Dogs and Cats living together · 27 January, 04:19 PM
Archibald and Pangur Ban are friends! Pangur Ban likes to attack and chew on Archibald. Archibald has pretty much learned to tolerate it.
— MoJo
New Kitty! · 16 January, 01:12 AM
After the devastating loss of Bainne, we’ve been worried that Adeen might be lonely. She has definitely enjoyed not having to compete with another cat for territory or attention, but she has wanted an awful lot of attention from us, and has even been getting extra-friendly with the dog. So we decided to get a friend for Adeen.
We kept an eye out at animal shelters and rescues for another flame-point Siamese, and were very lucky to find a 5-month-old male flame-point mix at the Seattle Humane Society (where we also got Archibald). We found out what day he was arriving at the shelter, and we were the first people at the door when they opened on Monday to make sure we got him. And boy were we lucky!
We are now the proud owners of Pangur Bán (his name comes from a poem written by an 8th-century Irish monk ). Like all kittens, he’s super playful and active. He’s also really friendly – the instant we walk into his room, he starts purring. He likes to be held and brushed and petted. He also likes to rub his face all over our faces. He’s been through the wringer in his scant 5 months – he’s had ear mites and fleas and eye infections and acne on his chin, but he seems healthy and happy now. It looks like he’s going to grow up to be a Big Kitty.
Adeen hasn’t officially met him yet – we’re waiting until she’s a little more comfortable with the whole situation. Pangur Bán and Archibald are already great friends, though. Archibald spends most of the day sitting with his nose pressed to Pangur Bán’s door (we have him sequestered in the library for now (fitting for a scholarly cat)), and when he comes in, Pangur Bán rubs all over Archibald’s legs, and is totally fearless about swatting at Archibald.
— MoJo
MoJo's "traditional" Christmas Hike · 25 December, 11:21 PM
We have always claimed that it is our tradition to go on a hike by ourselves on Christmas Day. It’s a wonderful tradition, but one that has a way of not quite happening. The first few years we were together, when we lived in Oberlin, we went for hikes in a wonderful forest not far from town, and every year a dog from one of the neighboring houses would join us. It was fun borrowing a dog for the day, and make the hike much more enjoyable.
In New York, the stress of renting a car and getting in and out of the city was always more than we wanted to handle on Christmas, so we usually just wandered around Central Park, which was eerily, blissfully empty on Christmas Day. Except for our last Christmas in NYC, which we spent in the hospital because Morgan broke her jaw.
Last year, our Christmas hike was scaled down because we had a ton of snow and Seattle’s roads were impassable, even with good 4-wheel drive. We walked around Green Lake instead.
So this year, we were really determined to have a proper Christmas hike. We were going to go up into the mountains and find some snow.
And then we had to deal with Bainne’s illness and death. We had her put to sleep around midnight on Christmas Eve, in the magical first hour of Christmas night when legend has it animals can speak. She seemed ready to go, although we weren’t ready to say goodbye. This morning, instead of going for a hike, we buried her in our back yard. She has a nice spot in the sun.
We did have time for a short hike nearby, at our favorite Anti-Aircraft Peak. It was late afternoon, and the sun was bright and the air crisp and cool. Archibald was so excited to be at Anti-Aircraft Peak – we haven’t been there in a while. He had a blast running up and down the trails. It reminded us of our first Christmas hikes with our borrowed dog in Oberlin – at the time, we looked forward to the day when we would have our own dog on our Christmas hike, so it was fun to watch Archibald fulfill that dream today. And it was hard to be too sad about Bainne while watching his unbridled enthusiasm. So it might have been less of a hike than we had hoped, but it ultimately fulfilled some of our past dreams, and gave us an opportunity to begin to recover from our grief.
