52 of 2014 - Week 45

52 of 2014 - Week 45

Theme is Focus on Music.  So, figurine of little girl with cat.  Naturally.  I did a couple of edits on this one.

TIBBOH THE TERRIBLE

In 1997 one of my coworkers had a stray cat show up in his backyard and have kittens.  My coworker decided to adopt the mother and one of the kittens and give the others away.  I don't remember how many there were.  One of our other coworkers, the lady who introduced me to my husband, in fact, took one of the kittens.  After wondering if Hobbit, my 5lb black cat of terror would accept another cat in the apartment, or eat it, I decided I would take in this last available kitten.

Hobbit did NOT eat the kitten.  I decided to name her Tibboh.  In case you can't see it immediately, Tibboh is Hobbit spelled backwards.  Yeah, I was super clever in my 20's.  It turned out to be a brilliant name and these two cats could not have been more different from each other.  One, tiny and black, and super vicious to everyone except me (and later my husband, step kids and daughter) - the other orange, white and brown and (very quickly) a literally huge bundle of love (expect she was the one that had problems with the step kids, at first).

Hobbit made it to nearly 19 years old when we had to say goodbye in October, 2010.

Tibboh nearly make it to 17 when we had to say goodbye today.

I already miss her always greeting me at the front door.  I miss her following me into the bathroom.  I miss her stalking me whenever I go to the kitchen.  I miss her accosting me as I sit on the couch.  I miss the click of the nails she'd never let me cut, on our floor as she roamed the house.  I just miss her and this absolutely sucks.  

This is the first time I have been petless since 1990.  Or 1991.  I thought Hobbit was born in 1990, but I have vet documents that show she was getting shots and fixed in 1991.  So that's over 20 years of two cats in my life.  For a good decade, it was just me and them.  Then I met my husband and my step kids and our family got bigger, but for 10 years, my cats where my home and my love.

I miss you, Tibboh the Terrible.  Thank you so much for being part of our lives.

366 of 2012 - Day 50

366 0f 2012 - Day 50. Picaboo's challenge for this week is 'Shooting With Creative Angles'. I can do that. I put the camera on the floor, aiming up at the ceiling, and tried to entice Tibboh the Terrible into coming close to have a sniff. I won't lie, the end result required a bit of force. But I promise, no Tibboh's were harmed in the taking of this photograph.

Taken with my Canon PowerShot G12, f/2.8, 1/20 sec., ISO-1000, no flash. Next time I'm going to try doing a project like this with a remote shutter release! Adjusted only slightly in Photoshop - Vibrance and High Pass Filter (but only a tiny bit in both cases).

366 of 2012 - Day 21

366 of 2012 - Day 21. Tibboh the Terrible napping with Weeb's little kitty friend. This was NOT Tibb's idea. LOL

Taken with my Canon PowerShot G12 on Auto, f/2.8, 1/20 sec., ISO-1250, 6 mm focal length, Max aperture 2.96875, pattern metering, no flash. I adjusted Levels and Curves in Photoshop, and applied an Unsharp Mask, going WAY overboard, but I liked the effect. Cropped and added text.

THE JOY OF LOVE, DAY 10

Willette Photography & More is offering a free, online photography class this February, called The Joy of Love. There's still time to sign up, if you're interested!

Lesson 10 - SPACE, WHERE THEY ARE MOST COMFORTABLE. There is nobody in our house more comfortable, more often, than Tibbs, our cat. Since our older cat, Hobbit, passed away at the end of October, Tibboh has taken up residence as Alpha-pet and with it, Hobbit's old spot on the back of the couch, behind me. I thought I would try a few shots today. Two of the three shots were using the digital macro.

AND THEN THERE WAS TIBBOH

When Hobbit passed away, it didn't seem to bother our other house cat, 14 year old Tibboh. As they hadn't exactly been best buddies, we didn't think it would make any difference to our remaining pet.

After a while, we began to notice that Tibboh wanted more affection. She became cuddly, which was odd, because she'd never been especially cuddly before. It's been very strange watching her personality change now that she is alpha-cat of the house.

Wonko and I had a chuckle this afternoon when Tibboh snuggled up to Weeb while she was watching TV. Tibboh had head scritching ideas, I'm certain. Weeb, who had never been particularly comfortable with either cat getting too close to her, was happy to share her space and offer Tibboh some attention.

It's been an odd transition. Though I still very much miss Hobbit, it's nice to see Tibboh become more affectionate, especially with Weeb.

WEE HOBBIT MCNASTY

In 1990 somebody gave my brother the smallest kitten I'd ever seen. She must certainly have been the runt of the litter. My brother said she was tiny, like a hobbit. It was the perfect name for her. He couldn't keep her, so after several days of the wee fuzzy giving our family dog what-for, and my swearing I did not want a cat, no matter how much it liked to play with my necklaces and no matter how darned cute she was, I took her home with me. She would be my sole companion for many years.

She destroyed my house. She pushed things off of counters and book shelves and would trod on my pillow (or head) while I was trying to sleep. She was partial to nibbling on loaves of bread that may have been left on counters that were certainly too high for her to jump up to (I'm pretty sure she could fly, or at least hover when necessary). One of her favorite spots as a kitten was in my kitchen sink, with the tap drip, drip, dripping on her head. She was a very odd cat.

