Pax Nortona – A Blog by Joel Sax
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Category: Cats
Boadicea’s Dreams
Posted on May 24, 2017 in Cats Dreams Writing Exercises
I have never seen her in my dreams
Boadicea
Posted on January 12, 2014 in Cats
There in the half darkness sits a cat, the white fur of her neck mounded like a cravat, a tabby shield over her heart. A loud, uneven purr pours out of her nose. She waits for my service, first as waiter, then as warmer on the bed. This is my companion when the disturbances of the night interpose themselves between me and the equanimity that I covet. I am a bore, but she is a cat and requires no conversation.
Bipolar Cancer Husband No. 2
Posted on June 26, 2012 in Anxiety Cancer Diary Cats Dogs Uncertainty
I must confess that I still feel a little selfish when I remind people that I am under stress — perhaps more stress than Lynn.
Fiona is Gone….
Posted on March 23, 2012 in Cats Grief
We put Fiona down at 5:45 PM Pacific Daylight Time.
She appeared to have pancreatitis and something that was damaging her liver in a big way. It was going to cost us $2000 to have a 50-50 chance of keeping her alive. We had already put down $2500.
I think the vet encouraged me because he did not want me to lose her in the middle of my wife’s cancer crisis.
I chose to stop trying. I feel bad.
Wendell the Bear
Posted on December 30, 2011 in Cats North Carolina
This is how I acquired him. My cat, a lovely calico by the name of Brandy Whine or Ms. Whine, went into heat. (Brandy had the talent of turning away when I tried to photograph her.) Several males from the Durham, North Carolina neighborhood — where I shared an abode with four room mates — gathered around the house. The most dominant of these was an orange tabby who I called William the Orange and a piebald Manx-cross who I named Wendell after a friend in high school.
Wendell didn’t leave once Brandy had had her fill of tomcat. He stuck around, mooching off me and my room mates. One day, I broke down, and decided to claim him as my own. I bought a collar with an ID tag and put it around his neck. Wendell, who’d been looking depressed in the weeks before, suddenly raised his head and strutted around. No more could you call him an alley cat. He was owned!
You might guess that given his street roots he didn’t take guff and he didn’t. I would often find him facing off with another tom. When I broke it up, he would turn to me and mew his deepest apologies.
As a father, he was amazing. We had heard that tomcats often kill kittens, so we took pains to keep him outside while they were growing up. One day, however, he sneaked in. I came into the kitchen to find him with kittens crawling all over him, purring happily. Afterwards, he helped Brandy watch the kittens when they were outside and helped me herd them back in the house when play time was over.
We moved around a bit, but when we did, we always followed this habit. A little before sunset, I would walk around the neighborhood. Wendell would follow me, huffing and puffing until he was out of breath. He would refuse to let me carry him and always made his own way back, though I had to stop frequently to let him catch his breath.
His other romance — beside Brandy who I had fixed to ensure that she would not grace us with more kittens — was with a room mate’s tiny tortoise shell named Friday. I cherish a picture I took of him lying with her on the bed after they had done it. My shadow catcher was a Champ Kodamatic, Kodak’s brief challenge to Polaroid’s hegemony in the instant photography field.
I brought him back to California with me, but he died two days later — the shock of the relocation had been too much for the little guy.
He set a high standard for my other cats, but most of them did not disappoint me. (The exception was a spoiled Persian Lynn and I nicknamed The Mad Cat. We quickly found her a home where she could be the only cat of the house.) Sometimes I dream of those summer nights, with Wendell following me and talking as he walked.
Oh the years. And the cats.
Dancing Diamond
Posted on April 10, 2010 in Cats
Late at night, I read by flashlight. We are temporarily without light in the bedroom: our new bed has forced out the floor lamps, so we must wait for the money to afford wall lights over the bed. Boadicea comes to rest beside me. She fixates on the flashlight, rubbing her chin against the lens.
I keep the bedroom door open as I read. Across the hall, another door opens into the bathroom. A mirror covers the wall over the sink and the toilet. Once I shined the light in this direction. Bowie caught it, glimmer in the mirror and squatted fascinated.
Now it has become our game: I aim The light toward the mirror; my cat watches raptly, her desires captured by the dancing diamond.
Road Kill
Posted on March 23, 2010 in Cats
Just at the point where Ridgeline Drive reaches its uttermost crest and begins to slide down towards El Toro, the blue SUV was stopped in the middle of the street with its lights on and the driver’s door open. On the left, beneath the street light, a woman was laying a gray and white tabby on the sidewalk. I looked then took another look, turned, and then parked my truck. I got out and rushed over.
