juushika: Drawing of a sleeping orange cat (I should have been born a cat)


I just got back from a week visiting Devon in Corvallis, and the return journey was lovely. Mist over the fields and river out the train window; dense fog as we reached Portland, with the city and its bridges shadows in the gray. The 6am train trips in autumn are consistently my favorite of all things: the clear dark cold at the train station, the slow sunrises, the mist and the changing leaves.

August was ridiculously clingy when I was preparing to leave (she even followed me and my luggage downstairs to hang out by the door and look concerned) and she's been inseparable since I got back, because she loves me and also because it's autumn and she wants to sit on me and be warm. I held her on my tummy and sang Can't Take My Eyes Off You to her, my wonder keeping the stars apart.

It was a fantastic trip, and I appreciate the reminder that I have those—and that last month's misery visit was a birthday-related anomaly rather than a trend. I timed my visit for the Fall Festival; I accidentally slept through most of Saturday, but we stopped by on Sunday. It was too sunny and I am pale and pathetic, so we made but a brief circuit. My favorite of what I saw was Fantasy Figurative Art dolls by MARCA—I like my art dolls creepy/cute rather than Froud-esque, but there were blue goblin children and humaniod bird monsters and of that I approve. We also went to the library's book sale, and by the time we got there they had entered the $5/bag "please, take them away" final phase; slim pickings but a joy to comb through, in no small part because it was indoors this time. I picked up paperback copies of books I own in hardback (hardback is a pain to read, and I'm a big rereader), some new-to-me books by authors I'm familiar with, and a few random picks—because at a flat rate, mistakes are free.



The Cherryh I picked up on another night out. After dinner and dark, we got Starbucks and walked across to the Book Bin—bless their late hours. The checkers were looking at pictures of baby goats, there were no other customers, and because I'd already made a book run I wasn't working off my to-buy list: the laid-back book browsing I've always wanted. Having credit there allows me to make impulse purchases without stress.

One final highlight: a moment when Devon and I both walked down the hallway and Gigi the puppy, the best baby dog with the most love, came in from the kitchen, saw us both, and barreled past Devon to get to me because Dev is everyday and known and boring where I am Important Dog Auntie, and also the only one that will hold her paws.

I didn't see my family and other than the Fall Festival had no to-do list, which I think contributed to the successful visit; it was the private, quiet time that we needed.
juushika: Screen capture of the Farplane from Final Fantasy X: a surreal landscape of waterfalls and flowers. (Anime/Game)
A week ago: While sitting up in bed, I threw out my upper back. How? with magic? a perverse force of will?? My trapezius on both sides were just gone, goodbye; everything hurt, but the worst offenders were sleep and the computer. I have a huge pain tolerance and endless experience with back pain, but it resisted every one of my treatments. (In retrospect, I should have iced it—the one thing I never do for my lower back, because it causes cramping.) What is it about a different pain that's somehow worse than chronic pain, not so much because it is worse or even more debilitating, but because these carefully honed coping mechanisms are now inapplicable. I've been dealing with my lower back for 15 years; I should either be exempt from other pain, or equipped to deal with anything. I was not. It went about 4 days without improvement, but is now back to normal anxious-person's-muscles level of ow.

A few days ago: Dee's mother's dog, Casey, died suddenly. Cut for brief discussion of pet death: Read more... ) This is not my immediate pain, but I still care immensely. All dogs are good dogs, but he was such a good dog, surfeit with love, content if he could just lean on you or lay against you and be touched. And so obedient, especially when I knew him and his puppyhood awful (of which I've heard horror stories!) was gone. And so engaged with his people. The loss hasn't quite registered for me, yet; but I've never been so glad that I had Thanksgiving with him and Odi. This was Casey: one, two, three, four.

Last night: Dreamed the mother of all anxiety dreams: I was back in school, living simultaneously-via-dream-logic at Devon's parents's house and in a boarding environment, and became convinced that the environment was so unhealthy and I was so stressed that I shouldn't have pets anymore, so I drowned August by luring her into a swiftly-flowing river with treats. Cut for suicidal ideation: Read more... ) I know what factors underlay all aspects of this dream; it was still singularly awful.

Tomorrow: Taking the train down to see Devon, to celebrate our 13th anniversary. (See: dreaming about his parents's house.) This is absolutely a good thing! It also bring with it "I have to leave the house" anxiety and "why do I have to travel to see him after thirteen years?" anxiety. It has been a long and strange week, an unearthly haze of blurred vision and intense pain and abstracted loss and anxiety. It will be good to make a clean break with it by traveling.
juushika: Drawing of a sleeping orange cat (Default)
They're burying Devon's family's cat Dude today; he died a couple of days ago. This was Dude. I've known him nearly as long as I've known Devon, and to call him a great cat is a vast understatement. Dude was a magnificent mancat, proactively affectionate, solid-hearted, bold as brass, demanding, with a hiccuping purr. A cat like that is a certainty: he knows what he wants, he knows his territory and he protect it, he knows his people and he demands affection from them. He was aging poorly—problems eating, weight loss, arthritis—and we could see his death on the horizon. Devon says he had a slow day and then died that evening, probably of heart failure.

I am incensed.

Dude was outdoors his entire life. He was neutered when he was already a few years old—which is why he looked and acted so masculine, which were endearing traits and I loved them, but. They didn't keep a clean litterbox for him, and kicked him out of the house when he defecated inside. He was on cheap food pretty much his entire life.

Keep your fucking cats indoors, guys. They live longer. They don't make more cats. Feed them good food. Give them a place to shit in peace. This is what we owe them, and we should be glad to pay up, because a cat like Dude is a motherfucking miracle on your armchair. He loves you; don't respond to that in halves. He would have been impossible to make indoors-only, but that's only because he was allowed to be outdoors for so long. There's this view that indoor/outdoor cats is something like veg*nism, a well-intended but personal lifestyle choice, a to-each-his-own, and it is not. It is how you protect the creature you promised to protect, end of story. They killed Madison when they started letting her go outside. Dude was an old man and he had a great life, but I watched Spike in his old years—he was older, he was actually sick, but he had a proactive caretaker and he lived years longer in much better health and oodles of comfort. I've watched Mamakitty, who was outdoors for years, adjust to the safety and comfort of being indoors so completely that we know she misses nothing and is grateful for everything, she is overflowing with love and learned safety: I can be here, I can be touched like this, nothing will hurt me.

