the cat's in the cradle. or caught in the vertical blinds.

i was reading annah's blog at http://whenredmeansgo.blogspot.com/ and she made mention (with included photos :x) of her dogs'... surprises when she comes home at night. her goggies are babies, so they should grow out of it.

but it made me think about taylor, aka papacat, genghis cat, or hot rod depending on who you ask. he's 15 now, which is like 76 years old in human years. older for him, since he was an outdoor cat and his life expectancy was about 11 years. so he's a senior. like a super senior by cat standards.

he does what he likes. he is in early stages of kidney failure (well, he was this time last year. he may be further along now) and has apparently gone deaf. he tends to pee where he wants: the kitchen floor, the patio outside (which at least the daily rains wash into the gutter), and in the pot where i was trying to grow basil.

there is nothing growing there now.

aside from his free-form urination, the suspected deafness causes issues. he yowls. i have read some stuff online where other cat owners with deaf or senile cats say their cats yowl or yell a lot. but i don't think he's senile - he seems very aware and remembers where we put the cat food, things like that. but he fucking yowls.

like he stands in front of our patio doors and YOWLS. loud enough and often enough in a short period of time to wake you from a sound sleep at midnight. and 2am. and 4am. and 5:15am. and again around 6am when mom finally pops out of bed and agrees to let him out since the sun is *just* starting to come up.

last night for instance. mom got up and grabbed him around 2am because he was all shouty. she brought him to bed with her and settled him in for a cuddle.

within 15 minutes, he was off and running again. and i finally woke up around 4am, and grabbed him for a cuddle in bed. he refused to sit with me, and ran away. i grabbed him again, and he sort of settled down...

... until piglet decided to get jealous and jump up on the bed, too, and give taylor nasty looks and sniff at his stumpy tail (which he really hates). so they both jumped off the bed. about 30 minutes later, he started yowling AGAIN and awesome husband got up this time to grab him and cuddle. taylor seems to prefer cuddling with awesome husband. he settled down for a nap, but then samantha AND piglet decided it was time for early morning cat olympics and were all over the bed and scrambling around and i had to get shouty. :/

AND THEN awesome husband threw taylor out of the bed, claiming he couldn't get back to sleep with taylor cuddled there.

so after almost 4 hours of waking up, shouting at one cat or another, catching and cuddling cats, and being angry, we were back where we started.

and with the suspected deafness, no matter HOW loud or HOW much you tell him nicely but firmly to shut the fuck up, he just DOESN'T HEAR YOU.

around 5:45am he started up again. mom wandered out and shoved his cat ass outside. and finally, we all sank into a sound sleep.

for an hour, at least.

and people wonder why i don't have children. this is why: i have three special cats. i mean, special NEEDS cats. hahaha. it's all i can do sometimes to take care of them. don't get me wrong - i love all my kittehs and can't imagine how empty my life would be without them, and taylor especially - we've had him since i was 15, he's like a second brother to me (albeit quite a bit furrier than my actual brother).

taylor cat, and yes - that is the pot where the basil was being grown.

oh, joy. he just woke up, stretched, looked up at me, and meowed. he's super cute and very handsome, especially when he's all purry. he sounds like a tank and bumps his head into yours, because he loves you. and i love him.

ps - i was about to post the blog, just finished spellchecking - and now he's snoring on the edge of the bed. very cute.