Unbridled Optimism Dog:
A beautiful day for a hike
If somewhat rather coldish (but really, not too bad)
— MoJo
Farewell to Bainne · 24 December, 11:36 PM
Bainne is one of the most special, and by far the most unique cat we have ever had the privilege of knowing. She is currently sitting in Jonathan’s lap, purring a rusty creaky purr that demonstrates just how far she has degenerated in the past week. Last week, quite out of the blue, she suffered major kidney failure. She’s only 8 or 9, so this has come as quite a shock. She has heroically endured a week of visits to the vet and even a two-day stay in a hospital. She charmed everyone at the hospital: they all commented on how sweet she is, how much she purrs, and how much personality she shows.
This cranky purr we are listening to right now might be her last, so it seems a good time to reflect on what makes her such a special cat. We got her just over 5 years ago, and they have been a delightful 5 years. The first few months we had her, we really weren’t sure she was going to work out. She didn’t seem to know how to interact with humans: she didn’t meow, didn’t purr, didn’t want us to pet her… but she gradually came around, and within a year had turned into one of the most affectionate cats I’ve ever known. She would come when we called her, even though she seemed to know that it was against the Rules of Cat. She became a constant purrer. We would walk into a room and find her just sitting in the middle of the room purring: she was so content with her life that she didn’t need any particular reason to purr. She would climb in bed with us at night and keep us awake with her purring. She liked to sleep under the covers with us in cold weather, purring at the top of her lungs. Sometimes she purred so hard she choked and coughed. And then would start purring right away again.
Bainne is a magnet for accidents. If anything happens to fall down, or if anyone drops anything, Bainne will no doubt be underneath it. Her little world is full of arbitrarily falling things. She often plans a big jump onto the windowsill or the couch, and then misses and ends up on the floor, looking a little confused. To salvage her dignity, she usually goes and gets in a box. In fact, she often plans not to jump at all, but prefers to claw her way up, if possible. She often woke us up at night by clawing her way into our bed (and then kept us up with her purring). Despite her tendency to clumsy failures, Bainne is always determined. If she has decided she is going to walk somewhere (across Jonathan’s pillow, for instance) nothing can stop her from walking there (even half-asleep Jonathan shoving her off the pillow). No alternate route to her destination will do. Bainne is an expert at walking across a surface and knocking off everything on that surface. She always made it look accidental (we weren’t fooled).
Bainne makes lots of funny noises. She never really mastered the fine art of meowing. When she opens her mouth, a high-pitched squeaky “Myah!” emerges, or sometimes nothing at all. When she chases a toy, especially the laser, she whirrs – a ridiculous combination between a hum and a purr.
Bainne is a sucker for toys. The instant a cat toy hits the floor, she’s there, ready to play with it. When she sits in her cardboard fort (one of her favorite places to be), we can spend hours putting a cork on the edge of the fort so that she can instantly knock it off. She never tires of that game. She loves paper on the floor, and loves getting in boxes.
She likes to burrow. Any time you want to sit on a blanket on the couch, it is wise to make sure she isn’t under the blanket first. Once we were convinced she had gotten out of the house: we couldn’t find her anywhere. We looked and looked, and then in a panic we went outside calling for her, convinced that she was lost and far away. Finally, we noticed that one of the lumps in the bed was slightly lumpier than the other lumps: yep, it was Bainne, safe and sound the whole time.
A lot of what makes Bainne so special is that she’s not really a cat. After all, she comes when called, she plays with toys that we buy for her (cats are supposed to disdain purchases made on their behalf!), she doesn’t understand how to eat canned food or drink milk, and she doesn’t have much dignity. She manages to do a pretty good job of pretending she’s a cat most of the time.
We have so many fond memories of Bainne’s ridiculousness – we can’t record all of them here. We are sad beyond words that Bainne’s time with us has been so short, but feel so lucky that we have gotten to live with one of the most unique cats the world has ever seen. We don’t know how much longer she’s going to last, but at this point it’s just a matter of days, if not hours. There will never be another cat like Bainne.
— MoJo
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Pumpkin Carving time again! · 31 October, 08:24 PM
We had some people over for pumpkin carving again this year!
It was lots of fun and we had some good pumpkins come out :-)
— MoJo
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