7/21, or The Cat Who Killed My Blog

I didn't mean to stop blogging (I enjoy having it for myself more than anything else -- I've always assumed that my readership is very limited). But it happened because we got super busy last summer and I got out of the habit. But I mean to start again.

Our beloved cat, Betty, accidentally got out on May 31, 2011. We got her back on July 21, 2011. We were having lots of work done on the house and the storm doors were off. She's very social and was standing next to Ed while he waved goodbye to me and Elliot that morning. Elliot was waving especially vigorously and Ed had the door open, waving back. Betty, who was not trying to get out, got too close to Ed's legs and she went the wrong way when he tried to shoo her back in.

We called up a pet detective right away, Danielle Robertson of compassionatepetservices.com. Here's the summary of our story that's on her site:

"Betty is an indoor-only cat who accidentally got out at the end of May. She is a skittish, formerly feral cat, and I knew it would be difficult to recover her, so I called Danielle within a day. She told me exactly what to do and came out to my home to assist with searching and setting up feeding stations with motion-activated cameras. She improved my posters and helped me figure out where to place them. We were in touch throughout my search and I appreciated her calm and scientific approach. We got a picture of Betty in my next-door neighbor’s yard one week after she was out and then didn’t see her again. After a month had gone by, Danielle helped bring in a colleague with a search dog, who did a track that led us to expand our poster/flier area (consistent with Danielle’s recommendations based on Betty’s personality, background, and the amount of time she’d been out). That led to a credible sighting about 1/4 of a mile from my house. We set up a feeding station and got Betty on camera 4 days later! We botched our initial trapping attempt (we were using a drop trap instead of a cage trap since Betty is trap-shy, and didn’t get enough tension on the string). Betty stopped coming, so we took the trap away. Once she was eating at the spot regularly again, we put it back, heavily camouflaged with foliage, as recommended by Danielle. On July 21, my husband took food to the trap and Betty was waiting. She ran off when he approached, so he put the food under the trap and waited in the car for her to come back. When she did, he pulled the string on the pull-stick and trapped her. We are so happy to have her home and she is back to snuggling everyone in the family. We absolutely could not have gotten Betty back without Danielle’s calm guidance and arsenal of cat-recovery techniques. I would recommend her without reservation to anyone who needs help finding a pet."

Anyway, it was a grueling 52 days. Looking for a cat is a part-time job and Ed and I both sacrificed a lot of workouts and sleep to make sure we were doing everything we needed to do. Once we had Betty back, we took it easy for a few weeks, and by then I was emotionally drained and out of the habit of blogging.

But that brings me back to 7/21. This year, on July 21, we welcomed a beautiful baby girl, Anja Marie. We are absolutely in love. Having done this once already, I am much more excited about relaxing and enjoying my maternity leave -- whereas with Elliot, I wasted a lot of time feeling anxious about not being productive and getting stuff done around the house. July 21 will always be a special day in our family -- it's the day that two of our beloved girls came home.

I have a lot of catching up to do on the blog, so despite what I said about relaxing on my maternity leave, I'm hoping I will have a few spare moments to start writing again.

Betty

Our poor cats aren't getting quite the attention they used to, but they seem to be adjusting fine. Lola continues to ignore all of us and Betty enjoys being near Elliot (but not too close). Here are some pics from a recent photo session with Miss Betty.

Synchronized snoozing

Sometimes I think they are getting along just a tiny bit better now that there's a new "kitten" around.



(Lola's on the left and Betty's on the right.)

And from the archives (last year), synchronized catloafing.

Oh hai

I'm in ur haus, lying on ur baby things.

luv,
Betty

The cat tree

This is cute! And very unusual. Betty and Lola usually hang out farther apart from each other.



Whereas this... this is a crime against nature.

He blogs

Ed has been doing a little blogging of his own. He wrote up our visits with his classmates in Zurich and Paris on the SF08 blog.

Betty likes to supervise us while we're blogging.



