Well, THAT was embarrassing

I took Chuckie to the vet yesterday because his belly had become increasingly distended over the past several months. That and (I apologize in advance) he's had loose stools. I was convinced he was afflicted with some sort of serious intestinal ailment. I was concerned for his well-being.

It was a bad sign when I arrived and all the veterinary assistants were like, "My, he's gotten BIG," and "Ooh, Chuckie, you're a BIG boy aren't you?" and "Wow, he's really GROWN since the last time we saw him."

Not, "Chuckie doesn't look well."

Just, "Your cat has a fat, fat ass."

They weighed him and he's now 14.8 lbs, meaning he's gained more than three pounds in less than three months.

The vet, a laid-back middle-aged biker with salt-and-pepper hair and a slight Southern accent, came in and started prodding Chuckie's enormous belly. Chuckie just lay there on the examination table, accepting it as some sort of odd pat.

"Huh," the vet said. "No sensitivity or soreness. I don't feel any unusual masses. It's not particularly firm..."

I could see where this was going.

"Chuckie here needs to lose weight."

I tried explaining to him that though Chuckie does eat constantly, we have to leave the food out because our other cat is tiny and getting smaller. Most of the time Chuckie is monopolizing the food bowl, I said, but on the off chance that Bitty comes down for a bite, shouldn't there be food out for her? Shouldn't there?

He shook his head. Separate, measured feedings from now on.

I sighed.

"You know," I said, "We got him from the shelter. I think there was a time in his life when he didn't have enough food, and now that it's always available he's overcompensating."

The vet shook his head again.

"You know, sometimes people try to tell me that," he said. "But cats just don't have that level of... cognition. It's not like they wake up in the morning and think, 'I better stock up on food now - I might be out on the street tonight.'"

He paused, and prodded Chuckie's belly a bit more, for good measure.

"He just likes to eat."

So now Chuckie gets just 3/4 cup food per day, split into two feedings. He is going to drive me bananas, I just know it. I asked the vet if it's okay to feed him early in the morning and then not again till evening.

"Or does he need a mid-day feeding?" I asked.

"No, he most certainly does not," he said.

Last night I didn't feed him because he already had been eating all day. He was underfoot the entire evening, looking up at me expectantly, like, "Oh, pardon me, you probably didn't notice, but the food bowl is actually empty."

Or perhaps I'm attributing him with too much cognition again.

Then he ate a piece of penne pasta one of the boys dropped at dinner.

Captain Chuckerpants

In the continuing saga of Jack molding our new cat Chuckie into some sort of stuffed animal-baby brother hybrid, I introduce to you... Captain Chukerpants.

"Hey look, Mama -- Chuckie's wearing underpants!" Jackie announced this morning, as if Chuckie had woken from his slumber and decided, on his own volition, that the fur covering for his privates was simply not enough. "Underpants it is!" he must have declared.

I initially was like, "Get those underpants off Chuckie," then quickly added, "Wait... let me get my camera."

Because the funniest part was how chill Chuckie was about the whole thing. I didn't see the putting on of the underpants so I'm not sure how that went down, but look at his face. There's no indignity whatsoever. He's all, "Yeah, I'm hanging out in these oversized sports-themed skivvies. What's it to ya?"

He's the cat of my childhood dreams. Instead, when I was in fourth grade, we got Fritzi. She was a sweet kitty but not so much into being dressed up in clothing. At all. I had a ruffled baby bonnet I thought was particularly fetching on her and I would put her on bonnet lock-down in my room. Also, once she got in a fight with another cat and got a claw through the ear, resulting in a permanent piercing. I would put little hoop earrings in it, thinking she looked adorable, especially when paired with aforementioned bonnet. But the expression on her face was decidedly sour. I have pictures.

But Chuckie pretty much held this pose until I was done. Then he ate some food, in the underpants. And laid back down, apparently to take a nap, in the underpants.


Finally I made Jackie take them off, for real this time.

When it was over, Jackie patted him and said, "Good boy, Chuckie."

He sure is.

Nothing can change this love

Everything is still going swimmingly with Chuckie, with the exception of one minor incident today.

I returned from having dinner with a friend tonight to find Jackie sitting sullenly at the dinner table. Erik informed me that he had hit Chuckie and just got off a long time-out. This was totally unlike Jackie, who just this morning professed to "lov(ing) cats more than anyone in the whole wide universe," who LOVES cats in all caps, who literally tried to French kiss cats ON THE LIPS until he was told they lick their butts with those same lips, which only partially deterred him.

I had a feeling I wasn't getting the whole story.

So when the boys went to bed just now I brought it up with Erik. [In the interest of full disclosure, Chuckie has been having some digestive issues since he came home. It all gets in the litter box, but it's pretty... loose. And sometimes he passes gas and it smells just like a dog fart, which if you've ever smelled a dog fart you know is about the worst kind of fart there is. Erik calls it "shit farting," one of the many phrases he coined which initially seems either redundant or nonsensical but when you think about it you say, "No, that's right. That is exactly right. It is like a pile of shit vaporized into fart form." But onward.]

