Tag Archives: Olive the Cat

A New Pet — Sort Of

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I’ve been heartbroken since I had to say good-bye to Olive, my daughter’s cat, who I adopted after she left for college. Olive was a highlight of my quiet life in Arizona. Since we said good-bye to her in November, I’ve noticed a Bird Buddy who is wiggling into my heart.

No, I’m not getting another cat or dog. My son has asthma and allergies. I wasn’t getting rid of Olive because our son seemed okay in our new house — until his last visit. I guess a few years’ worth of cat dander added up. I won’t subject him to a new cat or dog. If I did, he’d probably skip visiting us altogether.

So here’s my new pet. Like I said, sort of. He waits for me every morning to fill the feeder. He’s first to rush in for his fill of seeds. Then I hear him sing and flit around the yard for a few hours. He comes back at the end of the day. We spend time looking at each other. I find myself imitating his tilt of the head and he tilts back at me.

My husband asked what I was going to name him. I chose Ollie but my husband thinks it’s too close to Olive. Which was the point, I might add. His idea was Kramer due to the Cardinal’s hair do. I might settle on Cosmo, which was Kramer’s first name in Seinfeld. Or, I’ll stick to Ollie. Time will tell.

We used to have a Cardinal couple who frequented the bird feeder. The females are not as colorful is how you tell them apart. This Cardinal is alone all the time. I don’t know if he was part of the couple who used to stop by. Cardinals mate for life, so I sure hope he didn’t lose his wife.

Cardinals have a beautiful song and I always know when my new sort of pet is near.

Here’s a video from my Bird Buddy AI feeder:

What do you think of the choices of names for my new bird buddy?

What frequent visitors do you have from nature to enhance your lives?

Black Friday

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A cactus in bloom last May.
A cactus in bloom last spring.

Black Friday is an interesting day for me. When I was 20 years old, home for Thanksgiving weekend, I drove from our town of Snohomish, Wash. to Bothell to hear a band play at a grange hall. I was with two high school girlfriends, Mary and Rebecca, who were sisters.

People in the band were friends. My goal was to ask one of the guys in the band to our sorority dance. It was a Tolo type of dance, where the girl asked the boy.

We parked across the street. Rebecca was stopping cars on the busy highway so we could cross. I froze in the headlights and held onto the hood of Rebecca’s parka, when a pick up truck came racing toward us.

The truck hit us both.

I bounced onto the hood, shattered the windshield and landed 35 feet on the other side. I was on the highway lying in a pool of blood with tires driving by — inches from my face.

Thank goodness for Mary, who wasn’t hit and watched it all happen. She called the ambulance and I was off to Evergreen Hospital for a few weeks. Rebecca refused to be admitted and lost a kidney later.

This is another one my memories of Thanksgiving week that isn’t so great. Our dear friend died Thanksgiving 2021. Kitty died Sunday and then I have the memory of getting hit by a truck.

But one of the unexpected outcomes of that Black Friday was gratitude. Yes, there was pain. Months of not walking. I had to come home from college for a quarter.

My priorities in life profoundly changed.

Waiting in the hospital bed for a physical therapist to show up, I realized my two strong desires. To walk again and be able to go to the bathroom. I no longer cared about losing five pounds. I didn’t care about the latest fashion. I didn’t care about grades.

Life is precious. And I appreciate every moment.

What life changing moment have you experienced where your priorities changed?

Goodbye Sweet Olive

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Olive was on top of the world, and my closet, a few days ago.

She threw up Friday and once on Saturday. Saturday she hid out under a bed. She walked from room to room to find another bed to hide under.

Olive was not interested in food or water, which according to my daughter is not a good sign.

I was grocery shopping Saturday afternoon. I decided to take Olive to the vet if she was still hiding when I got home.

But, no. She zipped by me and was walking around the house. So I decided not to.

Sunday morning she looked awful. She was lethargic and not moving.

