New Family Member Coming Soon to the Box House

We miss our Seamus, a lot. I miss his kitten kisses and his soft, almost subaudible purr. We've lost pets in the past, but this one is hitting me particularly hard. I think it's because he was so young, and it was so unexpected.

Usually, we wait a while before beginning the search for another cat. We ended up waiting almost a year to the day after we lost Pascal before bringing Seamus and Bella home.

It's different, this time. In the past, we've only had one cat at a time. We now realize that they do better in twos. Our other animals, in their own way, have also been mourning the loss of Seamus. Bella looked for him for about a week, meowing into corners and dark rooms. It reminded me of when they were kittens, and came here for the first time. They spent a good few hours calling out, no doubt looking for their mother and siblings. Maggie, our dog, moped. And when Bella coughed on a hairball, Maggie raced over, poked her, and started crying. I'd never seen her do that before.

They're doing better, now, and the critters have settled into a new routine, but I miss the kitten wars. I realize that I really, really like have multiple cats around.

And so we are getting another cat. 

We decided to go back to the same couple where we got Seamus and Bella. They breed Maine Coons and Norwegian Forest Cats exclusively. I know a lot of people have problems with breeders, when you consider how many cats are in shelters. And seriously, when most people hear about breeders, they picture the ones on the news, where they keep animals in appalling conditions and breed them until they drop. But you should see the place where these cats live. The entire house is, and I'm not exaggerating here, bigger than the Box House. There's even a second house. There are maybe sixty cats on the premises, including the kittens, spread out over three levels. And the smell? Nothing. We have one litter box, and it doesn't smell this clean. They only do a couple of litters a year.

Also, I like the philosophy of what they're doing. Maine Coons, like Norwegian Forest Cats, like Manx Cats and Siberians, are an aboriginal breed. They developed naturally, without assistance. The theory is that Maine Coonsare descended from local short-haired domestic cats and long-haired cats brought over by English seafarers and Vikings. Over the centuries, they grew into a distinct profile. They are big--up to 25 pounds, muscular, with large feet and thick fur, perfectly suited for the harsh northeast winters. This couple has undertaken the task of helping to perpetuate the species.

Maine Coons are simply the most awesome cats I've ever encountered. They're large, curious, funny, extremely smart, and friendly. In fact, even when Seamus was so sick at the vet and then the animal hospital, he still greeted everyone with nose-to-nose kisses.

We've decided to adopt someone closer to Bella's age (she's two) instead of a kitten, and went to the cattery with a few specific goals in mind. We hoped to find a male between one and two years old, and not blue. (I know Seamus and Bella are technically gray, but the color is termed "blue.") I specifically didn't want a cat that was the same color as Seamus. We knew there were several male cats available at the cattery, and there were three in particular that I wanted to meet. None of them were blue.

We ended up spending nearly two hours playing with cats on the various levels. The three we went to see were each awesome critters, but all the cats were fun. Here's Ted playing with one group. The pictures are terrible, because I didn't want to use the flash.

But despite my intentions, the one that really got to us was blue. In fact, his name is Blue. How's that for the universe laughing at me?

Blue was shy at first. He hung out on his cat tree and watched from above. I spent most of my time playing with the others, occasionally looking up at him to see what he was doing, but still not really focused on him.

The woman gave me a toy to entice him with, something that dangled from a string. It got his attention, and he came down to play. Here he is with Ted. He is a big cat. So big, in fact, that he took the toy and walked off with it, dragging me behind him. He is strong.

After that, the decision was pretty much made for us. We would scritch or play with the other boys, but then Blue'd prance by, dragging the toy with him, trying to entice us. Here he is at left:

But it was his growl that melted my heart. We played tug-o-war, and he play-growled the entire time. I never knew a cat to do that; it is exactly how Maggie plays, very dog like. It just made me laugh.

There are a few similarities to Seamus, not the least of which is his color. But he seems to have such a strong and unique personality all his own, and his face does not look at all like Seamus, so I think it will be fine. We can honor the cat we loved by adopting his brother (or rather, half brother), but grow a relationship with him for himself. So here he is, the one in-focus picture I got that whole day.

We'll be bringing him home in a few more weeks, when we can get our schedule to match theirs.