Erik admitted he was in the kitchen making dinner when he heard Jackie exclaim, "Eeew! Something smells like pooooooop!"

And Erik walked into the living room at the exact moment that Jackie was swatting Chuckie in what Erik described as "the butthole region." [God, I hope no one from the Humane Society is reading this right now. Tomorrow Cat Protective Services will be knocking down our door.]

Erik ommitted this part of the story when Jackie was present because he assumed, rightly, that I would laugh. Which I did, because I am an immature jerk.

Now hitting animals is wrong and bad and I condemn it. Thankfully Chuckie didn't seem to be injured in said region. Furthermore, do you remember the story about the caterpillar? Because the moral of the story is, when one animal gets thrown out a window by my son for pooping and the next animal gets off with a swat on the butthole region for a shit fart, that is what I as a parent call progress.

World, meet Chuck

I hadn't planned on getting another cat so soon. But I was browsing the local Humane Society website yesterday and saw a picture of a gentleman named "Chuckie." Here's what the description said:

"I'm Chuckie, a good looking, classic type of guy. I'm young, and I have a lovely tabby striped coat with warm brown tones to it. My eyes are large and a cool amber-green color. I've already been neutered, and I would just love a new home with YOU!"

Meh.

But it was his face that drew me in. It had so much character, and eyes that looked sad and mellow and bemused all at once. The boy had soul.

I took the boys to see him yesterday, and though he'll never be a replacement for Mini, he's everything we could hope for in a cat and, at the same time, I can feel that he will be more than just a cat for our family. He's going to fill a gaping hole we didn't even know we had.

Everyone at the shelter loved this boy. When we visited yesterday I didn't want to say I was there to see a specific cat, so I told the gal at the front desk that we had just lost a cat we'd had for 10 years, we were thinking about maybe adopting a new one, did she have a cat that was good with people, good with other cats... before I could even finish she said, "Chuckie. You need to meet Chuckie."

When we took him into the secluded "patting room," he alternated between playing with the boys and nuzzling them while rumbling like a distant freight train.


And then another staffer told me that they have 160 cats at the shelter, but when they needed to choose one to take to visit lonely people at the nursing home, they picked Chuckie.

That's all I needed to hear.

So welcome to the family, Chuck. Make yourself at home.

R.I.P., Awesome Cat

This weekend we experienced the sudden passing off our belovedly enormous cat, Mini.

We adopted Mini while we were still in college. He was the runt of his litter, sickly and small, but I fell for his long white fur and dairy-cow big black spots.

As we nursed him to health that summer we discovered that, after being neglected as a young kitten, Mini had developed some sort of feline eating disorder where he devoured anything in sight.

Coincidentally, Erik also found that Mini liked Cheetos and chocolate pudding and a number of his own favorite treats.

I went back to school on the east coast that fall and left Mini in Erik’s care. Whenever I called I could hear a faint crunching sound in the background.

“Are you feeding the cat Cheetos again?” I’d ask.

“Um… no?” was his weak reply.

But I had my answer soon enough. I returned home for winter break to find Mini the size of a smallish Buick. Not fat, exactly, just really… solid.

When we moved to our first apartment as a married couple my grandma baked us several dozen of her famous sugar cookies. Mini chewed through the plastic bag to get to them, though I couldn’t blame him. They were delicious. He also found his way into a bag of hamburger buns and a box of dry rice.

Over the years his name took on a sort of gangster quality, like “Tiny,” the mob enforcer who weighs 425 lbs.

But he was beautiful, and he knew it. Despite his size, he had feminine little paws and a slight prance to his step. With his long, well-groomed white fur, decorative spots, and a sprinkling of sassitude, it was clear that if Mini were a person he definitely would have been metrosexual.

And he liked being the center of attention. Each year at our Christmas party he waited until the Beam Punch had been flowing for an hour or so before sashaying into the living room and plopping belly-up and spread-eagle on the floor.

“Take it all in,” he seemed to say to our surprised guests. “It comes but once a year.”

And each night Mini waited until we were almost asleep before kneading our unsuspecting stomachs with the full force of his weight on his tiny paws. Erik coined it “stab poking,” which seemed redundant until you experienced it.

Mini formed a special bond with Jack. He tolerated any pat Jack was able to give, and a few tail pulls and failed attempts to carry or “ride” him.

Every time Jack cried, Mini came to check in on him, bouncing into the room with a sweet little “mew.”

Jack took Mini’s passing the hardest, and asked me if cats get to go to heaven. “What kind of place would it be if they didn’t?” I said.

The only other person he knows who went to heaven was my grandma, who loved cats as much as he does.

“I bet Nana is patting Mini in heaven right now,” Jack said.

I bet she is. Maybe she even made some sugar cookies, this time just for him.

You rocked, Mini. Thanks for the good times.