Midnight Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

Stormy after Midnight

solo cat

How is our remaining cat Stormy after Midnight passed away? She’s doing OK, but she’s changed somewhat. She used to be much quieter and out of the way most of the time, but now she seems to have taken on some of Midnight’s attributes.

Specifically, she’s very loud when she wants food or even when she’s been fed. Midnight used to start on his food, then go over to hers, and I had to intervene. She doesn’t have to fight for her meals and tends to graze most of the day.

Her diet is also changing; she is, after all, 11, and so she’s an older cat. She used to eat dry foods plus moist foods (shreds), but now she’s also eating the pate she and Midnight both eschewed when they were kittens. I alternate between shares and pate.

Also, she’s often in the way in the doorway in the entryways; this is something Midnight used to do all the time. Now that he’s not here, she seems obliged to take on this role. The good thing is that she tends to move out of the way when I walk towards her, unlike Midnight, who would remain underfoot.

Becoming my cat, too?

Another interesting thing is that she would never come to where I sat on the sofa. She would sit on my wife’s lap or next to my daughter. But she would never do this with me because she perceived me as Midnight’s person. Now, if I scratch the sofa cushion, she’ll jump up and sit beside me. “That’s different,” my daughter correctly observed.

My daughter believes that Stormy realizes I’m mourning and wants to hang out to make me feel better. I think she was wary of Midnight being around that he might supplant her on the sofa, and she didn’t want to deal with the possible conflict. These both could be true.

Even before, she would often come up to me and rub her head against my leg or on my foot, although she does the same to chairs, the corner of the kitchen counter, and other surfaces.

I’m glad she’s still here. By the way, the banana picture was taken by my daughter about a year and a half ago. The reason it’s here now is that, though I was unaware of that photo, I put a banana on Stormy’s head, and she looked just as silly as she did here. She doesn’t seem to mind it terribly. What does that say about her, that she’s bananas?

Midnight Green (1/22/2013-6/29/2024)

my cat, I suppose

Here are the last weeks of Midnight Green. After I posted that Midnight wasn’t eating very well, some folks suggested we take him to the veterinarian. Easier said… We had taken him to the vet in September 2023, and they determined that he was “Screw-loose crazy,” which we already knew, and he resisted treatment, let’s say.

Still, we kept changing his diet giving him sundry food items that we had never given him before in hopes that something would strike his fancy.

Midnight liked to go into the bathtub and hang out there. Occasionally one of us would turn on the spigot and he seemed to enjoy getting himself wet, which was very unusual for him from his past. He liked drinking the water from there, even though he had full bowls of water downstairs.

He had this weird tendency to stick his paws into the bowl and knock them over. Moreover, his paws were almost always caked with cat litter which would get into the bowl, so we had to change his water three or four times a day.

Testing

Ultimately, my wife and daughter took him to the veterinarian again in late June 2023. They noted that he still had that personality, though now physically weaker. After a series of tests – expensive ones, I might add -they relayed that he had three major problems. One was that he was anemic. Another was that he was diabetic, with a glucose level twice what the maximum ought to have been. The third was that he had pancreatitis, possibly cancerous. The family talked and determined that there was no need to pursue any further treatments and would probably have him go to the vet to be put to sleep.

On Friday night, my daughter and I talked about death and experiences that I had had dealing with the passing of cats and family members. We discussed the fact that people can say really stupid things when people or animals die which are not particularly useful, such as “It’s all for the best.” We’re not feeling that at the moment. The talk seemed to make her feel a little bit better.

Decline

It was painful to watch him get weaker and weaker. On Saturday, I put him on the base of the fireplace. He slipped off and he couldn’t find his way back up. A couple of hours later, I was lying down in bed around noon and my daughter screamed “ROGER!!” with a curdling cry. I knew either she was in grave physical harm or that Midnight had died; it was the latter.