A few weeks ago, we attended our final Sloan Fellows Orientation Dinner. The theme was "A Night at the Oscars." Ed got to wear his tux and I trotted out a dress Ed got for me in a consignment shop (Ultra Gal) in Noho shortly after we started dating in 2001. It's full-length with a crinoline, which made it a bit difficult to drive to the dinner. :) Here's Ed's account, along with some additional photos.

What we've been up to

Snuggling Miss Betty.



More snuggling. (We try to provide equal snuggling opportunities for Lola, but she usually prefers to supervise from afar.)



Hosting Brad en route from Reykjavik to DC. The kittehs, they flock to him.



Being disappointed by Law & Order. You're on national TV. Get a copy-editor!



Finishing up the kitchen. The kitchen is almost done -- pics to come later!

Volunteering at the Children's Room, an organization that helps grieving families, for the National Day of Service. There was a great post about this on EmilyStyle, which is where I found the USA Service web site and signed us up. It ended up being perfect for us. We worked with a team to assemble IKEA Billy bookcases (which I can almost do blindfolded) and secure them to the walls. We loaded them up with books. The bookcases needed to be shimmed, so someone bought a package at the hardware store and Ed used a butter knife to score them. We had a few tools with us, but we should have brought more. :)



Afterward, Ed and I sealed an outdoor bench with tung oil. He noticed some areas in the basement that needed a professional's attention, so he wrote up a brief report with some recommendations. All in all, it was very satisfying. We were really impressed with the work that the Children's Room is doing. I'm sure we'll be involved with them in the future.

Betty is safe!

Betty's claws were torn from her ordeal. Here she gets a soothing betadine soak.



---

Last night Betty got spooked and ran out our back door. She is an ex-feral and I've always been terrified that she'll get out and we'll never see her again. (She is very skittish, not to mention fast, and I almost always have a hard time catching her in the house when it's time for her dental rinse.) Ed chased her through the yard (for the first lap, he was running in his socks, and we have around a foot of snow on the ground) and when I got home I chased her too. I had my hands on her but she wriggled free and climbed up a tree. Every time we called to her she would climb higher.

We didn't know what to do so left a ladder against the tree and a trail of food into our open basement. We couldn't sleep so kept checking throughout the night, but no Betty. It was 20 degrees outside and I was sick with worry.

This morning I started calling around to see if we could get a tree-trimming place to come by with a bucket truck. I also called the Animal Rescue League of Boston -- they have a rescue service. I saw my neighbor from across the street and told her what happened. Her husband is a landscaper and called me right away. He said he's been involved in many cat rescues and that often the bucket truck just makes things worse because of the noise and the stranger in the bucket. So we were banking on the tree-climber from the ARL.

I was distraught and antsy because there was nothing to do but wait for the ARL guy. Kris came by to keep me company, reminding me of Elizabeth Zimmerman's admonishment to "knit through every crisis."

Around 3 p.m. Ed decided to make an attempt to climb the tree while we still had daylight. We fashioned a cargo strap into a swiss seat and found a (real) carabiner that I used to use to hold my keys. He ascended our 24-foot ladder and tied himself to the tree. Rachel came by to keep me company. Ed put Betty's bed and some food into a bucket on the end of a long pole to see if he could get her in there. No dice. Just then my neighbor John came to see how we were doing. He left to get more supplies from his landscaping business.

John came back with a climbing harness like the kind used by telephone workers. He coached Ed through everything. (Also, thank goodness for the day-long rock-climbing lesson we took in Acadia in 2006.) Ed climbed all the way to the top of the Canadian Hemlock where Betty was perched, 40 feet up. John would spot branches for Ed and let him know which ones would hold his weight, as well as keeping the rope taut so the tree wouldn't move too much. The tree was about 3" in diameter at the top where Ed and Betty were.

(At this point the ARL guy called, very apologetic, to say he was busy with another cat in a tree and also a coyote who got hit by a car, plus two other rescuers called in sick, so he couldn't come until tomorrow.)

Betty can't really meow under normal circumstances (long-term damage from the pneumonia she had as a feral) but she managed to make some surprising mewing sounds when Ed got close. She kept trying to move away but as soon as Ed got his hands on her she calmed down and grabbed onto his shoulder. We raised a bag and he put her in it and lowered it down. I ran with her into the house.

