So I have just returned from one of the most bizarre 24-hour periods of my entire life, I think.

My mom has a cat that I pawned off on her many years ago, having pretty much achieved my limit of foundlings at the time. Snow had originally belonged to a neighbor who moved off and left her to fend for herself, and after a few years of that and never allowing me to get near her, she finally made friends with me. My mom has always been a little partial to “pretty” kitties and Snow was, true to her name, a solid white semi-long haired cat who needed a home, so of course I orchestrated the whole thing and basically she couldn’t refuse, and the two went home together about, I don’t know, 14 or 15 years ago and have been best friends ever since.

I always had an idea of her age because I knew the neighbor who originally owned her fairly well and knew when she had acquired Snow, so she is pretty close to the 20-year-old mark - even older than my elderlies. And has really been in great health all this time until fairly recently when she was having some problems. But she improved and has really been doing pretty well ever since.

But we’ve, of course, known she was really, really old for a cat, and have sort of been in that trying to be prepared for her time to come any time now for the last couple of years or so. You know, you don’t want to think about it, but when I look at my oldest cat now in failing health and knowing that Snow was significantly older than mine in cat terms - well, you know.

So the other night, my mom lets me know (though I didn’t read it until yesterday morning) that she can’t find Snow. Snow has not been outside (nor even tried to go outside again but once, a long time ago) in the 14 or 15 years she’s been at Mom’s, and while she has her napping and hiding places like any other cat, it was unusual for her to not be seen before Mom went to work, when she came home for lunch, AND after she got home from work. And VERY unusual for her not to pop up when I walk in the house as I did yesterday - but I’m getting ahead of myself.

So of course, we feared the worst and knew that time had probably come; that more than likely, she had curled up somewhere and gone to sleep and just didn’t wake up.

What we didn’t count on was the cat just having VANISHED into thin air, apparently.

When I finally read the e-mail yesterday morning and called my mother and confirmed that Snow still hadn’t turned up, I thought about it for a few minutes and then knew I was getting on the road. I didn’t even call her back to let her know I was coming, I just figured I’d throw some stuff together (thinking at the time I’d come back to Memphis later that night) and drive up there and find her before Mom got back home from work. Even though Mom had said she’d already looked all over the house, though there were a few spots she hadn’t checked yet that were hard to get to without a ladder and such like that.

So that was my master plan - I figured yep, I’ll drive up there, I’ll have found her by the time Mom gets home, then we’ll bury her in the back yard or something, and I’ll drive back. Snow’s never been much of a hider and we know all her usual places plus the rare ones she does go hiding in, like underneath my bed up there among the mattress springs. I had no doubt that by the time the sun went down Thursday night, she would have been found. I was just SURE I would find her by the time Mom got home from work, but at the very least, was certain we would find her by the end of the evening.

So I get there and unlock the door and walk in.  No white cat comes out to greet me (which was really what I was hoping most, of course - that me showing up would finally bring her out - though I knew it was unlikely and was pretty sure wherever she was, she was no longer alive). I start searching pretty much ALMOST everywhere, though there were a few places I needed to look more thoroughly but couldn’t locate a flashlight. But after a couple of hours, I had done a pretty thorough search of the most probable places in the house and even some fairly improbable.

Then I went outside to look, and locked myself out of the house. House keys, car keys, cell phone, and pretty much anything I would have liked to have had for the next two hours - sitting on a chair in the kitchen. The only possible way I could have gotten back in was through the basement, but I knew the door at the top of the basement stairs was bolted and locked twice because - yeah, go me! - I’d locked it back myself after going down there to look for Snow, even though I knew good and well she couldn’t have gotten down there.

So having nothing better to do for a while, I walked around the neighborhood a couple of times looking for her. We were pretty sure she hadn’t gotten out of the house - there was one single moment she could have, but we thought it pretty unlikely too, or at least unlikely she wouldn’t have been seen doing it. Plus she’s a little skittish around people she doesn’t know. That cat getting out and not winding up practically right back on the front porch crying to get back in - also unlikely.

