Posts filed under 'Cats'
In the early hours this morning Christopher passed away peacefully in his sleep. He was a little over a month away from his 17th birthday, and his health/body had been in decline for the past few years, so this wasn’t too surprising. Even so, it’s hard to say goodbye to a cat that’s been part of our family for so long. We’re going to be getting his remains cremated, and will be placing his ashes in the same urn that Bull’s & Tasmyn’s are in. I just have to get around to creating a memorial web page for Christopher soon. Now, my “Here be Cats” page currently has more dead, than live, cats listed on it. *sigh*
It’s almost like it’s the end of an era, since Christopher was the last of the cats I originally had when I married Pookey. However, all of those cats were never quite comfortable with being around Morgan, since they were in a childless household for so long, and that was unfortunate since he wanted to interact with them so much. Thankfully because we got Gus as a kitten that was never a problem, and we plan on adopting (from KittiCo, of course!) another young cat as well. We’ll probably do that in the next few weeks. We just need to get some emotional space between us, and Christopher’s death before we do.
Goodbye Christopher, you were a good cat, and were well loved by us all.
February 8th, 2006
Posted by: Ash
Today is the 6th anniversary of Bull Pole Cat’s death. *sigh* Bull came from one of the litters my father’s cat had, and he adopted me as soon as he got his independence from his mom. He would lay on me, with his head near my own, when I watched TV, and slept tucked up by my side every night. He always took advantage of any opportunity he had to be close to me, and I miss that a lot. He was definitely a kindred spirit.
All of the cats (Bull was 13, Tasmyn 11 & Christopher 9 years old) were very freaked out when Morgan was born, since they had been in a childless household for so long. Though Bull got over it the soonest, since Morgan slept between Pookey & I for the first 10 weeks of his life because I was exclusively breastfeeding him. The only problem we had was that the first few times Bull joined the 3 of us in bed was that he ended up laying on Morgan’s legs, but I nipped that quickly in the bud. I’m sure that Bull was jealous that Morgan had usurped his place in my bed, but he wasn’t ever mean to him because of it. Bull was a very sweet cat, and didn’t have an evil bone in his body. Still, I wasn’t ever careless when it came to the cats being around newborn Morgan, as you can never be entirely sure what animals may do, even ones you know well. Plus, the fact that Morgan weighed less than any of the cats added to my vigilance.
IMHO, there is some magical quality that orange cats have… Bull was the main reason why I chose to adopt Gus, another orange cat, in the first place. I have to say that my relationship with Gus has just added to my theory that orange cats are special. Though, there will never be another cat exactly like Bull in my life ever again.
January 16th, 2006
Posted by: Ash
![[KittiCo Cat Rescue]](http://www.theshaffers.org/graphics/kittico2.jpg)
I have a new cause I’ve started donating my time to recently: KittiCo Cat Rescue. I stumble upon them when I was looking for a new cat (an orange tabby… Of course!) to adopt on petfinder.com after Tasmyn died in early June last year. Well, they had one, and so we ended up adopting Gus from them. As a matter of fact, the first anniversary of his adoption is coming up tomorrow (6/27)! I can hardly believe it’s only been a year since Gus came into our lives… It seems like he’s been with us forever! :)!!! You can find all the cats Kittico has up for adoption on petfinder.com here.
The reason I started volunteering my time to them was simply because their old web site was really, really pitiful, and I finally couldn’t stand looking at it anymore. So, I offered them my webmastering skills to redesign their whole site, and they gladly took me up on it.
<rant>
The redesign turned out very well, though it sucked big-time that I had to do an exhaustive search to find out how to fix all the formatting fuck ups Internet Explorer automatically does to any web page. I guess Micro$oft believes browser standards compliance don’t apply to them. *sigh* Needless to say, all web page designers hate that about Internet Explorer, but have to put up with it because of all the clueless people who still use it. If you still use it do yourself a big favor, and get a decent browser!
</rant>
Go take a look at it, and let me know what you think! :)
June 26th, 2005
Posted by: Ash
Pookey & I finally broke down & bought our first digital camera… It’s a Fujifilm Finepix S3100 4MP Digital Camera with 6x Optical Zoom, and it’s so sweet. We spent hours looking for the right digital camera for us: It had to have enough megapixels for photo quality pictures, a more than adequate optical zoom, and it had to be reasonably priced. When I was well into our bewildering search (so many cameras… so little patience!) I feared that we would not be able to find any one camera that would fit the bill, until I stumbled upon the Finepix S3100 on amazon.com. After Pookey thoroughly studied the specifications we decided that it was the digital camera for us! We received it yesterday, and after a close inspection, were quite content with our choice. The picture above (it’s of the willows next to the little stream behind our apartment building) is one I took with our new camera. Nice!
I also was able (with my nifty new digital camera!) to finally put a web page up for Augustus! It took me so long because of the rigamarole I would have had to go through to get pictures of Gus into my present computer. Years before when I originally did up the other cat’s web pages I had a QuickCam and a scanner to get pictures of them into my computer, but that was on my last computer, a Motorola StarMax 3240, and in computer years that was eons ago. ;)
Today is Morgan’s last day of Kindergarten… *sigh* Next year he’ll be in 1st grade, and will still be in a structured teaching classroom for children with autism, but at a different school than he’s currently at. We will sorely miss all the people, especially his teacher (Kristin Meggers) who worked directly with Morgan, at Saigling Elementary. They have made such a big difference in Morgan’s life, and have made possible all the progress he has achieved this year. Kudos to them! :)!!!
