Tag: litter box

Thirstda’s Theme Music

Disappointment is heavy in Ashlandia. A big storm was forecasted for us. It perversely excited us but then did not arrive. Perversely, people are disappointed. At least three posts on NextDoor and Facebook have people expressing their disapppointment that the storm did not come.

Well, it did a little. “I heard a thunk,” my wife says.

“Was that the rock on the front porch?” I noticed it when I came home.

She nodded. “Yes, I think the wind blew the top two rocks off the cairn. At least, I heard the thunk and locked out and saw the rocks and nothing else.”

Very circumstantial evidence. “I’ll put them back.” I must because she can’t balance them on the cairn. We don’t know why.

I’m disappointed, but not over the storm. I’d planned to weed around our hydrangea. Put it on my to-do list and everything. But she weeded. I’m happy the job is done but displeased that I wasn’t the one to do it. There are many more weeding opportunities. That’s little consolation.

Today is Thirstda, March 27 2025. Spring continues dancing with our expectations. We started out with a dispiriting cloud display. The sky was tiled dark and white. Showers fell. Now, it’s sunny and in the upper 50s F. More rain is expected. So is more sun. And warmer temperatures, along with colder temperatures.

Papi the ginger blade, commonly referenced as Butter Butt, is exhausted. Days of sunshine emboldened him to dash around like a one-year old. Now he’s sleeping like a kitten. Took up his favorite malabar chair seat in mid-morning, washed, and tucked the eyes shut.

He used the litter box for a bowel movement today. That’s unusual for him. He’s enormously fastidious about it. His scratching around was the clue. When he pees in the box, he steps in and then out. No scratching.

I told my wife about it. “This is literally the third time he’s used the litter box like that since Tucker passed,” I noted. “I think it’s because it was raining. He didn’t want to go in the rain and get his fur wet.”

The Neurons have lined up “Liar” by Three Dog Night in the morning mental music stream. Yes, this is a Trusk Regime production. Jonah Goldberg caught them in a security breach. He told them so. They spun it like he was a Democrat and a liar. Also pretended that it was nothing. No classified to see here, no sir. Then The Atlantic posted the transcripts. Hah. The leak was one thing; the attempted cover up is a mess. So, “Liar” it is.

Originally an Argent song — and you can hear their musical fingerprints all over it — Three Dog Night released their cover of “Liar” in 1971 and became another top twenty offering for the group in several nations.

Coffee has perked me up again. (Get it? Sure. You’re not slow.) Time to rock and roll. Cheers

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Thursday’s Wandering Thoughts

Received a sharpish wake-up notice this morning.

At about 6 AM, I was pulled out of a dream at Papi’s request. He needed to go back out. Papi, aka the ginger blade, likes to come in and nibble some kibble, and then go back out to see if anything has changed outside.

Letting him out, I shrugged off the dream to think about it later and nestled back under the covers. At that point, I felt and heard Tucker get off the bed. A minute later, I heard him crunching kibble.

Silence came.

Litter box scratching followed.

That’s when I came fully awake as Tucker did some business and launched a stench that exfoliated my skin.

Had to immediately empty that. The good news, I told myself, is that last year’s COVID bout didn’t seem to affect my sense of smell.

Good to find those silver linings, even if they’re in a litter box.

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Tuesday’s Wandering Thought

He watched some workers using a backhoe to move a mound of dirt. That’s just what I need to clean the kitty litter box, he thought.

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Tuesday’s Wandering Thought

With Boo’s demise, the mystery of which cat struggled with the litter box was finally decisively closed.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Not snowing. But snow in its piles and layers across lawns, trees, and just about everything but the street still dominates the mind’s intake.

Thirty degrees F. Soft grays infused with whites blanket the sky. Creamy blues enhance the edges above the snowed in evergreens and low mountains.

Today is December 29, 2021. Wednesday. Today, tomorrow, and the day after, and we’re done with 2021. Can stick it in the garage with the other years.

Sunrise crept in more like it was fog than it was sunshine at 7:39 AM. Sunset cometh at 4:47 PM. Sunset is slowly ratcheting back. Sunrise has hit a pause. More daylight is in the offering, if the clouds will let it in.

A 1972 Steely Dan song, “Dirty Work”, is floating on the morning mental music stream. Came into the stream last night as I cleaned the cats’ litter box, harvesting the potatoes. I don’t think much more needs said about that connection.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vaccine and boosts when you can. Here’s the music. There’s my coffee. It’s like a moment of Zen. Cheers

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Thoroughfloof

Thoroughfloof (floofinition) – a fastidious, meticulous, or tidy housepet.

In use: “A thoroughfloof in his litter box habits, the big tabby tom always dug a hole, did his business in the hole, and then covered the hole with his business with brisk, quick strokes.”

“The beagle was a throughfloof when it came to food, snatching up and lapping up anything dropped on the floor before two seconds passed, and licking his bowl clean at every feeding.”

 

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The Note

A timid knock interrupted our early Sunday afternoon, a noise so soft, I was confused about its source and intentions.

“Is that you making that noise?” I called out from the office.

“Someone is knocking on the front door,” my wife called back from the living room.

The front door is between the rooms. I went to see what was going on. I expected to find a child.

It was a woman. “My cat got out,” she said. She then explained where she lived, and how her cat, Bear, got out. “He’s all black. I was walking along the fence, peeking between the slats, on your backyard.” She seemed embarrassed. “I saw a black cat, along with an orange cat in your backyard. I thought it might be him.”

“I have a black cat,” I said. “So it’s probably him. I’ll check.” Yes, my black cat and my orange cat were in the backyard. I told her. “Sorry.”

She answered with comments about worry. “He means everything to me.” It’d been an hour. Bear never went out. I completely understood. Once one of our cats went missing for four days. I walked around by the hour, calling her. Strangers later would ask me if she returned, because they saw and heard me hunting for her. (She returned one night, in fine shape. We never knew what had happened.)

I got her details and Bear’s description, and told her I would watch out for Bear, and wished her luck.

After she left, I related the story to my wife.

“She should put her cat’s litter box out,” she said. My wife is a smart person. She reminded me of a story we’d read about that. Cats can smell their own litter box from over a mile away. Putting it outside the front door gives them help finding their way home.

I trotted out after the woman. Finding her up the street, I told her about the litter box trick.

“Thank you,” she said. “I’ll try it.” She continued up the street calling her cat.

The days and nights passed with cold rain and tepid sunshine. I wondered about Bear. I worried about Bear. It might not show on my blog posts, but I like animals, and cats and I share a special affinity. I thought about walking to her apartment to ask, but, while cats and I get along great, I’m not a people person.

Going out to feed the neighbor’s cat on our front porch this morning (we don’t know what’s going on with Pepper, but she practically lives on our front porch, and begs us to be fed), I found a note. It was written in purple ink.

The note said,

Hi – 

Thanks for your helpful tip.

Put litter box out.

Bear arrive home minutes later.

Ruby

I appreciate the note.

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