Happiness Is...

...a new Makita LXT406 18-Volt LXT Lithium-Ion Cordless 4-Piece Combo Kit.

And while Ted and I are thrilled that the rebate for the set included a fifth tool, there are others in the house who might say the best part of the deal is the carrying bag it all comes in.

And in This Corner, Weighing in at 15 Pounds...

Was it only last December that the desk chair could hold two kittens, with plenty of room to spare?

Here's Seamus today. He's 15 pounds and still growing.

I knew Maine Coons were "Gentle Giants," but it wasn't until they started eating us out of house and home that I realized just what that meant. I practically need a weight belt to lift them. Carry both at once? Fuggedaboutit.

So Long, Big Green, We Hardly Knew Ye

We killed it. Well, we may not have wielded the chainsaws, but we signed the death warrant when we faxed the contract back to the landscaping company.

The trunk of the tree was less than a foot away from the foundation, and the whole bulk of it pitched at a crazy angle.

We knew when we moved here last year that we would be taking it out. The roots had already cracked the sidewalk, and probably contributed to the large crack on the porch slab:

We didn't want to risk any further damage to the foundation. Keeping an 85-year-old building structurally sound is difficult enough. This particular corner of the basement seems to have a bit of a moisture problem; there was a lot of efflorescence on the brick walls.

Still, it weighs heavy on the heart to take out such a large tree. Not counting the parkway trees, it's the biggest one we had on the lot. It was a favorite roosting spot for mourning doves, who would gather in the late evening.

The kittens spent large parts of their afternoon watching the activy 'round the bird feeders, just inches from their noses.

Were we to keep the tree, I would have tried to find a way to discourage the daily visits of the red-headed woodpecker. But I enjoyed the brief encounters.

The landscapers came early this morning, and in less than two hours, all traces of the tree were gone.

The house looms so much larger now. And the porch I'm not overly fond of stands out like a sore thumb. We need to figure out a way to minimize the mass of it with something decorative.

While they were here, we had the landscapers take out several other trees as well, including a forsythia way past its prime, with a weed tree growing through the middle of it.

Yep, that's actually two trees in the picture. The landscapers made quick work of these, too.

There were other casualties this day. There was, apparently, a robin's nest in the tree. We found the eggs knocked to the ground, carelessly crushed beneath the boots of the workers. Mom wrapped up the tiny, half-formed birds and took them away. It was sad to see the mother robin hopping along the trunk of the downed tree, searching for her nest. For much of the afternoon, she sat in one of the parkway trees, staring at the house, staring at the empty spot where the tree used to be. Staring at me whenever I looked out the window to check on her. But I haven't seen her since the thunderstorms started up this afternoon.

Without these trees, The Box House looks so much boxier now. We'll replace them with others, set away from the house at a safe distance. But it will be a while before they reach any sort of great height. What we need now is a really fast grower.

Garfield Applique Quilt

Mom's been very busy the last month or two wrapping up some of her quilt projects. Here's the Garfield Applique Quilt she is finishing up for my cousin Steffie (who I don't think reads this blog, but if you see her, shhh!)

For this type of quilt, she "fussy cuts" images from an existing fabric, in this case one that had large pictures of Garfield and Odie, and then hand appliques them into the center of the quilt block. You can click on any of the images for a better view.




Two out of two Maine Coon cats approve of this quilt.

Free Vintage Chandelier to a Good Home

Well, we've taken down the dining room chandelier and had hoped to get the new slip shade one in place, but a piece broke in shipping and we're still dealing with FedEx and the eBay seller about the credit. Can't hang anything up or even try to assemble it fully until FedEx can get over here and inspect the packaging.

Here's the old one:

We originally thought the chandelier was a later addition to the house, but after doing a bit of online research and trolling through the auctions, it looks like it might have been original. Several sellers had indicated similar ones as coming from the 1920s.

Anyway, if you want it for your house, it's yours. It does have the canopy, which I managed to clip off in my picture. It will need to be rewired, as it still has the original cloth cord, which is in rough shape. Also, one shade is slightly larger than the others. It's a decent chandelier, just not our style, so we're replacing it with another period light.