“I didn’t hit it,” she said. “It was lying in the middle of the road, so I stopped and picked it up.”
“Does it have a collar?” I asked feverishly. She felt the neck. “Is it your cat?” she asked. These questions were coming because this corpse looked too much like the living body of my Boadicea. The frets of a surprise raced through me. I looked at the cat from all angles. “I think it might be. Yes, it might be, but I’m not sure.”
I lifted the limp cadaver in one hand and took it over to my truck where I laid it in the bed. Blood dripped from its nose. Its left eye blew out like a balloon, the collision having evacuated the orb from its socket. I checked it for familiar patterns. Wait, this paw isn’t right. Is it? There’s either too little white or too much white. The body seems too small. Is it Little Bo?
I laid the cat in back and called Lynn. The woman drove by. “Is it your cat?”
“I don’t know.”
Lynn had just arrived home, so I urged her to race upstairs. “Is the front door open?” I asked, sick that our other cat and our dog might be running loose. “Get inside, look for her.” Seconds of silence, then, “Here she is.” I removed the dead cat from my truck and laid it back on the street corner, in a tortellini crescent under the light where its true owner could find it.
When I got in the door, I looked for Boadicea, grabbed her and held her tight for a second. “What the fuck are you doing?” her body growled as she jumped from my hands onto the floor.
Dude
Posted on October 12, 2009 in Cats Dogs
A man we know likes to take his cat for walks in the park. The man strolls down the street and the cat — a smallish gray tabby boy — follows along. Once at the park, Dude, as the cat is known, looks around and then follows the man home. The dogs in the park evidentally don’t know what to do with this feline because I have had no report that he has been bothered by them.
There’s a bush just outside the fellow’s apartment that Dude likes to hide in. When I come back from the park with Drake, Dude likes to leap onto Drake’s back. This causes Drake to startle and do a left circle until he is behind me. Dude then tries to make friends with Drake, but my Boston Terrier will have nothing of this. He turns his face to his right, away from the victorious tabby.
“Dude,” I like to laugh to the cat’s owner, “has Drake’s number.”
Socks, the Ultimate Democat, Passes
Posted on February 20, 2009 in Cats Milestones
Former First Cat Socks is dead.
Napkins
Posted on December 26, 2008 in Cats OCD
Sometimes I can observe my compulsive peculiarities. Let me preface this by telling you about a cat that I used to have as a companion. Ambrose liked to jump in the tub while there was still an inch or two of water in it. He would stroll from end to end, lifting a paw at each step, and shake it dry before putting it back in. It might take him two or three minutes to cross the tub, but he had to have his ritual.
Tonight I caught myself engaging in a similar observance using a pile of napkins. Lynn will attest that when we go to the local soup and salad bar, I like to take a bunch of napkins. As I eat, I wipe my mouth after every bite. That’s right, I take a bite, wipe, and take another bite. It’s automatic with me and I have learned to prep myself for it properly by ensuring that I have enough napkins for the task.
Aware as I am of the habit, I choose not to break it. I have never pressed the issue, but I suspect that if I did, I would feel very uncomfortable. I avoid the company of doctrinaire environmentalists and my mother for this reason. There’s no sense in putting myself between the anxieties.
Cat and Rabbit Skins
Posted on November 22, 2008 in Cats
A few months ago, we inherited a bobcat hide mounted on brown felt. This brown-spotted, golden-skinned relic had come off a feline which was shot about a hundred years ago by the father of my recently deceased great aunt. Mischievous as we are, we could not but help offer it to Fiona and Boadicea as a bed.
They sniffed it once and then declared the rug a vile intruder who had to be hissed at and scorned. We swept it out of their reach before they used their claws.
The reaction surprised us. Some years ago, Lynn was given a rabbit-skin coat. Once when our bunnies were especially naughty, she brought it out. “See!” she said. The rabbits approached it, sniffed it, and then lied down and rolled on it.
A clever, witty line is needed here, but I am like the comedian in a vaudeville act: The animals have already stolen the show.
Doggy
Posted on July 2, 2008 in Cats Dogs
We now have a [[Boston Terrier]], a sad-eyed gentleman with a [[brindle]] coat who very quickly learned that the cats outranked him. Fiona showed him by slapping him on the nose when he tried to lick her which cat and dog owners know to heinous. Later he snuffed up one of her cat treats which led to yet another disciplining. Boadicea took her time in approaching him, but now seeks to go nose to nose which Drake does not permit: he turns away and shakes when she stretches toward him. Overall, he’s a nice guy but more Lynn’s pet than mine. The cats have sovereignty over my lap.