She was crying and she wanted her mother, who was off shopping. When her mother returned, I got a box for him to be in, using up unmatched socks to line the bottom. She and her mother cleaned the cat because his paws and tail were filthy. My daughter petted the cat for a good while she cried. My wife cried and then my daughter said she wanted me to read a blog post I had written about Midnight in 2021, which I did.

We started a playlist for Midnight, which of course included Midnight At The Oasis by Maria Muldaur and Midnight Train To Georgia by Gladys Knight and The Pips, the latter a song that she has recently purchased. Also, Green Tambourine by the Lemon Pipers, tied to the fact that when Midnight would get crazy and decide to attack me periodically, I had a tambourine on the kitchen counter to fend him off. He did not like the sound of the tambourine or the vacuum cleaner, for that matter.

Aftermath

That night, I fell asleep in the chair in my office. When I woke up, I was really tired but also very sad and I cried about Midnight when I really hadn’t done so before.

We tried to get Stormy to have her bowl where Midnight’s bowl used to be but she wouldn’t have anything to do with that. She kept looking over her shoulder, expecting him to pounce on her or push her out of the way. His place was in the back of the kitchen, while hers was in the front. Moreover, she’s now eating the pate we fed him in the latter months, so her diet may be changing, too.

We’ll miss Midnight, of course. Conversely, guests in our house won’t be terrorized by him. And someone else can feed her when we’re away.

It’s a weird thing. Despite all his strangeness, he seemed to be my cat. He would sit on my lap or he would sit next to me and put his paws on my lap. That was comforting and fine when he liked me, which was about 95% of the time. Until the last week or so, he remained an aggressive food eater. He would invariably get under foot, even running between my legs when I was trying to feed him and I would almost trip over him, occasionally stepping on him despite my attempts not to do so. It was a very challenging thing to try to give him food; he was obsessed with food until he wasn’t.

I’ll miss you, Midnight Green, Middy, That Darn Screw-Loose Cat.

Feed the cats

pâté

This is called Feed The Cats because, according to my wife, when I prepare meals for our felines, I sing those words to the tune of Edelweiss from The Sound Of Music. And I thought I always sang the chorus to Cat Food by King Crimson.

In any case, the feeding ritual had been the same for well over eight years. Give them each a quarter can of wet, shredded cat food and some dry food, his in a toy to slow him down. Then, I watch them as Midnight, after wolfing down his wet food, attempts to eat Stormy’s food. This was a process that took about ten minutes twice a day.

In the past few months, however, Midnight started to become thinner. From 13 or 14 pounds to around 10. He was drinking far more water, even going into the shower.

Meanwhile, Stormy, who had been 10 or 11 pounds, is now heavier than Midnight. The exact numbers are difficult to come by because one is weighing them while my wife is attempting to hold them. Nevertheless, even visually, one can see the difference.

So we started feeding him pâté, a somewhat drier wet food, a half can per meal. Putting out the dry food for him was pointless except to fatten Stormy.

They get fresh water at least twice daily because Midnight sticks his litter-box-laden front paw into each bowl.

More food

After my daughter looked up some remedies, we attempted to feed him a scrambled egg now and then. He eats it occasionally but ignores it other times. Ditto with an extra quarter can of pâté at lunchtime.

This begs the question: what is wrong with Midnight? If we could take him to the veterinarian, we would. But after the last visit, that’s a non-starter, as he could not be lured from the cage. His increased water consumption suggests diabetes, perhaps.

The upside is that he’s usually a bit more mellow. He is more affectionate. For a time, his meow was more like a mouse squeak, but it irritated him when I replicated his sound, which I was annoyingly good at. Now he’s back to his full-throated obnoxious-sounding self.

Cat lovers: if you have any insight, please share.

Midnight, the demented cat

the perils of doing laundry

I have written before about our demented cat, Midnight. In some ways, this is not a great photo. On the other hand, it’s rather representative of his demeanor. His arm – OK, front leg – hangs off his loft as though he were Hugh Hefner holding a cigarette at the Playboy Mansion.