If you're interested in the chandelier, it's free, you just have to come get it. Drop me an e-mail at blog(a)compassrose.com
We also have this light fixture, which is probably also original to The Box House:

The body is actually some sort of plastic. I knocked off most of the dust, and discovered it's really quite a pretty color. It, too, is free to a good home. Just drop me an e-mail.

We may even throw a kitten in with the deal.* Naughty kittens snuck into Mom's sewing room yesterday and discovered that the Garfield quilt she was working on--which she spent a very long time adjusting to just the right tension for quilting--makes an excellent hammock.

Needless to say, Mom was not pleased.

*Just kidding, you can't have our naughty kittens.

Annual Humiliate the Animals Photo

Mom dragged out some old holiday pictures this week, and among them was one of her dog, Harley. "Fuzzy ol' man," I smiled when I saw the photo, marveling at how gray he looked here. It's not how I remember our Harley at all. I remember him as a frisky young pup, a mostly-black-lab-with-a-bit-of-springer-spaniel puppy that my dad found at Pet Rescue in Bloomingdale, near their house. The photo is from 2006, Harley's last Christmas with us. He had reached the respectable age of 12, not bad for a big dog.

Like many families, we keep up certain traditions during the holidays. One is to eat herring at Midnight on New Year's Eve, an old Polish custom said to bring luck for the rest of the year. (New Year's Eve was also my grandmother's birthday, and she taught us the tradition.) Another tradition is the annual "Humiliate the Dog" picture, where we dress up our critters in bows and other holiday finery and make them sit still for a photo.

Here is another photo of Harley when he was seven or eight. You'll notice his martyred expression didn't change much over time. He was never particularly happy with getting dressed in his holiday best, but the rest of us thought it was hilarious.

Harley always got a treat afterward for putting up with us; a big rawhide bone or a delicious pig ear.

We had planned on dressing up Maggie this year, but our groomer beat us to it. She comes to our house in her mobile dog-grooming van. We decided earlier this year to have her come to us, because Maggie--who was abused terribly by her first owner--is very much afraid of cars, and panics if we leave her anywhere. Maggie knows the groomer's van, and tries to drag us back inside when she spots it, but settles down well enough once she's inside.

This time, when the groomer brought Maggie back to the door, she handed us a holiday card as well. And look! The picture on the front is of Maggie! What a nice surprise!

She looks about as un-merry as can be! When she came back into the house smelling like dog shampoo and wearing a tartan scarf, the kittens didn't recognize her, and went scurrying away, hissing and growling. Poor Maggie! The jaunty little scarf didn't last.

And now with the kittens, the tradition is morphing into a more general Humiliate the Animals one. Mom brought home these adorable kitten costumes, and I waited until they were napping to put them on so they wouldn't struggle. No way I wanted to combat those claws.

Seamus.

Bella.

They do not look happy. I don't blame them. There's no dignity in jingle bell collars or Santa hats. Hee hee.

Do you ever dress up your pets in silly costumes? If you have a photo you'd like to share, you can either mail it to me at blog(a)compassrose.com or post a link to it in the comments section. I'll include them all here.

Happy Holidays, y'all!

What's Up? Chicken Butt.

Silly kittens often sit in their food dish while drinking their water. They are oh-so-tolerant of having their butts cleaned of chicken gravy, but they must've still had a faint odor of Fancy Feast about them, as Maggie suddenly lost all uneasiness around them and came in for a good ol' sniff. I think it's what finally broke the ice, as dog and kittens are fast becoming friends now--although they won't sit still long enough for me to photograph all three of them!

Are y'all getting tired of kitten pictures yet?

Bella and Seamus, aka Silent Bob--when he meows, no sound comes out!

Mom's Latest Quilt, a Farewell to Our Lawn Care Guy, and a Shout Out to My Very Talented Man

I love showing off Mom's quilts.

This one is her latest, which she's giving to her lawn care guy for Christmas. He's cut the grass and shoveled the snow at her other house for more than a decade. They have a better-than-average contractor-client relationship; she's been invited to his family's house for dinner, and he knows all about our family and our new adventures at The Box House. But now that we found a tenant for the house who is willing and eager to take on the outdoor chores himself, we can't see fit to continue with professional lawn care, even though we really, really like the guy. We'll definitely miss him! (If you're out in the Bloomingdale/Roselle area and need a recommendation for lawn care, let me know.)