I realize that my anger is also an outlet for sadness. I've seen his death coming and had plenty of times to say goodbye, so I'm doing okay—except that this piles on top of all the other shit that's been happening in truly unfortunate ways. But the anger is still justified. Keep your cats indoors. They deserve it.
juushika: Drawing of a sleeping orange cat (I should have been born a cat)
Following a seizure or heart attack or similar cataclysmic event that left him physically impaired, Dee had Spike euthanized on March 23rd. He was two months shy of 19 years old. More. )

Mamakitty reached her two month quarantine mark, had negative results on her second round of viral tests, and has joined the household! It only took about one day of supervised cat socialization before I felt comfortable letting everyone have free access to the entire house and each other. Mama is settling in beautifully. The only roadbumps are ones I expected: when Gillian is annoyed or feisty, he tries to take it out by chasing other cats; Mama is a little skittish and uncertain around Gillian and August, and remains easily startled by sudden sound or movement.

But while there is no cat cuddling, neither have there been scuffles; at most, there's bit of hissing. Mama has learned to get excited for foodtime (sometimes she even meows!); she eats and sleeps in Dee's room. She's turned out to be surprisingly playful—perhaps because play is still so novel, she's even more active than Gillian. She's sweet and cuddly, and learning that she doesn't need to jump off the windowsill or bed and go hide whenever someone enters the room. In short, she's learning to enjoy the freedom of the house and growing comfortable with it, and us, and the other cats—and what it means to be an indoor cat who has safe places and soft warm places and people who have love and toys and treats. She is still timidly exploring downstairs, and still adjusting, but both Dee and I are delighted to see how well she's doing. She retains the markers of a cat that was outdoors and unsafe for many years, but this is a good home for her and we all know it.

I've been feeling a little strange, lately; I'm not sure if it's back pain or depression, or both or neither, or just a minor strangeness I'm wallowing in, but I've mostly just been staying in and playing too much TERA and reading a lot. I don't feel awful about it. If I disappear from the universe for a few days it's not the end of the world (and not really that different from any other day).
juushika: Drawing of a sleeping orange cat (I should have been born a cat)
There was a brief heatwave here in the Pacific Northwest—we had a day each of 104, then 94, then 84 degrees. Last night I slept like shit (normal pain and nightmare* shit as opposed to "it's one in the morning why is it 90 degrees in the house" shit), woke at 3a. The room was deep and cold; I used my hotpad and watched Dark Shadows 214, the episode where Victoria encounters Barnabas in the Old House and he tells her about its building, its imported chandler and handpicked wallpaper and how so well built a house will last forever—and, as such, forever carry the memories of the evil that happened within. At its best, Dark Shadows is delightful: pulpy and compulsively watchable on account of its genre and episode length, but steeped in gothic, both its bombast and it's emotional resonance—and what's more gothic than a decrepit, beautiful, remarkable New England house? (Well one in England-England, I suppose.)

I guess what I'm saying is can it be autumn now please.

No—but the break in the weather is a blessing. At the dog park this afternoon it was overcast and then a cool breeze came through; so overcast I could go in short sleeves, so cool it raised goosebumps on my arms. We never thought, when we started taking Odi to the dog park, that we would get to know these dogs and sometimes their people so well. There's a cast of regulars that we see almost every time we go, and it forms a safe bubble of dogs we know and people we trust, so we don't have to watch Odi with such an eagle eye and we can give other dogs basic commands. Neither did I imagine that I would have the opportunity to know so many dogs so well—and there are fewer pleasures that compare to throwing a ball for a really enthusiastic dog, or having someone else's dog come up to you to say "love me and touch me all over and make me think you might let me go home with you."

But I'm writing this because I'm feeling a bit ... emotional, and emotionally conflicted, I suppose. I've had one eye on the Readercon controversy, which dredged up a few days of "everyone sucks and sexism is everywhere and fuck the world" about the time that Woof died so really, fuck the whole and entire world; and then in a single day Readercon resolved that controversy with aplomb and Britain won some awesome gold medals in the Olympics and Curiosity landed, and people weren't shit, they were beautiful and they did good and awesome things. But this afternoon and evening I was thinking back over my experiences in therapy (for reasons), which I didn't notice until a few hours in was hugely triggering because wow, who'da thunk that thinking about the time I was ill enough to be in therapy could possibly be upsetting. Meanwhile it was hot and I was miserable, and then Dee and I spent a day in St. Johns to avoid much of the heat and we did Starbucks and book browsing and dinner and it was fantastic, and then the heat broke and the natural world was both tolerable and occasionally beautiful. It's all a bit of an emotional roller-coaster, a small and creaky one and not the high-tech wonder of the themepark, but still enough to make me nauseous.

I know that I will never be completely mentally well, and yet I always feel a little surprised when a bit of mental ick slaps me upside the head. This isn't even a major brainmeats malfunction—I'm pretty much coming out of my major depressive episode, fingers crossed and knock on wood. It's just ... me: sensitive and melancholy, and therefore too emotional receptive or at least thirsty for the opposite, and strangely confused by the whole thing. It's been years and years of this, dear me; it's been pretty much all of a lifetime: these feelings shouldn't come as a surprise. But they do.

At this point, for what it's worth, I'm doing okay with Woof's death. I took a few days off of going to the dog park because the thought was too painful, but on the whole this is a low-impact death, which is to say that it's not sudden and it was clearly her time. I'm moving on; now, the dogs at the dog park are a joy. We'll see if I feel the same whenever I make it back to Corvallis, but. Yeah. Today I threw balls for a Miniature Pincher and snuggled Alfie, this little Chihuahua (uh ... mix? I'm unsure) who isn't trying to be a big dog, he is a big dog in a little body. Love is always a dog.

* Conscripted into an largescale assassination squad—by which I mean: tactical nuclear devices. The real irony is that murdering hundreds and thousands of people, and the mental stress of being put in a situation where I was expected to do so, made for a distinctly unpleasant but not unbearable dream, whereas going back to school is pretty much my nightmare of nightmares.
juushika: Screen capture of the Farplane from Final Fantasy X: a surreal landscape of waterfalls and flowers. (Anime/Game)
Woof, Devon's family's dog, died in the night. I am getting very tired of writing death announcement posts. Her health has been failing slowly for some time, and rapidly for the last few months, so this does not come as a surprise; a few months back I went to Corvallis expressly to see her after what was probably a stroke, and I've been back once more since then, so I have had a chance to see and celebrate her, and this doesn't hit me as hard as it would otherwise. She lost her ability to move late last night, and developed breathing problems; they took her to a vet, and she pretty much laid down, fell asleep, and died. The question of euthanasia had been on the table for a while, but she was vivacious enough for some mild play until yesterday (her favorite toy was cardboard tubes), but she'd still been living with limited mobility, severe pain, and a detached retina in these last few months; this was just her time, and it sounds as peaceful as it could have been. As such, I think everyone's doing okay in the wake of it. The possible exception is that Doug, Devon's father, has been out of town on business for some time; this was essentially his dog.

I've known Woof for nearly as long as I've known Devon. She was a problematic beast, with intense attachment issues and a number of health problems (white dogs, you guys: they have it hard), and she loved with a trembling depth, and she adopted my guinea pigs and never forgot them. When I had them there and would put them outside under the top of a wire cage, she'd spend the entire time running circles around them and trying to paw off the cage cover so that she could lick them; one time she did manage to set them free, and then it was she who found them, leading me to each pig where he was huddled in the bushes around the property, so that I could scoop him up and put him away and we could find the next.

Love is a dog. (Yes, even the stupid one who is downstairs howling out the sadness of his soul because he's in the crate for half an hour while Dee weedwacks the back yard.) I'll miss her.
juushika: Screen capture of the Farplane from Final Fantasy X: a surreal landscape of waterfalls and flowers. (Anime/Game)
On a lighter note, Dee's family was in town about a billion years ago (or a few weeks). They brought Casey (Dee's mom's black lab mix) and spent the night before heading out for a family camping trip.

Which means dog pictures, of course. I took these while they were out for a bit and it was just Casey and I keeping the house.

Casey waiting for people to get back
Don't tell them, but he spent the whole time waiting for them to get back.

+2 more Casey pics. )

The end.
juushika: Screen capture of the Farplane from Final Fantasy X: a surreal landscape of waterfalls and flowers. (Anime/Game)
Be warned that if I ever have the occasion to housesit and watch your cats (or other pets—I don't discriminate, much) for a few days, I will spend most of those days with a camera by my side.

Spike, lord of his domain
For the last few days I've been watching Spike, who would like to know why.

Spike spam: +5 pictures. )

He'll be thrilled to see his person when she gets back tomorrow, though, I've no doubt of that.

I bring you also bonus August. When I washed bedding before Devon got here, I wanted to wash her microfleece blanket—but the rest of the bed was naked and she was (as usual) curled up on said blanket at the time. So like the sap I am, I went downstairs, got the other microfleece blanket, brought it up, laid it out on the bed, and carefully lifted my cuddly cat from one comfy blanket to the next.

August, on a temporary microfleece blanket
And she stayed there for hours, and adopted it for the weekend.

Having two blankets upstairs also meant that my boyfriend and my cat didn't have to fight for bedding every night. But the second blanket is back downstairs now because so help me, not even my cat needs two.
juushika: Drawing of a sleeping orange cat (I should have been born a cat)
The best time to use the litter box is always immediately after it has been cleaned, and the best way to get into a closed room is to scratch at the door for a while and then grow very quiet as if you have finally given up and wandered away, except you must instead sit at the very edge of the door so that the moment it swings open you can dart inside and under the bed and hide there until bribed out with the kibble you came to try to steal.

At least when Spike tries to make a break for freedom he's slow enough that I can just put a hand on his forehead and let him push against me like stubbornness will somehow win. (Newsflash, buddy: it won't, unless it's mine.)

It's cool enough this morning to justify opening the blinds so that the cats can sunbathe, and opening the windows to invite in the best of the cool breezes before they go away. It's supposed to get warm today, and be warmer still by this weekend. But today August and I lay on her blanket in the sun, and she pressed her back to my tummy and let me hold her and think about cats lost and cats here, in all their ridiculous and troublesome and beautiful glory, and how blessed I've been to know them all.
juushika: Photograph of the torso and legs of a feminine figure with a teddy bear (Bear)
We're on day two of fantastic weather—gray skies and cool days and the occasional chance of rain—and after almost a week of heat (some of that without the even saving grace of a breeze) it's a blessing but also hard to believe. Part of me is suddenly gearing up for autumn—and not just mentally, but with a physical instinct towards soft warm fabric and an ache that begins in my heart. Part of me is unwilling to engage with or even appreciate the thick billowing clouds, because I know that there's more heat and blinding sun to come, and it'll feel even worse if I've adapted back to the cool.

I don't even know if it's weather you come to love. Myself, it seems bred into my bones, and the cool and wet and clean is where I'm meant to be, and the first hint of autumn is a homecoming. It revitalizes me. When the heatwave resumes I'll be crushed, so help me. But this autumn will be miraculous.

Anyway. Today I woke (the second time—both Devon and I have been sleeping poorly, and I was also up between 3a and 9a, but then managed to sleep until noon) being able to see a little more than just a line of type on a blank page—which is to say that when I pause for two minutes and remember that Madison is dead, it doesn't just trigger a sense of incomprehension; it triggers instead the beginning of comprehension, which is to say grief. It's not entirely unwelcome. That something, even if it's pain, is less frightening than the void of nothing—and this weather indulges gray melancholy with gray skies. It's exhausting, though. Today Dee and I went out on a distracting shopping trip, and I used up what bit of energy I had there. Then we went out to comfort food (the restaurant was warm against the cool of the day) and across the street for coffee. It's silly, but the warm cup in my hands almost made me cry—it's like a soft warm sweater, and it's a comfort, and I've been craving that (coffee, and comfort) since I heard the news.

Last Friday, Dee and I went to see The Decemberists in concert. They're turning out to be mostly a live-only band for me, and I'm enjoying it. Recorded and studio-refined, the twang to Meloy's voice bothers my ears—but live I embrace and forgive and soak up the energy. It's fantastic. On Sunday, we took the bus into the city center and went to Powell's for my birthday book shopping trip. I gave myself a blister on one heel, but the skyscrapers cast shadows on the sidewalks and I came away with a small but wonderful (and tailored to my taste in obscure books and favorite authors) stack, with leftover money for the next impulse used book purchase. On and off, I've been feeling a renewed desire to embrace the opportunity of living in Portland—and the heat has been utterly decimating my will to do so, so it's good that there was something to force us out of the house and into life. Since Madison's death, I've been trying to stay occupied because of the fear of seeing that line of text on that white page, so the trips out were exhausting in just the right sort of way.