Notice the deformed window treatment? That’s the result of Midnight either chewing on the curtains or kneading them. And there are three or four of them in similar conditions. My wife has talked about replacing the curtains, but I said that there’s no point unless we get something made of stainless steel.

When we have people over, he goes to the basement. There are only a handful of people who he won’t harass. And when something I can’t quite ascertain sets him off, the target of his wrath is me.

Domestic chores terrorist

Back in October, I was taking a basket of laundry down to the basement. There was a bottle of TIDE detergent that was next to the doorway, so I grabbed it to take it downstairs. Midnight, sitting on a chair ten feet away, suddenly started yowling and hissing at me. I don’t know if it was the basket or the TIDE that ticked him off, but someone dubbed him a male chauvinist feline because he never bothered my wife or daughter when they transported the laundry.

For the next three days, I was his enemy. I avoided him when I could. My wife would feed him. And I started carrying around a tambourine. Why a tambourine, you may ask? Because carrying around a vacuum cleaner was too heavy. I tried to talk to him, but when he got too close and too scary, I’d rattle the instrument, and he’d run off.

Where’s the feeder guy?

But then, a few days later, he started missing me. “Where’s the one who usually feeds me?” First, he’d get proximate to me, then a little closer. I’d go downstairs to feed him, percussion in hand, and he’d be okay. Then he became desperate for my affection. “Pet me!” And “pick me up and scratch me under my chin.” He needs to be near me and hates it when I close the office door, but I can’t write and tend to him simultaneously.

And it’s all good. Well, except for the time I was walking toward the sofa, and he ran in front of me. He’s ALWAYS getting underfoot, but I usually anticipate it. This time, I must have stepped on him, although I didn’t feel him underneath. He yowled and dug his claw into my foot. But this was a short-lived irritation for him.

Still, when he’s on the sofa and someone is petting him, he’ll suddenly bite them. He did this to my wife and tried to do the same to me. He is a demented cat.

Lydster: Midnight and Stormy

Aaron Copland

We have two cats. While they are both about seven years old, Midnight, the male black feline, is a few months older than Stormy, the female grayish one. And he is clearly the alpha beast.

This has created a problem of Midnight being overweight, and seeing them at mealtime explained why. Each of them receives a quarter can of wet food. Midnight devours this as though he had never been fed ever before. Left to his own devices, he’d bump Stormy out of the way and eat her food as well. Yes, one could stop him from stealing her food. But how do we slow him down?

Our daughter found this rolly-polly little feeder with a hole near the bottom. It sort of looks likes a tiny version of Arthur’s pet composting device, actually. Midnight’s job is to knock the device around and the kibble would come out of the hole. Meanwhile, someone would take Stormy’s half-eaten bowl of wet food and place it in a location where she could get it but he would not find it.

This is a twice-daily ritual at 7:30 Daylight Saving Time, 6:30 during Standard Time. I feed them in the morning because my wife is off to work. Our daughter feeds them at night, although she sometimes has to be reminded to leave the cave that is her bedroom.

Don’t mess with Midnightus

Midnight is quite hostile to most other human beings. He actually gets along with our contractor. He is civil enough to my daughter’s friend Kay that she can feed them while we’ve been away. But don’t take his tolerance of you as acceptance. My friend Uthaclena made the mistake of petting him, and Midnight’s claws came out. My MIL is terrified of him, as are others.

When we had inspectors visit our home for a loan, our daughter put them both in her room. Stormy wouldn’t hurt anyone, but she is terrified of strangers. One catsitter a few years back was afraid that she somehow escaped the house. Nah, she was just hiding, and she does it well.

Midnight can be quite affectionate to us. He’ll even let me put him up if I scratch under his chin before bolting. Stormy comes to people on her own terms, rubbing her body against my leg. She’ll sit on her laps if SHE feels like it.

We initially got the cats because our daughter wanted them. But my wife and I have grown rather attached to them, in spite of ourselves.

Here’s William Warfield, performing Aaron Copland’s song I Bought Me A Cat, with the composer conducting.