On the kitten news front, the furry babies seem to be making themselves at home. Here's Seamus just hanging out with Mom while she works at the computer...

Maggie was having a difficult time accepting the kittens at first. We call her the Omega Dog, because she is the most submissive creature we've ever seen. For the first few days after the kittens arrived, she would try to avoid them. If one looked at her directly, she would turn away, refusing to make eye contact. She'd hug the wall, eyes averted, if she needed to get past, or whine for one of us to get her. She stuck to me like glue, constantly craving reassurance. Usually she'll nap next to me, this weekend she napped on top of me. All of her behavior indicated she was making herself submissive to the kittens. And she seemed to have lost her spark.

But today there was a noticeable shift. She sat next to the kittens on the floor; she even went into downward dog position once. I found all three animals alone together in our bedroom. They weren't interacting, but they were all sitting on the bed in a row. And now Maggie wags her tail like crazy when they're around. Okay, not every time, but there was a definite lack of whining today and more tail wagging and I could walk through the house without a shadow. I think she's trying to make friends now and it helps that the babies are so laid back. It would be cute to see all three critters snuggling together. The kittens themselves are very curious about her as well, especially her tail, but she's so big compared to them that I think they're holding back a bit.

And finally, I just have to publicly proclaim that I'm a lucky, lucky girl to have a guy like Ted around. The heat in the tenants' unit went out, so we went to check the pilot on the boiler. We tried relighting it twice, but it wouldn't stay lit. My first thought was "let's call the heating guy" because really, I have no clue about these things. But Ted somehow figured out it was a faulty thermocouple, went to Home Depot for a new one, and popped it into our ancient boiler, saving us a service call. I think I'll bake him a pie tonight!

Cat Food Bowls on the Cheap

We are picking up our kitties on Saturday. Yay!

I went to Target to stock up on some necessary items: cat food (manufacturer's coupon, plus store coupon, plus a free Target gift card for buying two cases cut the price in half), water dispenser, cat scratch pads, etc. But I balked at the price of the fancy cat food dishes. I wanted something kinda cute and made of stoneware, but the prices seemed a bit ridiculous for what I was getting: up to $9.00 for one, single cat food dish? Grrr.

So I wandered on over to the dishware section, and for only 99 cents each, picked up a couple black melamine "dipping" bowls and two stoneware ones. Tres chic, no?

Patching the Garage Gutter, A Mystery Solved, A Hidden Danger, And More Kitten Pictures!

Way back in March we began our plan to redo the gutter on the back of the garage because it is pretty much a disaster. In sum, the previous owners never cleaned it, it was solidly packed with mud, there were holes along the length, and most of the roofing material that anchored it was simply gone. Water was cascading down the front exterior, and also getting into the structure so that there were solid sheets of ice covering much of the interior back wall. In spring and early summer, we fought off a carpenter ant invasion that was no doubt attracted to the damp roof beams. That was fun (not). It took forever to get them all.

The photo below is from March. The shiny surface on the brick is ice. The ice on the ground formed from water pouring out a big hole in the gutter.

We originally planned to make the gutter repair (more likely replacement) a priority project. But you house bloggers out there know how it is. Other projects creep up unexpectedly, and you suddenly find yourselves diverting time, effort, and, most importantly, money to things like leaky roofs and rotting windows. Where did the warm weather go?

With temperatures plummeting into the thirties, something had to be done. The brick is in bad enough shape on the back wall; we definitely don't want the garage fending off another onslaught of ice this year. So today, on what may be the last dry, sunny (but chilly) day for a while, I patched the gutter. This is the before:

I don't know if you can even count this as a "patch" job. I had cleaned the area as best I could, using various garden tools to dig out and sweep away the inches of compacted dirt and trees (yes, trees) that were growing out of it. Then I used an entire can of black roof cement to rebuild the lip of the roof, where it meets the gutter. I used the cement and reinforcing fabric to build up the areas; hopefully, this will keep the water flowing along the gutter and down the drain. For the holes along the length of the gutter, I used silver aluminum gutter tape, the same stuff we used on the roof of The Box House.


