So! My cat is returning from the vet, hopefully tomorrow, with RADIOACTIVE MUTANT POWERS.

I'm so excited. I've never had a pet with mutant powers before. We thought maybe Cherry would start showing some superhero tendencies after he had his bionic leg installed, but science failed us again.

I'm mulling whether getting bitten by my cat would cause me to gain super powers too. Of course with my luck my superpower would be Advanced Hairball Throwing or somesuch.

Sandy's ridiculous appetite and annoying tendency to toss up regularly was hyperthyroidism, it seems. The way you fix that is to shoot the cat up with radioactive iodine, which kills the tumor on the thyroid gland & returns her health to normal.

Of course, this does mean we have to store her next two weeks' worth of used kitty litter for three months, lest we set off the radiation detectors at the dump and get a knock on the door from Homeland Security. (You think I am making this up. You are mistaken.)

But. Radioactive pet! C'mon, tell me you haven't wanted one all your life. Think of the potential for comic book adventures. Radioactive Cat vs. Drool Machine Dog. The ultimate battle!

However, if she wakes me up in the middle of the night with her new Glow-In-The-Dark fur, I'm gonna be pissed.

H wrote a beautiful obituary of our cat Grover, who left us on Monday. I can't add much to it. It even had the last and best photo of Grover ever taken.

I wrote a bit a couple years ago about what Grover meant to us.

Rest easily, little guy.

---

A lot of people have written, or called, or left messages of support for both Grover and Amy, our dog living with bone cancer. I haven't enough words to show our gratitude to each of you. You may have noticed that we're just a little obsessive about our pets. All your good thoughts mean the world to us.

Thank you. Thank you all.

I used the phrase "so fucking bored" in front of a friend today who gave me a slightly wide-eyed look in response and found a reason to depart the house quickly. Sorry about that. I'm working on it, I promise.

Meanwhile:

A cardiologist took thirty seconds today to poke at our elder greyhound Amy with a stethoscope. I could do an ultrasound, he said, but I'd be wasting your money. Your dog is fine.

He charged me $95.00 for this pronouncement, which I thought was a pretty good pay rate for thirty seconds of work. I have to admit, though: it was reassuring. Amy's regular vet had been concerned, and heart problems in an older greyhound are not to be ignored casually.

For his part, our younger greyhound Cherry took off running at a long gallop at the off-leash park the other day. I was so pleased: it was the first time he'd felt comfortable enough with us to go for a run.

"Wow, I've never seen a dog move that fast," said a guy standing near me. Probably true, but he was only in about second or third gear. Greyhounds at full speed have what's called a double-suspension gait, meaning that they literally bound with all four feet off the ground twice per stride. It's ferociously fast, but they rarely use it unless they're chasing down prey.

As for the cats, we like to joke that our elder cat Grover is trying to kill us. He likes to lie around in awkward places and trip us at inopportune moments. Normally we're pretty good about avoiding him. (Long practice helps.) Today, though, I tripped over him at the top of the stairs and saved myself from a headfirst plunge more by luck than by skill. I had to explain to him for the umpteenth time that he does not collect on the life insurance if we die by accident in the house.

Sandy, our younger cat, has appointed herself as Mistress of Pest Control. Spiders beware. She's got her eye on you.

I may have an Announcement to make in the next couple of days, depending on the results of an extended e-mail discussion I'm having with a few people. We shall see.

So it's our cat Sandy's birthday, which is why I'm currently letting the little nine-year-old feline sit on my desk and shed all over my stuff.

Nine years ago bubblesutonium had been getting worried about our older cat Grover, who was mopey and a little bored. "He needs a companion," she announced one day. After much discussion I grudgingly allowed as how yes, we could consider acquiring another kitten.

It took about 24 hours before I got a phone call. "Honey," said Bubbles, "you have to come check out this kitten. This woman at the office is giving her away and says she'll take her to the pound this afternoon if we don't want her."

We were all younger then. Bubbles has since learned the art of subtle blackmail.

Over my lunch hour, I drove over to Bubbles' office. As I walked down the hall I heard whispers as I passed. "Hey, that's Bubbles' boyfriend! He's coming to look at the kitten!"

I walked into her office to discover a tiny ball of orange fluff tucked into Bubbles' shirt pocket, purring up a storm.

You always have choices in life, but sometimes your choices are limited.

We brought Sandy home that night and set her loose in our living room. This, by the way, is exactly the wrong way to introduce a new cat into a household with another cat, but we didn't know any better. It was a Friday night, and we ended up throwing an impromptu welcome-new-kitten party with a bunch of friends. spoomeister spent the evening getting the kitten to chase a toy around the living room till she'd passed beyond utter exhaustion. That night she crawled onto our pillows and slept for about ten hours straight. I don't think she's slept that long at a stretch since.

Grover hissed and snarled at her for three days, until the morning she walked up and gently touched noses with him while he wasn't paying attention. He couldn't muster more than a pro forma grumble after that.

