It got cold enough this week to turn the heat, which along with the birch leaves covering the brick path makes it feel like fall.
The Japanese maple turned red overnight.
And the Boston Ivy — a work in progress — turned a *bit* more red.
We might have tried to keep the heat off a bit longer, but it starts to feel pretty cold in the house when the outside temps don’t get above the low fifties. We also didn’t want the cats to be shivering all day. Clio’s still recovering from dental surgery, which is going to take some time. She’s on a multi-day painkiller but seems alert. The biggest problem is that Zephyr doesn’t quite recognize her, which means she’s dealing with a sore mouth and a hostile cat she’s known for years.
Here’s Zephyr looking down the stairs with suspicion at the strange cat sitting in the ferns. Why do cats not recognize each other? Apparently it has something to do with smell; it’s one of the things about that makes them seem so foreign to each other after they’ve been separated for even a short period of time (or by a window). They make even the most basic interactions very complicated. (Unlike humans, who never complicate anything lol.)
Mostly we wanted to keep the heat on for Elektra, who in addition to chronic kidney disease is battling an untreatable polyp, which started in her ear and is now affecting her left eye and mouth. These are both conditions that commonly afflict older cats.
One of the hardest things about adopting animals is knowing that one day you’re going to watch them die, and I fear we’ve reached that stage with Elektra. Over the past few months, she’s been losing weight and her balance is precarious because of her ear. But she seemed mostly comfortable, going through her usual routines with feline diligence. But yesterday she seemed to be in a new kind of distress — she was agitated and trying to drink out of the bathtub faucet — which our vet attributed to dehydration. This wasn’t unexpected (we went through a similar process with Dante a few years ago) and we still had the supplies (except for the actual bag of liquid).
We started giving her subcutaneous fluids and she already seems much calmer. It’s hard to say how long she’ll last. Dante only made it a few months once he reached this stage, but I have friends whose cats have gone a year or two once they start taking fluids, which almost seems like enough time to pretend that it’s not really an end.
Right now, she’s sleeping, and it’s a bright day in — or at least above — the garden.