And this is how it looks now:

Voila! Cross your fingers we'll get the garage through the winter!

Getting a job done, even a temporary fix, is satisfying. But this one was satisfying and solved a mystery that had been bugging us. When I was regrading along the side of the garage, I kept coming up with shovels worth of strange glass rocks.

The previous owner's granddaughter had never seen them before, and we finally decided it must be some kind of glass landscaping mulch, which is available in a rainbow of colors. But no! When I was cleaning out the gutter, some of what I was removing was old roofing tar that had slid down the front and solidified into this hard, brittle, glass-like material. I pulled back some of the roof membrane for a better look, and yes, there was more of it, hard and glassy. When I climbed down and told my mom about it, she had a sudden flash image back to her childhood in Chicago, when using pitch or tar as a water sealant was the norm. The tar would solidify, and you'd find just such stones as these in the alleyways. They made good toys.

Sometimes working on an eighty-five-year-old house feels like treading an alien landscape. The Box House is so different from the homes I grew up in.

After cleaning up, I sat down at the computer and Googled all sorts of things about tar and pitch and roof fixes. Researching roof and gutter repair (after the fact) made me aware of something I hadn't thought of before I began. Because the roof on the garage is way more than thirty years old, the tar I was breaking off along the edge and chucking into a garbage can might very well contain asbestos. I wasn't wearing a dust mask for this job, as I wasn't creating much dust. But let this be a lesson to you out there on the hidden possibilities of asbestos. Don't do what I did!

Oh, well. At least I was wearing gloves.

And now for something completely different--it's only two more weeks until we get our Maine Coon kitties! The breeder has been keeping me up to date with what's happening; they just had their neuter/spay surgery and were microchipped over the weekend. She had some new pics, too, so here they are:

Boy kitty.

Girl kitty (left) with one of her other siblings.

Girl Kitty.

Ted won't settle on names yet. Phooey. So until they arrive, they are just Boy Kitty and Girl Kitty. I have to think of them that way, otherwise the names the breeder gave them will stick.

Are We Ready for Another Cat?

When we first met, six years ago, Pascal and I took an immediate and active dislike to each other. She was Ted's cat, and I was the new woman in his life. Whenever I visited, she would look at me with disdain, judging me from across the room with her beady-little eyes. My attempts at befriending her were met with soft hisses and sharp claws. "She's a bit of a bitch, sometimes," Ted would shrug and smile apologetically as Pascal wound herself around his ankles, looking up at me with half-slit eyes and an air of cool superiority.

"Humph," I humphed. Who cared if the stupid cat liked me?

But I did care. I could see that Ted and Pascal had a special bond, and because I found myself liking Ted quite a bit, I knew that I would have to get his cat to somehow like me. Or at least tolerate me. Or at least stop biting me. I tried to woo her with treats, scritch her behind the ears as Ted did, but nothing worked. I gave up and decided we'd simply give each other a wide berth. Really, she was already 11, it wasn't like she was going to be around forever.

There really wasn't any one event that caused Pascal and me to raise the white flag and form a truce. No single act on my part or hers that allowed us to overcome our differences and jealousies--because yes, I was jealous of a cat--and form our own friendship. Pascal did not wake up one day and suddenly decide to leap up in my lap and lick my chin adoringly. It was a gradual shift. I think she slowly came to realize that I wasn't going anywhere anytime soon, and decided to accept it. We weren't friends, exactly, but there was no longer any animosity between us. We could sit together on the couch. She'd let me rub her head briefly or feed her a tidbit. No, we weren't friends, but we weren't enemies, either.

It wasn't until after I moved in with Ted that things changed between Pascal and me. Late one night, I woke up with her curled up on my pillow. I picked up my head slightly so that I could see her face, and she reached over and briefly laid her paw on my cheek before turning away and going back to sleep.

Stupid little furball had somehow wormed her way into my heart.

Pascal and I eventually fell into a routine. We always managed to wake up before Ted, and would creep down to the kitchen for coffee and Catsip, a lactose-free milk that she adored. Our conversation would go something like this:

Milk?

Meow.

Milk?

Meow.

Miiiiiilllllllkkk?

MeOOOOOOwwwww.

