Marion Gunderson Art (and the Farmer's Daughter)

Mouser and Miss Kitty are licking the just-steeped bag of oatmeal and Carapils. (Click on photo to enlarge.)

Mouser is getting along fine at our house. For those of you who don’t know, Mouser was my dad’s cat at Gunderland until my dad passed away on July 1st of last summer. Although I really wanted Mouser to live with Bill and me, I was kind of nervous about bringing Mouser to a non-farm environment. However, so far, so good. Now that he’s with us, every time I have some quiet time with him, oddly enough I feel like it is an extension of time with Daddy.

Mouser and Miss Kitty

Sammy and Mouser

When Mouser arrived at our house we had two other cats: Sammy and Miss Kitty. After the initial getting-to-know-yous for all three cats, Sammy was fairly friendly toward Mouser. Miss Kitty would give Mouser the Marge Simpson growl that she gives to most everyone. Mouser just wanted to play with both Sammy and Miss Kitty.

All three got a tad friendlier, but not sleep-in-the-same-box friendly. Things have changed, though.

This winter Sammy’s thinness and bony spine became evident. Early on our vet thought that maybe Sammy wasn’t eating due to stress induced by a newcomer — Mouser — living with us. Of course, I felt so terrible, because I was the one who so badly wanted Mouser to come and live with us, but not at Sammy’s expense. However, after spending a few days at the vet clinic for tests, in mid-February Sammy was diagnosed with a form of cancer.

Mouser and Sammy after Sammy returned home from the vet clinic.

When Sammy returned home, Mouser seemed to hover around him and kind of protect him from Miss Kitty’s more frequent hisses and spats. About three weeks later, Sammy went to cat heaven. (By the way, there is such a children’s book called Cat Heaven by Cynthia Rylant. She also wrote and illustrated Dog Heaven. For anyone who has lost a dog or cat friend and therefore could use a little TLC and also a twinkling smile, I recommend these books.)

Miss Kitty now seems a bit nicer to Mouser. It’s probably just that they’ve had more time to get used to each other. And, maybe they both miss Sammy. Tonight they both enjoyed licking the bag of oatmeal and Carapils after it had steeped. (Bill and I used those ingredients in making a home brew clone of Blue Moon.) Now Mouser and Miss Kitty are sleeping in the same box.

* * * * * * * *

…More about basketball in a day or two.

(Click here to go to Louise Gunderson Shimon’s blog’s home page.)

This entry was posted on March 26, 2011 at 11:52 pm and is filed under Books, Children's. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.