At some point, I knew what time it was because of something I totally forget about living in the city as I do - the courthouse clock chimed four o’clock. So I watered the lawn and the plants outside, since there was nothing better to do, and looked around for other stuff to do but found nothing else I could really do to make myself useful without certain things that were, nay, inside the house that I’d locked myself out of. So at that point, I figuratively throw up my hands and take a seat in the rocker on the front porch and wait for Mom to get home from work. Once she did, aside from our break to go grab some Italian food for dinner, the search began again.

I am telling you we have looked EVERYWHERE in that house, all places probable as well as totally improbable. I have crawled up in the top of closets with ceilings taller than two of me. We opened doors and cabinet doors that have probably not been opened in three years. After I searched under the aforementioned bed again, we eventually picked up the mattress and turned the box spring upside down and looked again just to make absolutely sure. We’ve looked in the dishwasher, the washer and dryer, the stove, and every other appliance that wasn’t open anyway but just to be sure. We’ve looked in trash cans (under trash that was already in there), toilets, behind and under and top of every single thing there is in the house to get behind or under or on top of. By this morning and totally baffled, we were looking in places a mouse would have had a hard time squeezing into, much less a cat, just to be sure.

We have looked at and in and around every single inch of that house. It’s like she just evaporated.

Now, common sense would tell you okay, she just got out. But we really don’t think so (though going to keep looking). And granted, as much as we love her, if there’s a deceased cat somewhere in that house, it’d be nice to find her BEFORE she’s inevitably found due to other reasons I don’t think I have to describe in detail.

But I am 99.9999999% sure that cat is not in that house. I’m STILL trying to think of places she could be, but I swear to god I have looked at and poked around in and shined a flashlight in every single solitary inch of that house that she could be in.

And I’m almost as sure she is not outdoors. Yes, common sense would tell one that, but you just don’t know this cat. It is so very, very unlikely in her case, but even if she did, it would have just been impossible for her not to have been seen exiting the house by the two people that could have.

We are grieving and sad, of course - she’s been a part of the family for such a long time - but after the last 24 hours and much more than that, we are simply dumbfounded. I have never experienced anything like it. We’ve had a million cats (well) since I was a kid, I know what cats do. We scoured every centimeter of the house, two and three times over in most cases. She disappeared. Vanished. Again - like she just evaporated.

I of course have a LITTLE hope that she did get out and maybe someone found her and took her inside, but that cat is skittish around ALL people but us and certain members of the family - I don’t see it happening. Traffic’s not really a danger in the immediate area - we’re close to downtown, but not THAT close. Other animals - possible but unlikely, besides, she lived on the streets before, she’s not un-street-smart.

I’m just really going with the vanished into thin air thing right now, after expecting a million times to find her any second yesterday and last night, for hours. If she’s in the house, I guess we’ll find out sooner or later (sooner probably). But I can’t imagine where because I’ve been EVERYWHERE in that house now, and beyond. It beats all I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot with cats in all these years.

I wish I had a picture but I don’t seem to have one on this computer, but she’s just your basic solid white cat with orangey-sorta eyes, medium haired - mostly short, not long - not real big but not that little either.

Well, so anyway, if you’re in or around the downtown Paris, TN area and see a solid white cat - please catch her if you can, and get in touch with me, and even if you can’t catch her, please let us know where you saw her. (PS She is a total fiend for tuna.)

I don’t think she’s out there, though. I don’t know where in the world that cat is - or at least her physical self - but I’ve about decided wherever she is, it’s not anywhere in this plane of existence the rest of us are in. Jeez. Dumbfounded, just totally and completely dumbfounded here.

So I’m trying to get caught up this week on some things that have been waiting to be done for months, so that I can move on to other stuff I need to get to work on and not still have all those pushed-aside projects hanging over my head on the back burner.

In the process, I discovered an old post about one of my cats that shocked me because I had NO idea this cat had been here this long (since 2000) or is as old as he is.  I know how old he is (now) because I know where he came from.  And that means one of my other cats, whose history prior to winding up with me I don’t know, is about the same age.

Which means they are both about 16, and thus the same age as Little, who is 16 or 17 and who recently had a bout of old age-related illness, as did my elderly dog, Dobie.

