to wash his peed-upon bedding, and picking up his turds, and cleaning the carpet/tile, and the yelling (especially if I dare to leave his sight and go upstairs to work), and the bathing, and the constant faint smell of pee downstairs, I’m getting a little tired. He’s still eating and drinking in addition to pooping and peeing, gets around fine, and shows no signs of distress, pain, or dehydration. He’s just very, very old for a cat.

I love him. I always have, and I always will. And I will miss him very much when he goes. But there will also be a certain sense of relief when he crosses the Rainbow Bridge. And if that makes me a bad cat momma, so be it.

Christ, I’m cranky today

04 Wednesday Jan 2023

Posted by Melanie Fletcher in Cats

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Part of it is because it’s going on 10:52 AM and I still haven’t had breakfast yet.

Instead, I:

  1. Got cleaned up and dressed
  2. Put away clean clothes
  3. Sorted through old clothes and tossed a lot of them into a garbage bag
  4. Took out said garbage
  5. Came back in and cleaned up the pile of cat hork I’d stepped in while taking out the garbage (thank you, Jasmine)
  6. Unplugged all of the Christmas lights (we keep them up until Epiphany/Orthodox Christmas, don’t @ me)
  7. Put fresh bedding on J.J’s bed
  8. Added a pee pad under the towel on the other set of cushions on the futon (because for reasons known only to her Jessica decided to camp out in J.J.’s spot last night, forcing him to move to the other pair of cushions. If this happens again I don’t want him peeing on those cushions)
  9. Wiped down and bleached the counters because someone in this house leaves orange pop rings on the melamine counters, don’t ask me how
  10. Checked my sales for the day
  11. Posted promo on Twitter
  12. And wrote two blog entries.

Man. I really do need to go eat breakfast, don’t I?

Imma Try a Thing

01 Sunday Jan 2023

Posted by Melanie Fletcher in Arts and Crafts, Cats

≈ Leave a comment

And that is to post here more regularly. Granted, most of my writing these days is as Nicola M. Cameron but I can still talk about other things like cover design, quilting, my insane cats, et al. And who knows—maybe I’ll find a shred of time somewhere and finally write some more science fiction under my own name. I have novel ideas ready to go, but at this moment the romance is more profitable and I’m trying to get us to the point where the Brit can retire and I can cover the bills with my writing.

Anyway, 2023—J.J. is still alive, which astounds me since he turned 21 in December. He has kitty dementia, is slightly deaf and blind, and tends to leave poop and pee in inappropriate places (on the floor in the bathroom, in his bed, etc.). But he still gets around, eats and drinks consistently, and loves to be cuddled. As long as he’s not showing signs of distress or pain, then we’ll just sigh and clean up after him. My sister commented, “He’s eternal—it’ll be him, Keith Richards, and Willie Nelson wandering the land after mankind falls to its doom.”

She may have a point there.

Other items of interest: the rest of the J Crew are all well, I spent much of December quilting my ass off (I now have two completed baby quilts, a twin quilt top for my niece, and a queen quilt that I’m piecing at the moment), the treadmill motor finally died after nineteen years so I’m walking laps around the downstairs, the new knee (got a Total Knee Replacement on ShitKnee in April) continues to heal and it is SO lovely to be able to walk without limping, the Brit is still in his contract job and is happily rebuilding antique computers as a hobby, and everything seems to be pretty good as of the start of 2023. I would like more money, of course, but that’s par for the course and I’ll be working on that this year, and I’m really hoping we can do some traveling in 2023. If nothing else, I’d love to be able to send the Brit home for a week or two so that he can see his family.

Which means I have to write more and sell more books. I can do that.

I probably should post something here, hey

27 Wednesday Sep 2017

Posted by Melanie Fletcher in Anthologies, Cats, Personal, Writing

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The reason why I haven’t posted anything since I pretty much moved everything over to WordPress is simple — I now have four different WP website/blogs that I maintain, and logging in and out is a PITA so I tend to stay logged into one and keep it that way.

That being said, it’s ridiculous that I’m paying for a blog over here and not using it, so, hello. New publishing stuff since April — I’ve published another Nicola paranormal romance novella, Shifter Woods: Roar,  I have two short stories out in the new Future Classics anthology A Lone Star in the Sky, I’m thisclose to finishing book three in Nicola’s Two Thrones series, and I’ve submitted works to Carina Press and an agent.

New arting stuff — I now have 33 covers under my belt, which pleases me as a graphic artist, and I’ll be adding at least three more covers to that number before the end of the year. I knew buying that Wacom drawing tablet was going to be a good investment.

New personal stuff — this past summer in the clavicle of Texas has been remarkably mild, and according to the battery of medical tests I’ve had due to turning 50 and being eligible for ALL kinds of free screenings I’m relatively healthy and should continue to kick around for another twenty years or so, barring accident, murder, or incoming asteroid. The J Crew continue on their merry feline ways, the Bodacious Brit is both British and bodacious as always, and while I rather liked Episode 1 of Star Trek: Discovery I doubt that we’ll be paying for CBS Access because that way lies madness.

Oh, and apparently as of October 18th the Department of Homeland Security will start collecting social media information on all immigrants and their families/associates, so as the wife of a green card holder I presume that I’ll be watched by DC. Hello, boys!

Want a cat?

19 Sunday Mar 2017

Posted by Melanie Fletcher in Arts and Crafts, Cats

≈ Leave a comment

So the Brit is off at his bimonthly game night. In his absence, I thought I’d wrap up the tax paper wrangling, then do a little quilting in celebration of National Quilting Day.

And then my eyes fell on my Watmire scarf, which had been pulled out of its bag yet again by some enterprising cats. I call it my Watmire scarf because it’s patterned after Watson’s scarf from Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows, but I knitted the bulk of it while bingeing on Longmire. Anyhoo, I was approximately four rows from finishing the damn thing, so I thought, “Ya know, I’m gonna sit down, knock out those rows, and then it’s done except for the weaving in of the ends and the fringe.”

So I sit down, start knitting, and realize that the yarn is sticking oddly to the bamboo knitting needles. And then I sniff and realize why.

Someone, and since she’s the only one who does this I’m pretty damn sure that her name rhymes with Bessica, had decided to pee all over my scarf. Why? Who knows. Maybe she was feeling ignored, maybe Jas had sat on it and she felt like re-establishing her territory, maybe she just felt like peeing on it. Not only that, she also managed to tag the balls of yarn inside the bag. I was admit that a large quantity of profanity was called into use at this moment, and Jessica (shown at right) promptly hightailed it out of the living room because she knew damn well what she’d done.

Swearing steadily, I retired to the bathroom with my reeking scarf, whereupon I finished the damn thing and cast off. It is now soaking in a lingerie bag, along with the peed-upon balls of yarn, in Nature’s Miracle, and I will carefully wash it later and let it hang dry. I know the scarf is salvageable, but if I have to buy three brand new skeins of yarn just to do the damn fringe on this thing, I am turning that cat into slippers. Mark my words.

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