Crazy - but that's how it goes

[lizblackdog]

Mum's gained enough strength from the electrolyte drip to start being irritating. That has to be good news, doesn't it?

She woke me up this morning phoning from the hospital. She wanted me to spend the afternoon at Grimmauld Place waiting for the NTL people to come and take away the cable/broadband box. If I'd had a bit more than half an hour's notice (Mum was quite sure she'd told me, but she was wrong there) and if it hadn't been brutally hot* I might have agreed to do it. As it is - sod them. I already have to go shopping for her and bring her more things and feed the cat, but I can do all that this evening. I felt guilty even as I was saying it, but fuck them. They'll just have to turn up some other time.

Took the dogs for their morning walk and ran into Spike's girlfriend Ella and her mum out in their front garden. She's tried to register at LJ but hasn't yet found a username she likes that someone doesn't already have - I hope she does, it'd be way cool to have a dog person here that I see in Real Life. Her evil cat, beautiful yellow-eyed Rio, teased my dogs by popping in and out of the bushes at the side of the house**, and he and the dogs caught me at a bad moment and pulled me over... I didn't let go of the leashes (I never do) but I have a lovely bleeding scrape all down my left arm. We told dog-related injury stories and bitched about flexi-leads and yucca plants. I love Ella, she and Spike are two of a kind and I can't wait to show pictures.

it's way too fucking hot today. I've decided to do the hospital-Grimmauld Place run in the easiest way possible, which is from here to the hospital by bus, back to Grimmauld Place to feed and pet Maisie and walk home from there. This means leaving my dogs alone here for longer than I ever have before, and I already feel guilty as hell about it, but I don't have the harness yet, Mum's doctor said this morning that she'll likely be in for several weeks. That means I need to save my strength.

just had a long phone call with sister T. she's not in a happy place. her sprog is due in a week and could appear any day now. she isn't allowed to visit the hospital, she's having trouble driving and she's in the middle of moving house.

We've decided that Maisie needs to be temporarily rehomed while Mum's in hospital. I don't think it's fair to her to be alone so much for so long - she's an affectionate cat used to lots of attention and she misses Mum terribly when she's gone. Also T. says the extra effort walking there every day is too much for me. I'm quite prepared to do it but I have to say I'll be a great deal happier if I don't have to. It'll make it easier to burn Grimmauld Place to the ground do a serious spring clean and de-junking anyway.

We've elected our sister E. to be the cat surrogate. She has a nice place in London and she quite wants a cat (she's been considering having one of our kittens) and her partner works from home and although Maisie'll have to get used to living somewhere new, at least it'll be with familiar people. This is important. Maisie's a shy cat and takes a long time to trust new people. T considered asking her in-laws to take her, but Maisie's never met them and they already have cats - Maisie's a small wussy cat and her relationships with other cats usually consist of being bullied by them.

T. asked me if I'd looked up Mum's symptoms on the 'net yet. I haven't. At the moment I'm scared of what I might find out. It's not like I can do anything about it anyway.

*anyone who tells me I don't know what hot is and it's much hotter where they are will be slapped with a wet fish and possibly defriended. I'm REALLY not in the mood.


**yes, they are indoor/outdoor cats. I don't believe that necessarily makes someone a stupid pet owner, depending on the cat and where you live - and she lives at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac where the cats are on a first-name basis with all the dogs and people who live there and the only road nearby is a dead end where nothing goes faster than 5mph. Would I let my cat out if I lived there? I don't know. I do know that she generally knows where they all are. It's another argument I'm not prepared to have in my journal today, in any case.

Comments

[lizblackdog.livejournal.com]

I think that over most of England (as long as you're not on top of a fast busy road) the risks to the cat are low enough that the benefits outweigh it. That's not the case in a lot of the US though, so most of the American cat-owners believe that cats shouldn't ever be let outdoors.

...if I lived in a place with coyotes, raccoons and bears I might agree with them.

[bites-the-sun.livejournal.com]

I agree with you. In the UK, as long as you're not somewhere very, very urbanised, bang next to a main road or in an area full of psychos, it's pretty safe for your cat to be outdoors. Our family has had cats that lived to 22 years old. VCats are territorial anyway, and mostly never stray from a set route of a few gardens.

Plus, I've known cats so eager to putdoors they literally tried to jam themselves through open upstairs windows half their size.

In areas full of predators, I agree it's stupid, but I kind of feel sorry for UK who are kept indoors all day on their own.

[lizblackdog.livejournal.com]

exactly, about the territory. Mum's Maisie goes outdoors, and she basically stays in Mum's back garden, one of the next door gardens or the little courtyard where the garages are at the back of that. She's never gone further because she'd be in some other cat's patch if she did. She can be seen out of the bedroom window and she also comes when called.

Some cats need outdoors more than others. Maisie's kept indoors through the winter and she's never been unhappy about it. She'd actually be fine as a purely indoor cat if she had to be - it all depends on the individual cat.

[hellfire82.livejournal.com]

don't forget the snakes, possums, armadilloes (those things are MEAN), and redneck asshats with bb guns and nothing better to do than aim at animals for fun.

[bloolark.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the last line.

There are coyotes that regularly kill cats in Vancouver itself. I'm close enough to the wilderness out in the burbs that we see black bears at our neighborhood parks. There's no WAY that I'm letting the cats out. (Plus, close to a major street and a highway.)

I do completely understand that different people live in different environments and that in many places it's completely fine to let cats out and they have no massively insane risks against them. I just haven't ever lived in those places, sadly.

[lizblackdog.livejournal.com]

That's it, I wouldn't either with wildlife like that around. We're lucky here. Biggest predator here is a red fox and they'd have to be cornered by an attacking cat before they'd hurt one. And the only venomous snake we have is the adder (Vipera berus), and they're small, shy, non-aggressive, not very common and not very venomous.