Anyway, wow.  I need to try to get a pic of the three of them together ’cause lately they are all hanging out in the same spot (but aren’t right this moment)… I feel like I need to put little kitty rocking chairs there.  Signing off from the Old Folks Home…

I’ve been reading for years about Dawn dishwashing liquid (the original, not the “new” kind) and its ability to get rid of fleas and just kind of went “ehhh” about it.  Not that I didn’t believe it worked at all, I just figured it probably didn’t work as well as people claimed it did.

I was so wrong.

We have had an awful time with fleas this year - which makes me want to cry because for years we were flea-less until the neighbor dogs moved in a couple of years ago, but anyway - this year has been the worst ever, and I don’t think Frontline is working as well as it used to, though it does seem to finally be working, or at least I think I’m finally seeing a dent in the cycle because most of the fleas I’m seeing now are juvenile and baby ones (heh, that sounds funny).

I’ve been reading a lot lately where people are saying Frontline Plus is no longer working, or works for a week and quits, or suggesting going back to Advantage a while and then reattempting Frontline, or postulating that the fleas are gaining immunity towards all of that type stuff.  One of the statements I see frequently I tend to agree with most - Frontline Plus just does not seem to work as well as Frontline Top Spot.  I do think the cycle is breaking, but it’s certainly not with the speed and severity that Frontline Top Spot always had.

In any case - before I get off topic any further - we’ve just had a time this year and among some other things I’ve been trying, and trying to avoid spending any more than the megabucks I finally had to cough up for Frontline and other measures, I finally decided to see if the Dawn legend really worked.  It does!

My flea traps are drowning a number of those suckers nightly, all for the cost of a bottle of original Dawn dish liquid (a whole 96 cents at Wal-Mart right now).  I have played around and tried a few different things now with it all (including another dishwashing liquid) and this method seems to work the best and attract the most fleas to drown.  You need:

1. Said bottle of original Dawn dishwashing liquid detergent.  Not the now-regular Ultra or anything else.  Just plain old original blue Dawn.
2. A shallow bowl of water, preferably white.  You can use clear ones, but the white bowls seem to attract them more.  If I use a clear one, I put a piece of white paper under it and that seems to help too.  But my small French White bowls (I call it the creme brulee size) and a Corningware mini-casserole dish I have seem to work best.
3. Best spot to place the bowl is on the floor.  I’ve tried other and higher spots and they’ll work, but it seems to attract more if on the floor.  You can put it in a corner or out of the way otherwise, they’ll find it, believe me.
4. A book light or night light.  Many places you read will say a night light and those may work, but my problem is I live in an old house with few electrical outlets and even fewer where there’s any floor space underneath.  I had a couple of mini-book lights, the kind that clip on the book and have the little bendable arm - you can get them at Walgreen’s lately, two for $3 - I just clip them on the side of the bowl and bend the light where it’s over the center of the bowl, and voila.  I have tried some other little book lights since, such as some that Dollar Tree has right now, but they just don’t seem to attract as well as these little lights Walgreen’s is selling right now do.

I have one bedroom that has been hit particularly worse than the rest (Tojo the Psycho Cat’s bedroom) and my flea trap in there is catching 15-20 or more a night and starting to slow down a little, finally.  The rest in the rest of the house are only catching one or two a night now, but it’s definitely all working.

I don’t usually use flea collars because they really don’t do much other than keep the pests away from their heads, but I did buy one for Tojo - unfortunately it was a cheap one and seemed to be making the fleas WORSE than they were, so last week I got the pricier Adams one.  And last week washed all the bedding in the house, too.

Bombing the house, which would probably have been the quickest and surest way to eradicate all fleas, just wasn’t an option - there’s nowhere for all of us to go for a day - and after having spent a small fortune on Frontline, and other stuff leading up to the Frontline which was wasted money because nothing was working - the fact that the Dawn really DOES work, for 96 cents a bottle, is just WONDERFUL.

It’s all working.  We are not 100% flea-free yet, but it’s better and we’re close, and I will swear by this Dawn method from now on.  The dogs (and quite possibly one very mad cat) are going to have a bath with flea shampoo next week and then it will be time to Frontline everyone again, and after that (fingers crossed) with any luck we can go back to only treating the dogs with that stuff.