I drove her to a 24/7 emergency vet as soon as I got dressed. They said she was very sick and couldn’t measure her blood pressure. They filled her with fluids and her blood pressure went up to 70. They wanted it in the 100s, but said it was a massive improvement. However, her blood work came back with liver and kidney failure. This must be why she was having ups and downs the past few months. A year and half ago her blood work was fine.

Did I mention how I don’t like Thanksgiving or Thanksgiving week? I wrote about it HERE.

Goodbye my precious Olive. I love you.

What’s up kitty cat?

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Olive is feeling better. I keep finding her up on top of things.

I had a few stress-filled weeks when we came home from vacation. Olive the cat was not her usual perky self. I wrote about it HERE.

For about two weeks, I monitored Olive. She’d have a good day followed by several bad ones. On her bad days, I wouldn’t see her. If I did see her for a few brief moments, she looked really scruffy and miserable.

One of my neighbors asked me how old she was, When I said 11, the neighbor suggested maybe it was time. You know what? I pushed back on that. I took Olive to the vet. I waited, watched and eventually Olive no longer hid under the bed all day. She started eating like a champ. Her other bodily functions became normal. Definitely it was NOT “time.”

Our last cat, Sherman, was 17 years old when he was attacked by a neighbor’s dog. No, he didn’t make it. Olive is an indoor cat and I expect her to have a long life.

Now, she’s leaping to the top of the closet. The shelf she’s on is six feet high! Yesterday she was up on the closet space a few feet higher than that!

I walked into the casita to see this! She’s never been a counter shopper before.

FYI, the photos on this post are taken with my iphone, not my DSLR camera.

I’m getting ready for guests this coming weekend. The Wickham Casita has been a popular place this past month. Our last guest is a world champion spear fisherman. He’s entering a competition at Lake Pleasant, which is about 30 minutes from us. He’s planning on scouting the lake several times before the event. He brought us black cod, salmon, rock fish and lobster during his last visit. I wrote about Black Cod also known as Sablefish HERE.

We enjoyed lobster over the weekend. Our houseguest free dives off the coast in Southern California for lobster.

What a treat! I had to share the lobster photos.

Lobster poached in lemon butter with steamed broccoli. Yum! Yes, our last guest is welcome to our casita anytime.

What is your most favorite food and why?

If you’ve had dogs or cats, do you get stressed if they aren’t feeling well?

Waiting for Olive

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Not a happy camper in her carrier.

I made the executive decision to take Olive to the vet yesterday morning. I was waiting to see if she’d get better. Saturday she pooped after we got home. This was good news because the cat sitter said she had not done that in several days. She ate on Sunday. More good news.

Olive has an Rx for laxative and after a few doses, she seemed back to her normal self.

And then she didn’t.

She quit eating, drinking water, peeing and pooping. She’s been lethargic hiding away under the bed in the casita. She’d sneak out to vomit white foam. I didn’t think that was a good sign, so off to the vet.

Because this is a recurring issue with Olive — whenever we go on an extended vacation — the vet treated her symptoms rather than using diagnostic tools like X-ray, Ultrasound and blood work. This happened two years ago and they did all those tests. You should have seen the bill!

Now I’m waiting to see how she reacts to treatment. Waiting and waiting. The vet filled her with fluids, plus vitamins and a pain med. She’s drowsy and I’ll just have to wait some more.

I’m having a stressful day hoping Olive feels better. If she doesn’t get better, than I promised to bring her back for diagnostics.

Do you remember the old fashioned veterinarians we used to have? In our town, one vet would treat cats, dogs, horses and cows.

What do you think of modern medicine for pets?

Grooming Olive

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Olive the cat before grooming. Look at all that fur!

Poor Olive! First we left her for four days while we visited friends in Salt Lake City. (We did have a cat sitter check up on her.) Then Monday morning, our first morning home, a mobile cat groomer arrived.

We’ve been dealing with Olive shedding hair all over the house, Olive spitting up hair balls, and looking uncared for.

