The Kaj

Kage Neko (Shadow Cat). What can I say about this cat? Lots, but not much of it is very nice! We have that love-hate relationship… I love to hate him and vice-versa but it’s a very loving hate relationship. My nicknames for him include spawn of satan, cartoon face and el gato feo (the ugly cat). Let’s start at the beginning when our daughter conjured this hairball. Conjured? Yes, conjured. Ray had been asking for another cat. Specifically she wanted a long-hair black boy kitty with green or yellow eyes. This year she was in the Coming of Age program at church, which is a year-long program for 7th and 8th graders where they explore their spirituality. As the finale of the program, these middle schoolers gave a testimonial about their beliefs. Ray’s specifically mentioned magic and mysticism. The following day a teeny tiny kitten appeared on our deck, a deck standing six or seven feet high with steps taller than this little kitty. It was a tiny fluffy ball of black fur with white ear hair. Ray spent the entire day on the back porch with him cradled in her lap because I refused to let it in the house. We already had a cat. She was getting ready to leave *the very next day* to spend the summer with her father. Well, Mom is a softie and eventually gave in to the cuteness. That cuteness was just a ploy. I should have known better! I tease Ryann about her conjuring her cat by calling him “cartoon face” because his face doesn’t quite fit.

Kage is a beautiful cat on the outside. He reminds me of those super models or actors who are drop-dead gorgeous, but are not very nice people. I swear he spends the day thinking of ways to annoy me and others around him. For example, we have a bird house in the middle of our back yard and this summer we have a family living there. You can see mama and papa, tiny little birds, flitting in and out all day long. Kage has taken to sleeping in the yard. He has *never* slept in the middle of the grass. Inside the house we can hear one of the parent birds scolding Kage, a constant chee-chee-chee-chee-chee-chee. I believe Kage fully knows the angst he is causing these birds and gets pleasure from their pain. Kage will position himself in a room so as to bother Ellie Mae because he knows Ellie can’t stand him and she can’t do anything about him. His favorite spot in our bedroom is lounging on our tall chest of drawers taking a bath (aka “kitty yoga”). If anything happens to be in his way, he just pushes it off. He will wait until I walk into a room to begin scratching on the couch or rug.

Shortly after we moved to our new home, we almost lost Kage or at least a part of him. This cat has to be one of the luckiest animals I’ve ever met. Ryann was spending the day with her friend and my son had a soccer tournament scheduled for the weekend. Unfortunately his team didn’t make the cut so we just happened to be home when an awful ruckus erupted outside. If you’ve ever heard a cat fight, you know the sound. Only add barking into the mix. Two dogs had attacked Kage, cornered him before he could get up a tree. As we ran outside, the dogs took off and we found Kage lying listless under a tree. Clark wrapped him in a towel and picked him up. We knew he was hurt because this is a cat who hates to be picked up. He simply lay in Clark’s lap as I drove around on an early Saturday evening, trying to find an open vet. We finally found one getting ready to close. I dropped off Clark then the boys and I went to pick up Ryann, who after losing Daisy was extremely upset. The vet stabilized Kage and recommended an overnight facility to monitor the IV and medications with instructions to bring him back in the morning. They did not think the back leg could be saved. Lots of stress and money later Kage went into surgery Monday morning to have his leg removed. The vet, a different one from the weekend on-call vet, left surgery to call Clark. He thought the leg could be saved. Clark told him that we’d love to save the leg, but we really didn’t have any more money to put into the situation. The vet said he’d do what he could at the quoted price and if later the leg needed to come off he wouldn’t charge us. Now this is a vet who cares for the animal more than the bottom line. This was his last week in the office as he was retiring at the end of the week. I am so thankful we had him in the surgery room with Kage. Fast forward to present day. Kage had one more surgery to remove the pins in his leg, but he has all four legs. When he runs that injured leg will splay out in a funky way, but he jumps and runs and gets around like any other demon cat. He is a little more cautious now and you can see his worry whenever he hears a neighbor dog barking. Perfectly understandable.

¡Hasta pronto, mis amigos!

~N

Pretty Pouty Precious Princess Mimi, Kirigirisu the Kamikaze Kitty

On a trip to Petsmart after we lost Daisy, Ray found a timid little tortoise shell kitty, which she named Mimi. This new kitten could not be any more different from Daisy. She was a shy little creature who spent most of her time sequestered away in Ryann’s bedroom. It was so bad that one day, before the other cat’s arrival and before we moved, I stood at the bottom of the stairs and could not remember this cat’s name! It was as though Mimi wanted to become invisible and succeeded! Looking back, though, you can see the bond between Ryann and Mimi. Over the years Mimi’s nickname has evolved so that now she is known as Pretty Pouty Precious Princess Mimi, Kirigirisu the Kamikaze Kitty.

How in the world did this meek creature get the nickname “Kirigirisu the Kamikaze Kitty”? In the first couple of months, before she went into seclusion, Mimi would sometimes wander into Clark’s and my bedroom in the early morning hours. She’d jump on the bed and I would wake up to her pouncing on my toes. The way Mimi attacked—all four paws held together and hopping from spot to spot—reminded me of a grasshopper. Ryann had just entered her fascination of all things Japanese so we researched the word “grasshopper” so we called Mimi “Kirigirisu.” Around this same time Mimi performed an act of daredevilry so phenomenal we are still amazed. Clark firmly believes this was Mimi’s one and only act of rash behavior and we just happened to be present when it occurred. We had one of those tall cat condos, looming over my own 5’6”, sitting next to the low-back couch, a 40+year old pullout couch that Clark slept on as a child when he visited his grandparents. One day this tiny timid feline climbed up to the very top of this structure and launched herself down onto the back of the neighboring couch. With her tortie fur and all four paws spread out, she really resembled a flying squirrel and I swear she meowed, “Banzai!” as she fell.