Then Ed climbed down. We thanked our neighbors profusely. Now we're all in the house. Rach is still here and my BIL is coming by with BBQ. Betty is fine. She has some nasty scratches on her nose and lost some claws. We cleaned her up and she gobbled up some food. Now she's pretty much acting like nothing happened. We will be triple-checking all doors from now on when we leave and enter. But I think she probably learned her lesson. This was one of the worst days of my life. I'm so glad it turned out okay.

And to my friends with kids: I salute you. I worried so much about Betty and she's not even a child. I am completely drained of energy. You all must have super-human worrying capacity.

A final thought: John and Teresa from across the street and Colin and Susan (our neighbors who own the Canadian Hemlock) were awesome. I should be more social. :)

The end.

Snow!

We had two snowstorms, one a week ago today and one last Sunday. Ed did a great job clearing a path around the house, which Lola was able to enjoy a few times this week. There have also been a few times when she hated it -- it's been cold! We had a warm spell over Christmas and now a lot of the snow has melted.

Nap time

Nom nom nom

Lola Bernanke

Lola is working hard on solving the financial crisis in her sleep.

(The reading material upon which she's draped herself: Forbes, A Random Walk Down Wall Street, Worry-Free Investing, and Irrational Exuberance.)

The Great Kitty Rescue of Aught-Eight

Betty and Lola mostly ignore each other, but are usually within 10 feet or so of one another. Cats are weird like that. So when I saw Lola sauntering out of Ed's closet this morning (the door was accidentally left open -- closets are generally cat-free zones), I was pretty sure Betty was in there too.

Sure enough, we couldn't find Betty after searching the house. We didn't even hear her distinctive bell. (Both cats have tags and bells so we can find them easily in the house. Although it was unplanned, the different metals in their tags -- stainless for Betty and aluminum for Lola -- make it easy to tell who's who without looking.)



Ed got out a flashlight and found Betty in the unfinished part of his closet, which is over the stairs.



She had managed to creep down into the area in the ceiling above the stairs and under the particle board (through a tunnel with 5" of clearance). Betty is just 2/3 the size of Lola, so she fits into tight parking spaces. Ed pried up the floorboards to get to her.



Betty, no worse for the adventure, immediately ran off to snorgle with the catnip cigar.

Ed took these photos even though I didn't ask him to. He wanted to make sure I could blog the rescue ops, which took place after I left for work. :)

A very busy few days

I turned in my last paper on Friday at noon. Yay! Ed and I then went to a graduation luncheon for the Sloan Fellows and then I headed out for a bike race. I stayed with my teammates Silke and Pauline and my former teammate Marianne in Bennington VT. We had so much fun talking and laughing. The race, on Saturday in Cambridge NY, was awful. I think I sweated off all my sunscreen before we even started. It was just so hot and I was so miserable. The hills were unusually painful. I quit after one lap, as did Marianne (who needed to save her legs for a big MTB race the next day), and we cooled off in the shade. Silke soloed the second lap and won decisively.

I had the following encounter at a Cumberland Farms where I stopped for some junk food. The man in front of me in line was sporting a FULL plumber and was buying a six-pack of cheap beer and some cigarettes. I was trying to avert my eyes from the plumberly glory.

plumber guy: Which lottery tickets are $2?
clerk: (very politely) The ones that say $2.
plumber guy: (long pause) Okay, I'll take one of those. (He pays and leaves.)
clerk: (to me) I'm so sorry about that.
me: (not sure how to react)
clerk: (earnestly) Working here is killing my faith in humanity.

He was very much like Ed must have been at his age when he worked at a video store. It made me chuckle all the way home. If I were a single 18-year-old living in Hoosic, NY, I would have totally tried to get his number.

After that it was back home on scenic Rt 2 (including a sighting of the very strange Big Indian Shop) and I finished listening to the abridged Guns, Germs, and Steel. I stopped in at another Sloan Fellows party. Brad, Kris, and I shared some early birthday pie with Ed (his birthday's today!). We again went with 8-bit architecture for the birthday candles.