Dee is heading out of town tomorrow to attend Dragon*Con. Devon resumed full-time work this week, so I'll see some of him while she's gone but not a full four-day stay. I was ambivalent about facing that time alone, but now I think I can embrace it. Oh, the weather will heat up by the weekend, and I'll be miserable and complaining as I play my video games. But right now the weather tells me that it's safe to be alone, and grieve. As much as my attempts at faith have consistently proven unsuccessful, I'm looking towards a thoughtful Samhain this year. If it seems silly that these deaths are impacting me so strongly, know that it seems quite right to me. I've been realizing, and I've been forced into correcting, my incomprehension of death. I want to see the world die around me. I've always found life in that—in the vivid colors and the cycle it precipitates and the way it makes my heart—and perhaps it will bring me full circle. I can dwell, and die, and come alive again.
juushika: Drawing of a sleeping orange cat (I should have been born a cat)
Meanwhile, there's this:

August is pretty

After I heard of Madison's death, I went out in the hall (which is where August spends her early evenings, napping outside my door—why not inside on the comfy bed? who knows, but it makes her happy, so who cares) and pulled August into my lap. Don't let her delicate little kitten features fool you: August is surprisingly large and has a solid warm physicality to her, wide soft flanks and handfuls of rich smooth fur. When she came home with us she was a bit uncomfortable about being picked up—she wouldn't squirm out of it, but her tail would twitch and she'd climb away when she could. She used to live in a home with small children, which may explain things. It bothered me a little because I love holding cats, but I gave her her space and over time she's grown increasingly tolerant. But that day she sat in my lap, her torso pressed to mine, and let me hold her with nary and tail-twitch, warm and soft and so solid.

And today so help me if she will not leave me alone for the hour I need to edit pictures and write this post. She is full of cuddles and purrs, and let me clip a mat from her haunches, and she tries to bite my knee but it's too big to fit in her mouth.

I love this cat. She's not a Madison-replacement, although in a way I think I initially intended her to be. She is her own independent beast, and she is ridiculous, and I love her and am so thankful to have her near me right now.

So it seems like a good time to upload what I've been saving up on my hard drive, and give you some sundry August pictures and anecdotes (and one video clip) of the cute and beautiful and silly variety.

+8: August sleeping and kneeding and close up and looking funny. )

That's August.
juushika: Photograph of the torso and legs of a feminine figure with a teddy bear (Bear)
Thank you all for your condolences. As always for this sort of thing, that's what I'd be saying each time: Thank you, thank you. I am grateful. I'm just also tired.

So here's the thing. It wasn't until the last year or two that the fact of my grandmother's death really hit me. She'd died some five years before. I've written about this—in some depth when Dink died, and in passing mentions when Alfie died, and I keep meaning to sit down and really explore the issue but, no surprise I suppose, it's one I don't want to explore while I'm coping with it—but: I don't miss people, and as such I find it difficult to comprehend death. I tend to see the past as a bad memory and the future as a terror, but the bulk of my brain lives chronically in the here and now. I don't have a good grasp of trends over time or general histories, and there are some things I find it hard to project forward. And I don't miss anyone. I have a healthy sense of nostalgia and can get lonely, and I can miss the stimulation associated with certain social interactions, but with the exception of Devon I don't specifically miss anyone when they're not there. I can go months without remembering to contact my immediate family, and it's not them, it's me: it just doesn't occur to me that I should. I suppose it's a little hard to explain.

Death is the knowledge that you'll be missing for the rest of your life. Without missing, and with a poor concept of the past and future, I don't really understand death. People go away, but I never really need or expect their return, and there's no sense of loss.

But December last year or so I was talking with my mother about the upcoming (second) cruise and realized that my grandmother was dead. She died when I was a freshman in college, and I went to her service with almost no trace of emotion; there's some uneasiness between my family and my grandfather's second wife, because of how soon he remarried and because she's so insistent on the ease with which we (grown) grandchildren should adopt her as replacement grandmother. I saw those grandparents about twice a year as a child and biyearly as an adult, and (socially) I take after that side of the family, which means we were relatively close.

And it bothers me that my grandmother is dead. It bothers me because of the fallout it's had on my family and my (lack of) relationship with my grandfather, but it bothers me also because while we didn't have the emotional resonance that some people have in these relationships, I was always so much my grandmother's kin; and while she wasn't remarkable in any expected sense of the word, my grandmother was a memorable and irreplaceable woman who I will never see again. It's not a keen sense of loss, it's not like I'm finally cognizant of that loss and just now beginning the grieving process. It's that the grieving process was, for me, all number of years spent not knowing it was going on, and then I came out somewhere near the other end going: Oh. This death upset me.

I'm afraid this will happen with Madison.

It's not unfair to compare a cat to a grandmother. Animals are people, to me; I spent more time with Madison than with my grandmother; I know from my experiences with losing Dink and Alfie that while the circumstances are different, the basics of my grieving process is the same. I also know—especially with the loss of Alfie—that I am better, now, at conceptualizing loss and death, and I know what helps me do that. I know that seeing his body freed me, not because it released me from my pain but because it triggered it, allowing me to experience a more immediate, intense, and timely grieving process. I'm not at peace with his loss now, but I'm so much closer to that than I would have expected to be. Where my sister can still mourn pets we lost ten years ago, I can finally comprehend those losses ten years later; that I have come so far in understanding Alfie's death is remarkable.

Madison is dead and buried. I have no control here, no immediacy. I can't trigger and embrace my grieving process. I barely feel like I'm entitled to one because of my lack of involvement—Devon didn't even tell me that she had died until they had already buried her. I understand that that seemed like a reasonable response of their end, and they're entitled to it. Not everyone finds solace in freezing a corpse for later inspection which, and let's be frank here, is pretty reasonable. And I know it's not as feasible with a cat, no matter how small. I know that she wasn't my pet in the way that the pigs were, and so I can't make demands about the disposal of her body.

But I love this cat. I suggested her name—an M name for a tabby with a classic M forehead marking, and also one of my favorite names, a name I'd always wanted to use for a pet. When she was young she used to be a wild beast (they nicknamed her Kerrigan), but I used to pick her up, hold the scruff of her neck so she couldn't bite, and enforce socialization—and bit by bit it began to work. When they finally spayed her (after years of reminders and promises that it would change her behavior), she became an entirely different cat—calmer, tamer, and fonder too of soft bedding and warm corners. It got to the point where she would purr when I picked her up—she, this half-feral five-pound wildbeast. I was the one that groomed the mats out of her cheeks, and she didn't even mind that.