Sandy is a cutie, but she isn't the brightest bulb in the lighting section. Every time we take Grover to the vet, Sandy spends three days growling at him like he's a stranger. (She's only lived her entire life in his presence.) Once, Sandy got stuck in a dishwasher. Trying to trim her claws is an occasion for psychotic fits and the (human) blood and gore of a slasher movie. "She gets by on her looks," says Bubbles.

Still. After nine years, once in awhile she still jumps into my lap, curls up and goes to sleep while I'm working at my desk. It's awful sweet of her.

My cat has just wandered in to inform me that I'm staying up too late again, and need to knock it off and go to bed.

However, I would like to take this opportunity to note that I am, for one brief shining moment, caught up on grading in one of my classes.

This will last for about the next 11 hours, whereupon everybody hands in another four to seven pages or so.

Parenthetically, since a couple of my readers are in one of the classes I TA, I should note that some assignments I hand back may be covered with orange fur. Don't take it personally. The fur belongs to my other cat, who likes to be Helpful(tm), and has a habit of falling asleep on the grading pile while I'm not paying attention.

I keep explaining that my cat sits at my desk and waits for me to fall asleep so that she can eat my brains.

"Oh, that WoS," everyone says. "He's off on one of his flights of fancy again."

No, seriously, people. This is the face I look at as I'm working:



Wouldn't you be worried?

He's not getting any younger, but Grover - senior cat in residence, zen master of sleeping, household supervisor and laundry inspector - is one of those constants in our lives, the kind that keep you sane.

Grover came into my life as a package deal with bubblesutonium. He was a tiny stray kitten adopted by one of Bubbles' housemates in Boston, and by "adopted" I mean "scooped out of Beacon Street ten seconds before he became roadkill." In that happily chaotic household of people and pets, Grover made it known that Bubbles was his people. So, when she left for points West, he came with her. When Bubbles moved in with me, the cat came too.

He was, the vets think, part of a litter born to a mama cat with distemper. It gave him a peculiar, stiff-legged gait, almost like a soldier's, and considerable difficulty with jumping. Once in awhile his right rear leg will splay out of its own accord, stiff and stretched, leaving the poor guy lying on his side and trying gamely to get back to his feet.

Grover is a big guy, over 16 pounds at his heaviest, and full of love and mischief. He used to play a game of trying to dart out the door of our apartment if we left it open for more than five seconds, and not infrequently made me late for work by sitting on my chest and demanding pets in the morning when I should have been getting up and dressed.

My favorite Grover story: when Sandy was a very small kitten, she used to goad Grover into chasing her around the apartment. Sandy was faster and more agile than Grover, but Grover had his moments. One day during their romp Grover chased Sandy into a closet, with a door cracked just wide enough for one cat to get through. Sandy hid just inside the closet door. Grover, after a couple of tentative swipes at her, gave up and backed off, settling down a few feet away with an air of utter boredom. Sandy, thinking the coast was clear, merrily bounced up and walked out of the closet. She only got about a foot away from the closet before Grover knocked her halfway across the room. Moral: Age and treachery will always beat youth and skill.

These days, Grover is almost thirteen years old, fighting arthritis and a thyroid condition. He's thinner now. We had to get a small set of kitty stairs to let him climb up and down off of the bed. He doesn't race out of doors any more. He waits, patiently, for a door to be left open and unattended, then strolls outside ever so casually and ducks under a bush. Maybe you won't notice him for awhile.

Every night, without fail, Grover climbs up on to the bed as each of us get in and demands petting. If Bubbles is taking awhile to get into bed, he'll chase her around, nipping at her ankles. If I'm up too late working, he'll eventually wander into the office and make his complaints known. Grover has his routines and expects them to be followed.

Grover can't last forever, but we treasure every day with him that we have.

It comes up in every pet owner's life. Maybe you're leaving town for a few weeks. Maybe you're having your place painted. Maybe you're moving. Maybe you've finally gotten fed up with your roach motel apartment and decided to bomb the place.

Whatever. The pets have to leave.

Some years ago we discovered the Paradise Pet Lodge, a well-run kennel out in Woodinville. We've been back many times since.

Every kennel has the clients who can't bear to leave their pets behind. Snoogums HAS to have his favorite stuffie toy, says the tiny lady holding the toy poodle. Marietta von Smoosh, the Persian kitty with the luxuriant coat and a taste for sashimi-grade tuna, must be combed at least four times per day and MUST be petted while eating, or she won't eat.

It is for these people that the kennel created the 'kitty suites,' complete with full decorating and working televisions. Bubbles and I have seen these suites, on a tour of the place. We sneered.

This morning, I dropped off Grover and Sandy, our cats, for a stay of a month or more while we sell the house. I explained carefully that, if the cats were to be handled, Sandy must be picked up first, as she will turn into a little ball of claws and teeth if Grover is removed from her presence. I handed over a towel to be added to their area to provide a bit of "comforts of home." I explained Grover's pills. I handed over two cases of wet food and a bag of dry food, and explained how to split them appropriately. I noted that they MUST have their own food, lest they start to throw up. And then I hurried out before the cats could start mewing piteously again.

We're pathetic.