Then we'd go to my office, flip on the computer, and she would sit purring in my lap while I checked e-mail.

Over the years the three of us--Ted, Pascal, and me--would establish a dozen similar routines. Naps on the couch. Burrito night, where I would pick out bits of carne asada and feed them to her while we watched a rented movie. "The Hall Game," where I would sit at one end of our shotgun hall and rub and scritch Pascal while Ted sat at the other end, calling her and calling her until she couldn't stand it anymore and had to run down the length of the hall to see if his scritches were better. Then I would try to call her back.

My favorite game was "Attack the Poofy Slipper," a.k.a. "Foot in the Belly," depending on who instigated it. In the winter, both Ted and I wear our thick sheepskin slippers. Pascal loved to walk up to one of us, throw herself on her side, grab onto the toe of our slipper, and rip into it with her back claws. Then she would stop, look up at us, and meow a question at us to see what we would do next.

Or one of us might say "Foot in the Belly" while Pascal was sleeping or lounging in the sun, and poke her with the tip of our poofy slipper until she went on the attack. None of us ever tired of this game.

It was last fall that we began to realize something was not quite right with Pascal. She wasn't eating as much and she drank a lot of water. We would find her drinking from our water glasses or from the toilet. She was slowing down quite a bit, too. We figured she was just getting old. Rather quickly, however, she stopped eating altogether. She would only want the gravy from her food or Catsip. We had just moved to my mom's house, and took Pascal to the vet up the road, sick at heart at what he was no doubt going to tell us. She was 17, nearly 18. Old, for a cat. But it was too soon.

He told us what we didn't want to hear. That Pascal was suffering acute onset, chronic renal failure. It had come upon her fast. A month before she was attacking squirrels on the deck, running like a maniac down the hall, and chowing on her dinner like a hound dog. And now she was creeping across the room like an old woman, and all she wanted to do was to sit next to us and sleep. In just a few weeks, she had lost half her weight.

The vet left us with few choices. We could let Pascal live to her natural end, unassisted by treatment, and she would live maybe a few more weeks. Or we could try aggressive therapy, bringing her in three times a week for fluid treatments, and maybe gain two months at the most. Or we could bring her home for a few days to say our good-byes and bring her back to be euthanized. We didn't want her to suffer and we didn't want to traumatize her with all those vets trips. We brought her home.

Those were the saddest two days. It was obvious that she was not happy. She would try to drink her Catsip or eat some gravy, but quickly lost interest. She started to hide behind my mom's rocking chair, or the bathroom door. I guess she felt safer. She couldn't get comfortable in my lap, but she was able to sit on Ted's desk. When she walked across a room, she would lay down to rest every few feet.

The last night she was with us, Ted and I placed her on the bed between us, stroking her head and telling her how much we loved her. We talked about the fun times we shared. And as I scritched her little, bony chin, I found it hard to believe that I had ever disliked this cat. And I couldn't imagine what it was going to be like without her. Pascal looked up at me, blinked her kitten eyes, and reached out a tiny paw to lay against my cheek.

I can't talk about what happened the next morning at the vet; it's still too painful. All I can say is that we brought her in, we were with her at the end, she was calm and quiet, and then she was gone.

It's been four months, now. We've been telling ourselves that when we're ready, we'll start the search for another cat. A home is awfully empty without a critter in it, isn't it? But how do you know when you're ready to bring a new animal into your home? How do you know when you'll be ready to accept a new pet for all her own quirky qualities, and not see her as a replacement for the love you lost?

We've begun to visit pet adoption shows in the area. My cousin fosters animals, and is at Petsmart every weekend, so we go there. And while we've played with the cats and kittens through the wire cages, we haven't picked up any of them to snuggle yet. So maybe we're not quite ready yet, after all.

I didn't mean to work myself into this sad state this evening. But yesterday, Ted sent me a link to the Garfield Minus Garfield comic spoof and it got me to thinking how big a hole Pascal's loss has left behind. How different our daily routines are without her in them. Now, if you've made it down this far in the post, let me give you something cheerier before signing off.

Here's the idea behind Garfield Minus Garfield:

Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolor disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness and methamphetamine addiction in a quiet American suburb.

Go to Garfield Minus Garfield for More