On Sunday the kitties sort of called a truce.



Then Claudia and I rode the tandem. :) And it turns out many roads around here are totally ripped up right now. Apparently this is especially not fun for the stoker.



Afterwards Ed and I had some people over for dinner, I think for the first time since I started graduate school. Yesterday it was back to work and then off to a Syracuse networking event downtown. Now I'm enjoying being in for the evening and I'll probably skip the track tomorrow, just because it's so nice to be home. I need to sleep.

What I Am Doing Right Now

- Not writing my final paper. Argh!
- Keeping the spray bottle at the ready in case Lola chases Betty up the stairs again.
- Thinking about going to my sister's house soon to let Lani out for her midnight pee break.
- Hurting from a 8hr 30min training week, including 5 hours of tandem riding. That used to be a rest week for me back in 2000 and now that volume is like a training camp or something. Geez.
- Looking forward to picking up Edward at the airport tomorrow afternoon!

Home again

My class last week was so much fun. I got to sit with two of my favorite classmates, Lisa and Chris, with whom I started the program.

We had some good times outside of class, including drinks with our favorite associate dean, another visit to Dinosaur BBQ, and a round of afternoon tea that turned into a 8.5-hr talkfest. (These were some interesting and tasty drinks at Unique Tea House -- Chris had the "Green Night Elf.") I will miss them! Fortunately Lisa lives within a couple miles of my house and Chris has friends in Boston, so it won't be too long before I see them again. I have one more short paper to do before I'm done with school.

I got home late Friday night and had watched all my saved-up TV within 24 hours. Now I can start on the stack of books I've been piling up as a reward for finishing school. Oh, and the laundry.

On Sunday, Kris graduated from Tufts. I'm so proud of her! I managed to find some sock yarn in Tufts colors at etsy to give her as part of her graduation gift.



I snuggled with four different dogs at her graduation party and elicited no additional interest from Lola and Betty after I got home.

Betty is settling in well. She and Lola were within 3 feet of each other on the bed for an hour this weekend. They're not friends, but they tolerate each other. Once in a while they get a little feisty -- this morning they had a skirmish that woke me up briefly at 4 a.m. Betty likes to herd me once I start getting ready for bed. It seems to be her favorite part of the day and I like having the reminder to stop staying up so late for no good reason.

Ed is in Bombay on the Sloan Fellows international trip. We've had a couple of conversations on Skype. We got video to work last night -- it was great to see him. He's having a great time. He usually feeds the turtle, Benita, but now I'm on turtle duty as well. I actually said something to my sister yesterday about how I couldn't come over until after I had "fed the animals," as if I lived on a farm or something. ;)

I'm re-starting my training this week. It's kind of hard to get back into my pre-grad school habits but I'm working on it!

The home front

Ed is doing a wonderful job cat-wrangling back at the compound. Betty whisper-meows at him all the time (she can't make any noise because of damage from the pneumonia -- it's permanent, but she gets by). Lola and Betty can now hang out in the same room as long as they're supervised. Betty is apparently tougher than we thought and is good at standing her ground and maneuvering herself into an unassailable, superior position (such as the couch arm) when Lola gets a little feisty. Here she is admiring herself in the mirror.

Betty

We're hanging out in the spare room with our new kitty, Betty, right now. We picked her up earlier today from two of my co-workers who volunteer with the Billerica Cat Care Coalition. Betty was rescued from a feral cat colony near the Wal-Mart in Tewksbury last fall. She and her kitten, Widget, both had upper respiratory infections, and Betty had pneumonia as well. I met Betty and Widget at a "meet-and-greet" at the local Petco when Kris and I were shopping back in December. They were a package deal, so as much as I liked Betty, I was really sure we didn't need 3 cats. I ran into my co-worker who was fostering her a couple weeks ago, and she said Widget had just been adopted separately. So we applied for Betty and now she's chilling in Ed's lap because she's kind of nervous.

These photos were taken a while ago for her PetFinder profile. We'll post some new ones later. She's gorgeous! She looks like she could be Lola's sister. Which I guess she sort of is now. :)

Betty:



Widget (left) and Betty: