Mary, queen of cats

Thank you to all of you for your wonderful comments It is hugely encouraging!

Typical of Mary Mary Quite Contrary, she is dealing with winter in a strange way. She loved being outside when it is wet and cold, but when it is dry and cold, she comes inside. This does not make for a pleasant experience for us. As mentioned before, wet cold cat is not all that charming, especially when she tries to snuggle up next to you at night when you are sleeping. I am starting to wonder whether that is not the reason she likes being outside when it rains: so she can come in and take revenge by plonking her cold wet body next to our warm dry bodies!

She is currently the most amazing shades of grey. Her down has grown in full force and is a light silver white in colour. And it is incredibly soft!

Today is a lovely day outside (in cat terms) – the sun is out and the day is crisp and clear. Kitten (who is a boy kitty) is outside and so is Mary. Mary was rolling around on her back, performing for the kitten – it was too cute to see! I ran back inside to fetch the camera, but by the time I came out, Mary was quite relaxed, while Kitten was rolling around in a frenzy trying to outdo Mary’s rolling spectacle.

Mary with Kitten in the background (by the car’s front tyre), just after her rolling performance. If you look carefully, you can see the bald patch on Mary’s cheek (on the right as you look at the picture).

Kitten performing for Mary

I have taken a week’s leave this coming week and I have set aside a day or two to spend just with Mary, and I honestly and truly cannot wait. I miss her company so much when I go to work. I like the people I work with, make no mistake, but I prefer the company of my partner and Mary, who both love me flaws and all.

Kitten and Mary

Late last night, Mary came in with the left side of her face full of blood (there was even blood on the door and all over the floor). We did not immediately notice – she jumped on the bed, refusing to look at us when we spoke to her, and the side with the blood was turned away from us. I don’t know how stupid she thinks we are, but we immediately figured she was trying to hide something. Upon closer inspection, my partner found the left side of her face wet and when he looked at his fingers, it was blood. We cleaned it up and found a deep red hole about 2mm in diameter, just behind her whiskers. Our minds raced in all directions and our imaginations ran wild. From running in to something, to a snake bite, to a cat fight, to pellets guns crossed our mind. We cleaned the wound as best we could (and kept her inside for the rest of the night) but we would have to take her to the vet the next day to make sure everything was okay. Even though the puncture wound was too small for stitches, it was deep enough to form an ugly abscess if left untreated.

So today after work it was off to the vet. Mary usually behaves like an angel when she visits the vet. She is any vet’s dream patient.
The only way the vet could see the puncture wound was to shave the area. *Pwhaaaaa* Mary was not happy and both my partner and I and the vet had to hold her down. I have not seen Mary that pissed off in a long, long time (if ever). Because she struggled so violently, her whiskers were shaven off as well. We had a bald patch, half whiskered, fat faced, sulking, angry kitty on our hands and we could not help but laugh!

The wound, the bald patch and the short whiskers

The good news is no one tried to shoot her with a pellet gun, no snake tried to make a meal of her – with the fur shaven one could clearly see a scratch leading from/to the puncture wound: a cat claw. Mary got an antibiotic injection and the wound should heal nicely.

Back from the vet, straight to her brown paper bag

I don’t know how many times we have taken Mary to the vet for one thing or the other. I am sure if we had to add it all up, we could have amassed a small fortune. But there is simply no price on Mary’s health and well being. I said to my partner last night – I am so incredibly, incredibly happy to know we can afford to take her to the vet when she needs to go. We don’t have to worry about how we are going to pay or trying to treat her ailments ourselves because we can’t afford to get her proper care. We are tremendously blessed in that regard. He was of the opinion that even if we could not afford to go to the vet, we would still be able to get her care at places like the PDSA (People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals) or PUPP (Project for the Upliftment of Pets and People) or one of the clinics serving communities in need ( such as Mdzananda in Khayelitsha). Not that I never appreciated what these places do, but it kind of brought home how unbelievably important the work is they do. If we had no money for vet care and there were no PDSA or PUPP, Mary (and we) would have absolutely no choice. That scares me. As my vet said to me tonight: there is not (comparatively) that much cruelty going on in South Africa, but there is a lot of neglect. And in my opinion, neglect often stems from a lack of available resources. Simply because a person is poor, does not mean they are incapable of loving animals as much as we who are not poor.

There are heaps of organisations out there doing good for and by animals. But please – make a special effort to give your support to the clinics who give vet care to animals who would otherwise have no help at all.

Things have been quiet and kind of weird with Mary this past week. Kitten has had quite an influence on home dynamics. For most of this past week, Mary has ignored us. We would get home, she would eat and go outside. She barely tolerated our attention, and we suspected that she had found another home to sleep in (she came in from outside in the morning to eat, after having been out the whole night, and her ears would be warmish. Had she been outside, her ears would have been ice cold).

Then towards the end of the week, she became VERY VERY friendly towards us again. She even fell back in to her old routine of sleeping with us during the night before going out and coming back inside.

Yesterday morning, my partner noticed Kitten through our bedroom window, playing with another cat. This would explain Mary’s behaviour: seems she has fallen out of favour with Kitten and Kitten found a new buddy. Thus we became Mary’s fall back buddies.

Kitten and the new buddy

Right now she really could not be bothered with Kitten or with us. It is Sunday, the sun is shining and she is doing what she loves second best: sleeping in the Sunday afternoon winter sun!

Sunday afternoon: The Queen dozing on her Throne