And Hobbit did not like people. She liked me. She didn't like too many others though. And this was funny given that she was all of 5 lbs, full grown. In fact, the last trip to the vet for a nail clipping resulted in the vet asking us not to bring her back unless she was sedated. Wee Hobbit McNasty, she was dubbed, by friends. I had friends, full grown men and women who were terrified of this cat. She hated a couple of my friends more than others. She trapped one of them in my bathroom one day and would not let her out. She thought she was part puma, I think. She was definitely an attack cat and I was confident I didn't need a house alarm with her around.

She was a very good little companion. She consoled me on many a lonely night. She often entertained me by playing fetch. Little crumpled balls of paper were her favorite toy and if you threw them, she would fetch them and drop them back in your lap and wait, with some excitement, I might add, until you threw the little wad of paper again.

Later, I had a roommate and we discovered that Hobbit like coffee. She would sneak it from my roommate's coffee mug at every opportunity.

Since Hobbit had a fondness of destroying my property and keeping me from sleep, she slept in a large dog kennel that I had purchased to be her 'bedroom'. This was also helpful in toting her down many stairs during many, MANY middle of the night false fire alarms and one not-so-false alarm. Had she not been sleeping in that kennel that one fateful night, she would have had her life cut short by smoke inhalation. When my roommate and I were allowed back to our apartment the day after the fire, we noticed firemen footprints near the kennel where she slept (we had a small kennel that we moved her to in case of fire alarm). It was very touching that they spent a moment to rescue a pet that may have been left behind. Lucky, she was with us.

She was such a funny little cat. And so vocal. And she drooled when she purred. And got sneezy when she got drooly.

I got a second cat several years after I got Hobbit and Hobbit took on the roll of big sister pretty well. The second cat, Tibboh (Hobbit backwards) was very unlike Hobbit, in personality. They were like Yin & Yang. And though Tibboh outweighed Hobbit by at least 10 lbs, Hobbit was still the alpha puma... er, cat.

When I met my husband, Hobbit liked him at once. She tolerated his kids well, too. I was shocked on both counts. Several years after Wonko and I were married, we noticed that Hobbit was acting like an older kitty. Fair enough, she WAS an older kitty. She was probably 15 years old or so, at that point. She had lost vision in one eye, to glaucoma and was losing her hearing. But she kept on for several more years yet.

About a year ago we noticed more changes. She spent less time basking in the sun and more time perched behind me, on the back of the couch. She stopped grooming herself. Several months ago, we noticed she started wanting to eat more wet food and it was clear that she was drinking far more water than usual.

I just could not justify paying huge vet bills to find out that she was an old cat who was likely suffering renal failure. There isn't much that can be done for that and she HATED people so much, putting her through a load of testing at nearly 20 years of age seemed cruel and unnecessary.

Then she started peeing everywhere. We put up with it for some time. I knew what was coming. And I knew it was likely sooner rather than later when I caught her peeing into one of our heating vents. Then she got constipated and was scooting on her carpets. I stepped on little bits of poop a few times and knew what had to be done. My daughter plays on our floors, and this was getting to be a health risk for my family. But poor Hobbit wasn't ACTING sick. She didn't give me 'that look', the one your read about where people know it's time. I never got that from Hobbit. But with every day she was a little less alert. She just perched on the top of the couch and ate and drank. It was time. For my family and for Hobbit because she was certainly going to start displaying pain and I didn't want that.

So I made arrangements with the vet. For an extra fee they would come to our house. And that seemed kinder to Hobbit somehow. We sent our daughter to my folks' and the vet came. And Hobbit was PISSED! She gave the vet a run for her money, I can tell you that. And the noise! Good gravy that cat was vocal! I hadn't seen her move like that or heard her complain like that in years! It was almost funny. Almost. I was pretty certain that Hobbit was going to try and take the vet down with her.

We finally caught her (I say we, but I mean the vet and my husband because I was too busy crying in the kitchen until she was caught). She bit Wonko - hard. The vet tried to sedate her but there was so little muscle that it was difficult. I knew at that point that she was much more sick than I had realised.

Once sedated, I sat with her and stroked her head and talked to and about her. She growled for a bit, even sedated. Then the vet tried to find a vein and she's a tiny cat with tiny veins to start with, but she was so dehydrated that the veins kept collapsing. It was difficult, but I knew from that, from what the vet was saying, that my poor cat would have been displaying severe pain before much longer, had we waited. The vet had some success with finding a vein in her front leg, after failing with the hind.

She was just bones and skin, my poor girl. I didn't think it was that bad as she was still eating well. But she was very sick. Why didn't she ever give me 'that look'? I felt like I had no right to take her life away from her. Though knowing her, she did want to be as difficult as possible and fight, right up until the end.

Then it was over. I didn't think my heart could break any more than it already had. My first fuzzy baby. My friend for nearly half of my life. I know that 20 years is a good long life for a cat. I was lucky to have had her in my life. I miss her terribly. And now, a few days after her passing, my family seems 'broken' somehow. My dear 5 lb tangle of terror, my sweet Halloween cat, I miss you. RIP Hobbit. It's not the same, sitting on the couch without you behind me.