Gone are these carefree reckless days. Now Mimi is a mature regal creature. Over the last few years, since the arrival of our other cat, she has changed very much. On retrospect, I wonder if she was depressed as an only kitty in a two-dog house. Before Kage’s arrival, Mimi was, as I mentioned, a recluse, but she was also extremely fat, so fat you could hear her moving around in Ryann’s room and on those rare occasions she ventured down the stairs. I do not remember exactly when she lost the weight, but today she is a slender shadow of her previous rotund self, with quite the skin flap that wobbles then she trots!

When Kage arrived, Mimi started emerging from Ray’s room more and more often. She even started nosing at the back door if we left it cracked. Over the last year in our previous house, Mimi got braver and braver. She’d sniff the open door for several minutes then put a single paw out for a heartbeat before running away and back upstairs. Eventually she got all the way out the door only to rush back inside. By the time we moved, she was spending several minutes hunched just outside the back door, as long as the door remained open and none of us inside moved.

Once we moved, Mimi started immediately spending more time outside. She was and still is a very timid kitty. Loud noises and sometimes even no noise startle her and she darts into hiding. Thunderstorms scare her and, even though we have a tiny house, she has hidey holes where we can’t find her. One time, shortly after our move, Mimi was outside when a thunderstorm hit and we weren’t home. The following morning we realized we hadn’t seen the Kirigirisu for a long time. Ryann and Clark went outside to call and call for her while I searched the inside. After quite a while they heard a weak little mew and finally located Mimi cowering in the crawl space under the house. She was in the farthest corner and refused to budge. Finally I opened a can of tuna fish and Ryann, who HATES this cramped bug-ridden crawlspace, went in a little ways. It took almost an hour, but Mimi finally was coaxed out. Hooray for tuna!

This summer, with the kids gone, Mimi has been spending more time with me than ever before. I spend time every day in the bedroom writing at my desk (a beautiful built-in made by my wonderful hubby when I went back to school). Within 2-3 minutes of sitting down and turning on the desk lamp, Mimi jumps up and demands a few minutes of petting before she settles down under the lamplight. If I remain in bed too long, she will also jump up and walk across my body with her tiny little painful paws (think about a woman’s stiletto heels!). Then she’ll get right up in my face with her whiskers tickling my nose. It works better than the alarm!


¡Hasta pronto, mis amigos!

~N

You're a Good Dog, Lucky Pup!

When Kyle was six-years old we added Lucky to our family and this dog’s lovable goofy personality reflects a six-year old’s personality. His full AKC name is Lucky Rascal Thunder Goober because Kyle fretted over picking the right name. Lucky, Rascal and Thunder were the three choices. Goober was added after Lucky had demonstrated his gooberiness. He is after all a chocolate-covered nut!

When we arrived to the country house to pick out our newest family member, there were only two pups left. The couple who owned the house also owned the mama dog. She was a big yellow lab, a little older for a first litter. Turns out they had bred her to their son-in-law’s chocolate lab in order to get another yellow lab female. This litter was large… eight puppies… all male… all chocolate. Best laid plans and all!

Kyle picked Lucky because he was the runt. He was 12-weeks old and still had that yummy puppy smell, eyes still blue but getting ready to turn and big tummy. Turns out the big tummy was from worms and he also had tons of fleas. These people had a shed out back where the puppies lived and I don’t believe Lucky had ever been inside until we brought him home. He definitely had never climbed stairs and we lived in a 2-story house at the time. The poor thing could not get his back legs to coordinate with the front legs. We still have a good laugh at that memory!

Lucky also has his own theme song. We sing “Lucky Pup Tennessee” set to the tune of Rocky Top, which is the UT Vols theme song. I worry I may have crossed a line with that song. I’m not a native to TN and these people take their orange seriously in this state.

One of the best things about having a chocolate lab with the personality of a six-year old is that he is always happy. His tail is always wagging unless he is sitting on it or sleeping. To be kind let’s just say he doesn’t have a full bag of kibbles. For years Clark used his Gomer Pyle voice to vocalize Lucky. The running joke is that Lucky has two brain cells; one of those brain cells is powered by his tail and if you stop his tail you cut his intelligence in half!

We kennel our dogs and Lucky loves his kennel. When we moved to our new house we had trouble finding a place to set up the kennels for both dogs, so we made the decision to put away the kennels and just lock the dogs up in the boys' room. Lucky was lost. There were times when he would worm into the closet or under chairs to get that cave feel. So last year, Clark built a platform bed for Kyle's bed and put a kennel sized cave under it. Lucky is happy, except for when Ellie Mae steals the cave. She's such a bully!


Lucky has never met a person he didn’t immediately love. The whole world is his best friend, but his boy is his bestest best friend. With the kids gone in the summertime, Lucky mopes around the house, as though he realizes the passing of time and his boy has been gone a little longer than a couple of hours. Whenever Lucky spies a boy, he perks up and his tail goes crazy, but then droops a little when it’s not *HIS* boy. I know exactly how he feels. We’re both anxiously waiting next Wednesday when the kids return and Lucky is reunited with his boy.

¡Hasta pronto, mis amigos!

~N