Maureen the cat groomer arrived with a folding table topped with a rubber mat and a backpack full of various tools. I had confined Olive to a bathroom so I could easily find her. As soon as I opened the door, Olive shot out the door down the hall. I spent the next 10 minutes searching for her. Once I spotted Olive, I had to dive on top of her.

With Olive on the table, Maureen spent the next hour and a half with various cat brushes and combs, pulling out matted knots and Olive’s heavy undercoat. I stood at the table holding onto Olive, while telling her what a good girl she was.

This was the first time in Olive’s 11-year life that she’s been groomed. I try to brush her and she puts up with it for about 30 seconds before taking off.

I asked Maureen about shaving the cat, if that would be better than trying to brush and comb her out. Hubby wanted Olive shaved.

“That’s up to you,” Maureen answered. From her tone, I gathered shaving a cat was not something she was keen on.

“Since this is her first time being groomed, lets keep going with combing,” I said. “I think an electric razor would freak her out.”

In case you didn’t know, Olive is a scaredy cat. I had a friend’s daughter take care of her for three or four years whenever we left town. She said, “I don’t believe you have a cat.” My friend’s daughter never saw her. Except for the food being eaten and the litter box being used, there was no evidence that Olive existed.

The sheers did come out for Olive’s underside. The hair was thick, long and matted. Maureen said she’s never groomed a dog or cat that liked their hair being pulled out of their armpits or tummy.

When a large black trash bag was filled with cat hair and Olive’s polydactyl claws had been trimmed, we were done. Olive immediately leaped off the table and ran down the hall never to be seen again that day.

Olive wearing her lighter summer do.

If you have a dog or cat, do they like being groomed?

What are your thoughts about shaving a cat?

A glorious visit

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A page from my parents wedding album given to me by my aunt who visited last week. Mom and Dad were 23!

A strange thing happened during my aunt’s visit. I glanced over at the sofa and Olive the cat was sitting next to my aunt licking her fingers! Now this is a first. Olive has never let a guest touch her or vice versa. Olive does sleep with my daughter, but that doesn’t count because she was my daughter’s cat until college took my daughter away.

My aunt and I did most of the things on my list and we found ourselves very compatible. We both got hungry at the same time, wanted quiet time in the afternoons to ourselves and went to bed early to read. Having a house guest doesn’t get much better than that!

It cooled down considerably, we lit the outdoor fireplace and cooked s’mores. We hiked in the McDowell Sonoran Preserve. We went to the farmer’s market in Carefree and explored consignment stores in Cave Creek. We had some delicious lunches and dinners out, plus I cooked. We visited the Musical Instrument Museum and to my delight, they changed up a few exhibits so there were new things for me to enjoy.

You might wonder what would be exciting about visiting a museum of musical instruments.

From the MIM, here’s the Artists’s Gallery experience:

ARTIST GALLERY

Celebrate music’s most influential artists.

In every time and place, there are musicians whose art deeply touches the lives of many. MIM’s Artist Gallery highlights these personalities with ever-changing exhibits that span sound, style, and era. Through generous partnerships, MIM features historic instruments owned, played, and loved by the musicians who have created a shared soundtrack to our lives for generations.

Nearly 40 displays showcase instruments and artifacts from some of the greatest musicians in the world. See and hear instruments played by icons such as Elvis Presley®, Tito Puente, the Carter Family and Johnny Cash, Roberta Flack, Glen Campbell, Joan Baez, Maroon 5, and many others.

https://mim.org/artist-gallery/#

The exhibits not only have the artists’s grammy awards, gold records, costumes and instruments, they have a large screen that plays selections of their songs on the headsets you wear. I think my favorite was “Pretty Woman” by Roy Orbison. On display is his hand written lyrics on a yellow legal pad. So not only do you get to sing along with Roy, you get to see how he wrote it, along with a photo of him and his pretty woman. There are many other galleries from all over the world. I haven’t touched the whole of MIM yet.

Here are a few photos from my aunt’s visit:

What is your idea of a perfect house guest? What do you like to do when entertaining company?