Poor Little Boy cat is feeling a bit crook. He's been throwing up his food - charming - and of course the urge comes upon him when he's sitting inside on the carpet. Fortunately the carpet is mostly the same colour so one might scarcely notice ... indeed, until one steps in it, as one did this morning whilst stumbling about in the winter dawn, barefoot. Very nice.
It's rather concerning as L Boy is never sick like that. We've been to the vet and he now has some special Science Diet food, and nausea pills. He loves the food, I stashed the pill into it and that worked well. I should hope he would like the special food at $3.60 a can. I sure would.
His trips to the vet were usually a result of fighting, and losing, because he is far smaller than most other male cats. But he would always give it a go, never back down, having ferocious encounters that would cost me a million dollars to repair.
Throwing up was always the specialty of Betsy the Mad Tabby who has been on Science Diet for her delicate insides for some time, with good results. Not the cans at $3.60 each, I am pleased to say.
Ah, cats. They've always been part of our family. Our first cat was Larrikin. An English friend of Mom's declared he was a 'British Blue' but in fact I think he was just a cat. Then there was Little Puss, a ginger and white manic nutter that reminded Mom of the cat she and Dad had soon after they were married. That was a very intelligent and clever cat called Critter who lived with them in Texas and chased a rattlesnake out of the house one time.
In spite of the feline madness, Mom was extremely fond of Little Puss and cried the day we found her lying under the hydrangeas in the garden, after succumbing to old age.
Then there was Greta who trailed around after my sister like a puppy and peed all over my book of TS Eliot poems (you can still see the yellow stain). After Greta, my sister got her own cat, an absolutely insane, cross-eyed, and completely psychotic fluffy ball of hissing horror called Pussy Bomb.
My sister left P Bomb with Mom and Dad when she moved away. It used to follow them to the beach on their daily walks, a creeping fluffy-slipper-like thing that scurried down the sidewalk and terrorised dogs, other cats, sparrows, seagulls, shells, seaweed, and people.
And now there is Little Boy whose tail is coveted by a friend who is quite keen to have it after he passes away, and Betsy who stays outside and enters the house via the laundry window, eats her food on top of the washing machine and then reclines in the laundry basket on a custom-made bed of towels and pillows.
The things we do for our cats. That's why I'm watching Little Boy like a hawk as I write this, because if he gets sick again, well, it's back up to the vet. He has been there so many times they know his howl the minute we enter the clinic. 'Hello Little Boy,' the receptionist says, without looking up. They even wrote his name on a very fancy coloured sticker with decals of fluffy kittens and stuck it to his cage.
Now that's service.