Madison is the cat that taught me to be a cat. Dude is the lovable confident man of the house, and he and I get on famously—but in Madison I saw myself: not specific character traits, but the existence of character, the knowledge that each cat is a life, entity, person onto themselves, that they don't always (or often) conform to feline clichés but are nonetheless wholly themselves and wholly cat. Madison was my sister-cat, who taught me about sleeping in a circle and finding hidden corners and having tufts of fur in the ears and a poofy tail.

Intellectually I know that she's gone, and clearly some of that hit home because she I first heard the news my fingertips went numb—there was something there, some realization. And now when I run idle for a few minutes my thoughts come back to Madison is dead or and we found Madison dead earlier and they buried her with this sort of dryness—it's literally just the words, like a line of black type in the middle of a white sheet of paper. I don't know what happens after that, because I just get the white, the blank, the rest of the naked page, or I find something to do (which, today, apparently isn't sleep) so that I'm not thinking about it any more.

But that's it: a few words on a blank page. I cried on and off when Devon first told me, but I've been numb since then and I'm not sure when that will change. I'm worried that it won't. I'm on the fringes of this and not allowed in. I wasn't there, because I'm not her family. I can't turn to Devon for help because he was there and he's hurting from this too, and it's not right to compound or to trample over his grief. I can't engage with the rest of the family because I blame them and I don't want to recieve their comfort or share their grief—they were the ones that decided to make Madison indoor/outdoor and while I know that wasn't malicious, and that you can carry the the guilt of a death and still be a decent human being (as I feel about what happened with Dink), this is still something that could have been prevented and so yes, there is anger there. I will never see her corpse, and never say goodbye.

When I think of her I remember her sleeping curled, but when they found her she was on her side, dead, with blood in her mouth.

I'm angry about what happened, and I feel isolated and denied by my lack of involvement, and I don't want to be brokenhearted and grieving too but I would rather have that—violent and miserable and cathartic—than feel this hanging over my head: the loss I should feel, and can't understand; the experience that I don't know I'm engaging with, and may not resolve for weeks or years. And then I'll finally go: Oh. This is what it means that she's dead.

Maybe it'll make sense the next time I'm in Corvallis and she's not there. I don't know. I feel guilty, as always, about making this about me and my grieving process and my issues instead of about her—because it is all about her. She was a remarkable little beastie and I wish you could have known her. She used to stare at her reflection for hours. She used to suckle on microfleece blankets. She used to curl up so tiny—she was a remarkably small cat, and half of that was still fluff. She was bizarre and beautiful and she's dead, so there's that. But I don't know what to make of it, yet, and it scares me.
juushika: Screen capture of the Farplane from Final Fantasy X: a surreal landscape of waterfalls and flowers. (Anime/Game)
This is just a quick note to say that Madison was found dead today. Madison is Devon's family's cat, and the fact that I'm not living with her now doesn't make this any easier. She was found outside by the old truck, dead, bleeding from the mouth but with no external injuries; they think it may have been coyote poison, or that she was hit by a car. They buried her today, so I will never be able to see her body—I'm still not sure how that will impact how I understand what's happened.

I never did get around to taking pictures of her last time I was there, but at least I got to hold her, all couple pounds of summer-wiry fur, and she purred at me.

This is why you never—and there are almost no exceptions, no certain circumstances—you never allow cats outdoors without supervision. Madison was healthy, and young, and incredible. Now she's dead, and if she had been an indoor-only cat this never would have happened.

I'm going to watch a video game and stuff my own cat full of treats, and try hard not to think for a while. I'm numb, but there's as much anger as grief below the surface. I can't imagine that next time I go back, she won't be there.
juushika: Screen capture of the Farplane from Final Fantasy X: a surreal landscape of waterfalls and flowers. (Anime/Game)
Dee's family came down over the weekend. They drove down Saturday the morning, stopped here for a rest while we all went out to lunch, and then Dee left with them to drive a little longer to visit family in state. They spent a day there, then came back up the Sunday evening; they spent the night, and then left Monday morning. Does that make sense? There were some car troubles shortly beforehand, so it was nice that they were able to make it despite them. Her family is very personable, and there were lots of changes around here for them to see, and it seems like everyone had a nice time.

But really, the reason I'm writing is that they traveled with Casey, Dee's mum's dog.

I tend to do best when surrounded by multiple high-social-needs animals, because I have more pettings to give than most animals want to receive. I have to remind myself to hold back on the touch and grooming and affection, or I can overwhelm an animal's desire or even tolerance, and no one wants that. As a result, I get along damn well with pets that just want a little bit of constant love. I rarely, if ever, grow tired of giving one-handed cuddles for a few hours while I read a book or watch TV. In fact it calms me, and grooming animals satisfies my obsessive tendencies, and so if they like it too—then yay.

Casey is one of those dogs that wants nothing in the whole world more than to press against you and receive your love. (Well, he would really like the food on your plate, too.) I met him when I visited Dee in Seattle, lo these many months ago, and we got along famously. These last few weeks I've been missing dogs something fierce, because I am of the rare breed that loves cats and dogs equally, because I was supposed to see dogs two weeks ago before plans for my visit home changed, and because some dogs (especially the dogs I know) are more receptive to that endless sort of love—they just want you to touch them and love them forever, please.

So he came bounding in, and scared my cat, and stared avidly at the guinea pig, and I touched him and loved him forever, or at least for a day.

And I took pictures of a black dog (Casey is a mostly-lab mix) at night. Y'all, this is Casey.

Say hello, Casey
Say hello, Casey. (Hello, Casey.)

+2, sorta. )

It's about, er, a third of the fur I ended up collecting.

I really do find that sort of thing calming.

Tomorrow evening I head to Corvallis for a thusfar-undecided period of time. I'll live with Woof for a few days, and visit Jamie at least once. Maybe after all of this, that need for dog time will finally be satiated. But Casey was a fantastic start. He's a remarkable dog—I wish you could meet him.
juushika: Drawing of a sleeping orange cat (I should have been born a cat)
I'm coming off of about three weeks of various and nearly unrelenting pain. There was the week of back pain followed a brief respite thanks to Devon's visit, a resurgance of back pain which left me bedridden for another week, and as I started to get over the worst of that I ran into some random wrist issues and menstruation-triggered back pain, and as I stopped menstruating I developed a tension headache and some head/neck/eye soreness—with continuing back pain. I took some more medication, which seems to have helped: the tension soreness persists, but is mild; the back issues never seem to end, but I no longer feel like a 90-year-old woman. To say that all of this aggravated my depression would be something of an understatement. I went through a wailing-flailing stage, I hit the utter exhaustion stage, and I'm still recovering mentally as well as physically. I have every reason to suspect that these problems will reoccur, but I'll be heading to Corvallis in a few days and Devon and I can troubleshoot them together if necessary.

Somewhere in the wailing-flailing stage of MY BODY HATES ME AND I HATE IT BACK AND THE WHOLE WORLD TOO, August decided that she was sufficiently safe and comfortable here to begin acting like a complete shite. She was annoying and didn't want to be touched and elsewise did her damnedest to push every one of her boundaries. No lie, it hurt like a motherfuck and I just couldn't deal with it at the time—I had no spoons and suddenly the cat was ransacking the cutlery.

If you look for a knife or a fork
And you think it is merely misplaced—
You have seen it one moment, and then it is gawn!
But you'll find it next week lying out on the lawn.


I survived only by watching two seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation in quick succession, eating entire bars of chocolate, and desperately pretending I was no longer alive. But survive I did. August is currently sacked out on my bed. Earlier today she fell asleep while spooned around my arm. (Now if only Spike would stop peeing on the windowsill.*)

I believe that cats are people. My people, yes, but people above all—as unique as you or me, with personalities as complete and faceted, and they have moods and relationships and identities. August is an adorable ball of fluff, but she is much more than a particularly warm and wonderful teddy bear. She's a person with moods and desires and an attitude, she's an adolescent, she's trying out a new environment and making her home here for better and worse. A new human roommate may have a bit more grace about it (and just leave dirty socks around, rather than trying to claw the carpet), but we all do this, we all act like asses and then we get over it and the people that matter love us anyway.

I know this and that's what I want when I say I want a cat, but man, what an infuckingopportune moment to learn the lesson for real.

The worst of this all has past. By rights I ought not be sitting up to write this now, because I can feel some substantial back pain creeping up on me; I'm sure that August and I (and Dee and Spike) will have even more adjustments to make when my trip to Corvallis throws another wrench in the works—and elsewise I don't expect "better" to mean "perfect" or "inviolate." But I've found some of the silverware on the lawn, and I expect this, all of this, to be worth it. Today it was, as August purred all over me and put her paws against my eyelids and fell asleep wrapped around my arm. It was even worth it when she was being a shit, but don't tell her that. I am learning to love her not as a wish-fulfillment fantasy, but as the whole and entire person that she is. Of course that's worth it.

No one warned me, but living a real life can be a hell of a lot of work, eh?

* Okay, story time. Spike's urine marking has actually much improved and we're working hard to continue that trend, but Dee and I are still about up to here with his shenanigans. And then today he and August were both on the best windowsill, which was the first thing that Spike began marking and still his particular favorite. She was on the right, which is the side he marks; he was on the left, and contentedly sharing the space. I praised him for not marking, but when he stood up to leave he began to assume the position. I raised my voice and caught his attention, and for half a second that seemed to be enough: Spike looked at me all guilty-like—and then peed on my cat. And the windowsill. But also my cat.

And August looked confused.

And then I had to chase down my confused, scared cat with a paper towel to dry a different cat's pee off of her chest.

So how was your morning?
juushika: Drawing of a sleeping orange cat (I should have been born a cat)
Kitty under my chair.

August has discovered the magic of microfleece blankets. I'm not horribly surprised—Madison goes crazy for them, she'll kneed and suckle on them like some replacement mother; August just kneeds and ... puts her nose one the fabric. It's like she's not sure why her nose and mouth need to touch it, she doesn't drool or suckle at all, but they have to be there or the experience isn't quite complete. Honestly it's like she's not sure why any of it has to happen at all—she gets this look of WHY AM I KNEEDING PLEASE SEND HELP that morphs into NEVERMIND TOO COMFORTABLE PLEASE GO AWAY. Kitten loves her blanket.

Not that it's her blanket. Boy is using it over his long weekend here, and then it'll return to the living room because my dirty little secret is that the freakishly soft feel of that fabric makes my skin crawl. Said blanket has been necessary for the weekend, however, because we hit the sweet spot in this week of remarkable, overcast, cool summer weather: Rain. Buckets of rain. It's pouring now and has been pouring all day, hours of it, I fell asleep to the sound of heavy rain and woke to find it even heavier. All of this unseasonal coolness has been welcome—seriously, Dee and I won't stop talking about the weather—but this rain, it feels too good. It's perfect. It makes me long for autumn as if it weren't already here—because I know well enough that it's not: this weather can't last forever, and now that it's had its grand finale it'll probably pass. I've come to embrace summer in the last few years, as I've learned the art of sleeping in sunlight (and since Boy has an air conditioner in his room), but this is my weather and my home: the sound of rain, the gray sky and silverblue light, the cool humidity, the cold breezes, long sleeves and blankets and a sudden craving for warm food covered in cheese. It hurts me a little to know that after this will be many more weeks of heat—not that the heat has been bad this summer, and we've found all the little tricks for coping with it, but ah, this weather. I want it to last forever.

Devon's visit has been fantastic. He got here Thursday night, and leaves this evening—we've been doing four or five days together every two weeks, which seems to work out wonderfully: the longer visits are more relaxed and fulfilling, and the weeks off give us more time to engage in our own local lives. This weekend's weather has me in the mood for books, sleep, and staying in, so we're thoroughly wasting our time away with a marathon of the original American McGee's Alice, and it's perfect. We're sleeping when we want to sleep, sometimes at night but also to the sound of the rain during the day; we have the windows half open and most people would think it's way too cold in here but that just makes the snuggling even better.

You may have noticed at some point that sleep and I are not particularly good friends—but August has me napping at all hours, these days. We curl up for a cuddle and sometimes when she drifts off, so do I. That, like this casual non-schedule that Devon and I have had this weekend, feels surprisingly natural. It embraces my preference for sleeping in sunlight and the fact that I wake up so often that pretending to get a solid chunk of sleep is foolishness, and it dismisses so many of the anxieties that make sleep difficult—like the simple expectation that I'll sleep now, for this long, and then be awake and engaged with the world. As a result of course I'm less engaged, but...

Basically, August is teaching me to be a cat. Some of it already there, in little realizations that tickle me—like when we watch out the window together and we both perk at the same sound or movement. But my sleep issues are one of the hallmarks of the disconnect between my self-as-human and self-as-cat, and so this.... Well, back in that post I wrote, "A cat that can't catnap hardly feels a cat at all." And now, sometimes, we catch a bit of sleep in the sunlight for no reason at all other than the fact that the bed feels nice. There's that argument in the therianthropy community about nature and nurture—if this identification is innate, or if it changes and grows; if it's inherent nature, of if it's tainted by affectation. It makes me feel like something of a charlatan that so much of my personal experiences are about the disconnect between my human and cat identities, and therefore about (re)learning mentalities and behaviors—not because they're not mine, but because I get in my own way where they're concerned. And for all that anxiety I still don't give a flying fuck how it might be perceived, because these little lessons, these little naps, make me so happy.

So it's been a pretty nice long weekend, I guess is what I'm saying.
juushika: Drawing of a sleeping orange cat (I should have been born a cat)
I have these moments where I go: !!! I have a cat!

Love bites may be my favorite form of affection—and against purring and rub-my-tummy floppiness and simple "I want to lay right here so that I'm just touching you, yes, exactly like this," that's saying something. They're a form of affection I give, and so they're one I understand. From me they indicate love, and possessiveness, and the fact that not all love is gentle but it doesn't quite have to hurt, either; they're a sort of love that not everyone wants or understands, which therefore means all the more when another does accept and treasure it (or tolerate it, at least). Love biting was hardly a requirement when I went in search of August (and indeed other than simple closeness, she didn't show any specific, outgoing signs of affection when we first met), but it tickles me to find it in her anyway. I know some people don't like it, and some would want to train it out of her—but I'm the sort that loves it when puppies chew on her fingers, even with their sharp little teeth: I love physicality, I love affection that isn't all floof and cuddles, I love touch with depth and meaning; I love that I found a cat who found me, who loves in a way that I understand, and that I can understand it.

This does have me thinking a bit about my self-as-cat, and those experiences in this context, but those thoughts are still percolating.

Unfortunately, August is starving to death. She's not even on a diet insomuch as she's simply eating regular meals plus treats instead of eating constantly, by which I do mean nonstop. Nonetheless this seems to be equivalent to a death sentence. She begs for food as if this single moment is her last hope to find a meal before she perishes; she begs for meals as if her feeding three hours previous never happened and since she's convinced of that, I can be too. It's a blessing that she has a cute meow instead of a big booming meow (we're looking at you, Spike): her begging isn't as annoying as it could be. But still, oh cat: get over yourself.

The relationship between Spike and August continues to evolve. August has reached the point where she wants to play with Spike, bouncing around him and running down hallways like her big fluffy tail is on fire; Spike is a bit passed the age for frequent play, so he mostly looks at her as if one or the both of them is very confused, and then goes in sniffing, calling search of her when she darts away. But Spike has his moments, and today after August had finally worn herself out with the one-sided play he went bounding up the stairs and tearing back and forth across the hallway overhead, and August got a O.O look on her face of WAIT THAT NEVER HAPPENS I AM SO CONFUSE.

The minutiae of me and my cat and our household may not be particularly fascinating to others. It can be damn hilarious for us (man, you should see Spike on catnip) and it's a learning experience, too, but it's not quite the same as sharing adorable kitty pictures. But the fact that it has become a life, a household, the fact that it has developed minutiae and patterns, all while August has been here for just over a week—this is what I signed up for. This is what I want. I've lived with cats before and I love them all, but this is my cat, my sister/daughter cat; this is my addition to the strange and sprawling families that I have here and there. There is so much more to what that means to me—but it also just means my cat, my silly little stealing-the-blanket running-through-the-halls dying-of-hunger cat, and the daily life of us. And I am so thankful for these things, small and silly and boring as they are. They stop me. They make me go !!!.
juushika: A black and white photo of an ink pen (Writing)
Well the good news is that we don't have to return the cat: She doesn't limit her food consumption (AT ALL), leaving us to do a food-regulating dance so that Spike has constant access to his food (since he should be eating whenever he wants, to make up for his low appetite) and she doesn't, and she gets fed twice a day in my room instead. Spike is a little territorial and the two of them are still exploring and refining their relationship—to incredibly improved ends, but it's not all love and snuggles just yet. She wants to jump up on counters and desktops, so we're training her to keep to beds and couches. In other words, August is not broken, but is indeed a normal cat underneath all of her perfect floof, and we don't have to take her back to the shelter and ask for a replacement.

The bad news is that I hit critical mass and went boom. All of this new cat stuff has been energy-intensive—and even if it's largely good energy, even if it's energy expenditure that I invited, the fact is that I've run flat out. No gas, no spoons, resources hit zero sometime yesterday and so I'm making myself take it easy while I try to recharge. My analogies are everywhere. I know that realizing I've run into this wall puts me halfways towards climbing over it (all the analogies!), but it's also a lesson I need to remember for the future. I am doing so much better these days, but I will always have minimal amounts of energy and cope; my exciting life of books, video games, and making dinner once a week may not seem too taxing, but at this point I am moderately active and I need to remember that that, for me, is exhausting.

And I need to not hate myself for that, or have so little faith in my loved ones that I expect them to hate me for it, too.

There's no good mental health tag for all of this. It's not quite agoraphobia but it's that step beyond introversion that makes all social activity utterly exhausting; the anxiety likes to take a developing issue and worry it into a real and present one; depression is sort of the end result, and true to form my sleep schedule is rocky and I have little appetite, and more important than all that I just feel like shit. It's not one of these things in the same all-consuming, debilitating form they used to take—but it's a bit of each and the fact is that I'm just, well, tired.

August is good, though. She has a toy of awesome, and still sleeps with me. Spike can stop spraying any time now, but he's really engaged and interested, and I have faith that things will work out between them. We had a day and a half of fantastic weather, if your definition of fantastic means "overcast, cool, and a little windy"—and in this house, it does. We're going out to dinner and then seeing Neko Case, which isn't quite the same thing as relaxing—but I took yesterday off, and can hide in my room this weekend if I need. Things will all be fine.
juushika: Screen capture of the Farplane from Final Fantasy X: a surreal landscape of waterfalls and flowers. (Anime/Game)
Today we let August see the rest of the house.

August, given the run of the house
She had O.O eyes pretty much the entire time and I think her little cat brain came pretty close to going boom.
And she loved it, of course.

Spike slept through a cat sniffing his bedroom (which she actually got to do last night, when the door failed to latch when I went downstairs) and tearing up and down the stairs and jumping on all the furniture, but he did eventually wake up and come downstairs. August has been well-adjusted and settled in since day one and she's cold symptom free, so we decided it was time to let them discover each other. There was some running away and a little hissing, followed by about three hours of this:

August and Spike meeting

And this. )

August pretty much overloaded: there was SO MUCH and she was SO ENERGETIC that she would randomly dissolve into spaz-cat and go running out of the room. Spike was quite calm—a bit hissy, which is to be expected, but mostly he wanted to sniff her and everywhere she had gone, and was patiently willing to back off and give her space (and go sniff another place she had been) while she did her spaz-cat routine and then came back to him. Occasionally she would run off and he would lose her, and then he would pace around meowing (or go meow out a window, because Outside is the place of Other Cats), but there was sufficent shared curiosity that they kept finding each other.

O.O eventually evolved into O.o, and then August began doing everything Spike was doing.

Copycat. )

It was pretty cute, no lie. Based on previous behavior, August gets on well with other cats and Spike is very affectionate towards female cats, so we hope that they'll bond in the days to come. But this curiosity and growing acceptance is a fantastic start. I'm glad it went so well—and it'll be nice to have August as a full integrated member of the house.

Meanwhile, August finally came back into my room to conk the fuck out:

Like this. )

And she's still sleeping now.

This has been your daily dose of cat spam.
juushika: Drawing of a sleeping orange cat (Default)
I promised August's story, so here we go. Some of this is epically long, but I would rather have it all written down than not. I frown not upon skimming.

On August 22, 2010, August was found as a stray on the city limits of Salem, Oregon: Her history.  )

On July 3, 2011, I adopted her. She's thirteen months old, and I'll be calling her August for the rest of her life. The adoption. )

August was vocal in the car ride home, but not quite terrified. When we got to the house I took her upstairs and into my bedroom, opened the carrier door, and she made herself right at home. I went into this ready to deal with an adjustment period, especially in a shy cat, especially one who's had elimination issues. But August sniffed around and then came over to flop down in front of me, and she has been nothing but loving, social, and well-adjusted since.

I imagine the shelter was simply overstimulating; here in a quiet home, August has blossomed. She's a companion cat, perfectly content to sleep next to you, happier still if she can sleep touching you, and always open to cuddling. She'll initiate active contact and cuddles, sometimes if she's bored or lonely, sometimes when she spots an opening (like right after I climb into bed). She likes pretty much all touch, and will lean into cheek rubs and chin scratches, but she best likes having her tummy rubbed—she flops over willingly, and even wants to have her belly fur brushed (and a good thing, too: it needs it). Petting her chest or back legs can make her a little kicky or playful, but not aggressive. She gives headbumps to initiate contact, and love bites in the throes of a good cuddle. She kneeds and paws at people, gently and with love (and currently with clipped claws, which I intend to maintain). She will change positions a few times to find the optimal layout for maximum flopability. A really good cuddle ends up with her leaning against me, tummy up, legs flopping everywhere, eyes closed, falling asleep as a stroke her tummy.

Yeah, it's that cute.

She's sweet, inquisitive, and utterly engaged—she's occasionally playful, but wants a more interactive toy: batting something around isn't as interesting to her as human-directed play would be. If left in the room alone, she tends to meow for a few minutes and then sleep, but she can occasionally get restless and go in search of people. When there's someone in the room, she spends most of her time sleeping or snuggling, will occasionally wander into and under things, and is open to and initiates plenty of interaction. She's alert to sound but not easily startled, and loves to watch out the windows. She's fond of my bed and always sleeps there, and tends to fall asleep with her back or head pressed to a pillow or blanket (or me). The longer she sleeps, the more floppy and stretched out she's likely to become. She has a healthy appetite and has used the litterbox fine from the get-go, although she prefers to do her business at night or when I'm out of the room (but that may change when she's using an enclosed litterbox). When she eats and drinks her whiskers get in the way, and it makes her twitch her head.

August is a domestic medium hair, almost entirely black, with particularly striking eyes. Her facial features are delicate and petite; her teeth are oversized and knock against you when she rubs her cheek on your hand. The fur on her head, neck, and back is black as can be and kitten-soft; it's fine and short on her head, and gets longer along the length of her spine. Her chest and belly fur is longer, frizzier, and slightly curly; it has a brown tint, and some of the tips fade to cream. It's almost impossible for her to groom, and brushing her tummy helps immensely. Her tail is huge and fluffy, black and smooth on top, fuzzy and brownish on the underside, and she carries it at high and pretty. Sometimes when she curls up, she breathes in her tail fur and it makes her sneeze. Her eyes are remarkable: the irises have an outer ring of yellow and an inner ring of green; when her pupils are dilated the green ring is large and makes her eye entire look yellow-green, but when her pupils contract the green ring all but disappears and the yellow reflects ambient light, varying from golden to amber to orange (especially on my orange bed). All of the color variation is vivid and flattering against her black fur. Her whiskers are long and jet black; she has a stray long white hair that grows from her chin. She's adorable. And, of course, there are pictures.

August and her remarkable, changeable eyes
I expect that I'll end up taking a lot of shots trying to capture the beauty of her eyes.

Hey look, it's what you actually came here for: +7 pictures. )

August is currently locked away in my room while we watch her for signs of illness and let her get adjusted. She's doing beautifully and that I've come to know her so well already is remarkable, but these are still the early days: things are subject to change. In the meantime, rooming with me establishes this as her home in the house and gives us a chance to bond. Eventually we'll introduce her to the rest of the house and to Spike, Dee's cat—Spike used to have a sister and shows ongoing interest in female cats, and we image that he'll be thrilled to have her around; August has previous experience with cats, and should be a good follower to Spike's leader. August is already eager to see the world beyond the bedroom door—it will be a test of willpower to keep her locked away.

But she is happy, and healthy, and so fucking adorable that almost two thousand words aren't enough to express it. So, y'all: That's August.

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juushika: Drawing of a sleeping orange cat (Default)
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