Recently in Ana Category

This morning we had Ana put down. She had stopped eating and was moving with great difficulty, and had stopped purring. She was not as angry as she used to be. She was still drinking but was clearly not going to last.

She was 18, which is not bad for a barn cat.

Here are some photos of her. It's all very raw right now because she was my bestest friend for 17 years.

Here she is napping in 1999 or thereabouts. I was forever coming up and trying to get a photo of her asleep, and just as I would hit the button her eyes would pop open and she would glare at me for waking her.

With her co-cat Mikey in 2001. Mikey died in 2003 and is buried under our Cecile Brunner.

Scowling at me to get the camera out of her face and leave her alone. Ana was a very angry cat.

Coming out of the greenhouse window in our kitchen in Berkeley. When you saw this you knew some poor plant had been chewed within an inch of its life.

We buried her by the side gate, next to the clematis. I put a bed of grass in the grave because she liked getting out and eating grass until she puked, and a bouquet of flowers over her head because she loved eating cut flowers and puking them up on the stairs. We planted a yellow miniature rose over her, sent by Noel's parents for our anniversary. I miss her already.

Edited to add: By popular request, this photo of Ana being introduced to Rosie in December 2001. She got up there and arranged herself on that doily without any hinting or helping from anybody else.

In other news, Ana has evicted Goldie from her crate and adopted it as her new favourite napping spot. Goldie refuses to go in there any more, because she knows better than to mess with the cat.

Yesterday I caught an act of inter-species grooming on camera:

Both animals have been fined and warned about future violations.

This afternoon the cats were hanging out on the bed together. Ana was being remarkably tolerant.

Simon was feeling very lovey. He really wanted to get right into the camera and drool.

Ana has decided John is her new favourite, and his desk is her favourite place to lie during the day (he locks her out of his room at night, or she'd sleep with him).

So Simon is back. Which means that in the last 24 hours, the house has been filled with him yowling, or Ana yelling at him, or Rosie barking at both of them.

He was so much more pleasant last night after the dose of Valium that I gave him another one this evening, when the yelling resumed (because it was that or strangle him). He's wide awake, but the Valium really takes the edge off his anxieties.

And because Ana was also driving me nuts by following him around and being bitchy, I gave her some, too, for good measure. She kept us up all night yelling, so this should make for a nice, quiet evening.

I considered a dose for the dog, but maybe I should save the last pill for myself. It's enough to make you wish for a tranquilizer gun. Sheesh.

Ana's been in a weird mood lately. First I caught her sleeping in the dog's crate, of all places (but she left before I could photograph her in the act), then I came downstairs this evening and found her licking John's weight set. I guess they were a bit salty or something:

John's been turning the house upside down packing for his trip to Argentina. Four weeks of skiing and snow hiking (remember, it's winter there), blissfully far away from the chaos of the bedroom remodel. I have to admit that I'm looking forward to two weeks of enforced rest time on our road trip. Not that a straight-through drive from San Francisco to Maine is particularly restful, but comparatively speaking, of course.

Tuxedo cat, in a fancy new cardboard box, glowering at the world and especially at his brother? I think a meeting between Dapper Sam and Ana would be interesting.

We drove up to Tracy to meet Cheri and Kevin, who were on their way to So. Cal. with a truck full of dogs. After juggling puppies in the parking lot of the In-N-Out for several minutes, we decided on the one Cheri thought would fit best in our household. She energetically wagged her tail when Noel held her.

We signed paperwork, handed over a check, got a pile of information and a bag of food, and Rosie was ours. The first few minutes of the drive she was all energy, exploring the back seat while Noel watched over her carefully. But then she fell asleep, snoring loudly, and didn't wake up all the way home. In fact, she didn't wake up when we took her out to see if she needed to pee; she just fell on her face. Oops. We took her inside and put her in her crate to nap.

We tried introducing her to the cats, who were less than enthusiastic about the new addition. Mikey was curious about the snoring coming from the crate, but Ana was angry and annoyed. She climbed up to a safe vantage point and glared down at us. We were sitting around watching her sleep when CLB came over to see her new niece, and Rosie was less than exciting.

Around 11:30, after we gave up on playing with her that night and were getting into bed, she woke up and realized her sisters are nowhere to be found. Much howling and whining followed, and I spent the night sitting by the bed and letting her sleep in my lap between trips outdoors. We had one pee accident in the crate, but Rosie is a smart dog and refused to get back inside until I cleaned it up thoroughly. Way to go, Rosie.

Rosie, tuckered out from the long drive, asleep in her crate

Ana, delicately arranged on a doily, is introduced to her new sister