May 20th, 2005
Posted by: Ash
Hello again! We all survived the move to Plano, Texas in October 2001. Though, why American Airlines would expect Morgan, who was a 2 year old child at the time, to have a picture ID, and then search his diaper bag for contraband, is beyond me. Mindless bureaucracy is stupid, but I guess after 9/11 that’s the direction America seems to be headed in. *sigh* We’ve been here for a little over 3 years now… I’d prefer to be back in NH, but I guess you have to be where the money & the jobs are.
Texas is still freakishly flat in my eyes, but the weather here is much better than NH’s ever was. The winters are similar to late fall in NH, as it seldom goes below 32 degrees, and on the rare occasions we get any amount of snow everything closes down. Pookey & I always stay home then, because even though we know how to drive with snow on the ground, no one else here does. The summers are usually quite hot, but I’m used to the heat by now, and that’s what central air is for! Thunderstorms down here can be quite spectacular, and we get a lot more of them than we did in NH, especially during the summer. The only big downside to the weather here is the possibility of tornados. That was one of the reasons I made sure we bought a decent weather emergency alert radio before we moved down here. It’s better to be safe than sorry!
I especially love the greater variety of birds here in TX. The cardinals are quite beautiful, and we have 2 or 3 mated pairs living in the area. All I usually got at my bird feeder in NH was sparrows, some starlings, and the ever persistent pigeons. I haven’t seen too many pigeons down here, but there are a lot of morning doves. I frequently see ducks, hawks & falcons around my home as well. 
The job Pookey moved us to TX for only lasted until December 2002, then he got laid off. *sigh* Pookey then started a period (January 2003 - September 2003) of consulting as an Agile admin guru. He worked pretty regularly, and got a chance to travel quite a bit, but being without any of the benefits (i.e. insurance!) you get working for someone else was hard. In September 2003 he was rehired by the company he originally came out here to work for, as a temp, then was made permanent in January 2004. That’s where he currently is.
Morgan, was diagnosed with autism in June 2004. I had an inkling that Morgan’s developmental problems could possibly be autism, but hoped it wasn’t. Pookey, on the other hand, thought he was just severely hyperactive, and so the diagnoses hit him a lot harder.
Though, after much thought (with more logic and a lot less emotion), about it all, we have both come to the realization that he is still the same boy we know and love, and that things could be far worse than what they currently are. Thankfully, he was spared the other medical problems that are so common in children with autism. Morgan is a very intelligent little boy, and any obstacles he encounters can definitely be overcome.
Don’t get me wrong… We still grieve that Morgan has autism and that he’ll have to work harder to achieve things that come easily to other children, but none of our goals/hopes (college, independence, etc.) for him have really changed; just the way we have to go about making them happen.
He started Kindergarten in August 2004, and is in a structured teaching classroom for children with autism. It’s a small class with 4 other children (K-5th), and 3 teachers specially trained in educating children with autism. He is now learning to read, and is doing really well at it. The structured teach classroom is definitely a great place for him to be, and we see him growing with each day he goes. He loves going to school, and particularly enjoys riding on the bus to and from school, as he never had a chance (not for a lack of trying!) to ride on a bus before this year. He definitely has a joy for learning, and we are lucky that Plano has such a great special education team for autism.
Morgan has a great passion for the solar system, or anything having to do with space, and knows all of the planets by heart. I can definitely see him working at NASA when he grows up, though he’ll probably be one of the geeks behind the scene, instead of an astronaut, but who knows! Needless to say, the toys & books we have been getting him lately have all been space related, and he especially prizes his toy space shuttle/booster rocket, as he never goes to school without it.
He has also become quite proficient with the computer… He can log himself in (He has his own personal user account on each of our computers), and loves to surf the internet to visit any space/solar system related site. His favorite, by far, is NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory solar system site. We frequently have to fight to get any computer time of our own! The next Mac we get will definitely be one for Morgan!
Tasmyn passed away on June 13, 2004, due to old age. She was 17, and had a full & happy life. We all miss her. Two weeks after she died we adopted a new cat into our family from KittiCo Cat Rescue. His name is Augustus, and we all call him Gus. He’s a DSH orange tabby, and looks similar to Bull, but his chin/muzzle is whiter. He’ll be a year old at the end of March. I already love him dearly, and he’s become quite a momma’s boy. 
Christopher will be 16 at the end of March, and has gotten rather frail. I fear he won’t be with us for very long, but he could prove me wrong. He has finally, after 6 + years, gotten used to Morgan. At least he doesn’t automatically run away from Morgan now, but that may just be because he’s so old and doesn’t have the energy to run away anymore.
Well… Remember to go take a look at Pookey’s “Blog Of Doom”. I must be on my way. Take care, be well and remember next time you wave at me use more than one finger please. 
March 22nd, 2005
Posted by: Ash
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