But I will be keeping at least one or two homemade Dawn flea traps on the floor at night at all times, maybe all year long but definitely during the warm months, probably one in Tojo’s room and another in some other corner of the house somewhere.  I now highly recommend it for any dog or cat owner.  Even if you don’t really have a flea problem or aren’t seeing any, just one bowl set up like that with the Dawn and the book light or night light ever night will almost certainly assure you don’t see any.  It works!

Why fleas like the Dawn so much more than other liquid dish detergents - and why they prefer it as opposed to the newer, “ultra” Dawn - now that’s something to ponder, but I can tell you for a fact that they don’t like lemon Ajax as much.

How ironic - a few minutes after I posted this about Little and Dobie and the vestibular disease, I saw where Ivy had posted a video of Charley the cat at Animal Shak.  Charley has cerebellar hypoplasia, another neurological condition, different from vestibular disease but exhibits very similar symptoms.  The way Charley walks and falls is very similar to how Little was moving yesterday.

Unfortunately vestibular disease is usually relatively temporary and what Charley has is not, but what a great cat!  He seems to take it all in stride.

You’ll never believe this, but remember a couple of weeks ago when my Beagle, Lula, had just died, and while she was sick, Dobie had this sort of stroke-like episode?  Which wasn’t a stroke, but was canine old age vestibular disease, which has sort of stroke-like symptoms, and in any case, was pretty frightening.

Early Monday morning while it was still dark, my eldest cat, Little, developed the same thing.  But the feline version, of course.  She’s 16 or 17 (I can’t ever remember which of those two years she arrived as a baby).

Much like with the dog version, they say it usually improves in 2-3 days to a couple of weeks, and she’s already improved a bunch from how she was yesterday.  Dobie’s a big dog who’s all legs, and Little’s a pretty small cat, but really her situation was much more frightening and her symptoms much more dramatic.

With Dobie, he had been fine all day and evening and then when we all got ready to go outside again that night, he stood up and promptly fell down.  With Little, the first thing I noticed was that she was laying oddly on the floor, and at first I thought she’d died.  Then when she finally tried to get up and walk - and every time she walked after that - she would hurl herself forward and tumble in a pseudo-forward roll and scare me to death.  She even did that jumping in the bathtub, and while trying to jump out of her (relatively shallow) litter box.

She didn’t have the nystagmus (rapid back and forth eye movement) Dobie had for days afterwards, but Dobie didn’t have the dramatic head tilt she did all day yesterday.  She still has a little residual tilt - and may continue to - but god, yesterday it was just pitiful.

Dobie’s still having a little trouble maneuvering eating dry dog food - I practically had to hand feed him for over a week to make sure he was getting enough to eat - but Little doesn’t seem to have much motor skill problem in that regard.  She’s getting around fine today, just a day later, I haven’t seen her tilt or fall at all today.  Dobie is getting around mostly well, except that when he gets in a hurry or has just woken up, he sometimes loses his balance and/or falls.

I’m kinda confused about the fact that in dogs, they say it usually eventually goes away and never comes back, while in cats, most of what I’ve read seems to say they retain some residual effects and that it can flare up again when stressed, so I’m not so sure that might not be true of dogs too.

In any case, I guess it’s a learning process for us all, and I’m glad they’re both probably going to recover just fine more than likely, but gosh, it’s been like a geriatric veterinary nursing home around here for weeks now and I am just plain worn OUT.  And can’t believe two of them were stricken with this at the SAME time, and there’s two more elderly cats here (and one other not much of a spring chicken herself), and I’m just, like, oh please, please - no more catastrophes (or dogastrophes) right now, please.

Oh, I forgot the best parts/slash/salt in the wound about that last post about me being short $1.16.

1. I had to spend $2.68 on a flea collar today, which was the first flea collar I’ve had to buy in at least 10 years, maybe 15. I’ll spare you the yucky details, but (of course) it involves Tojo the Psycho Cat.
2. I actually did receive a check in the mail for $9.50 today. Unfortunately, my wonderful mailman I’ve had for years (and always came in the morning) has apparently either retired, quit, or is on an extended vacation, and in his place is a creature who it would seem does the route in reverse - therefore being late as all get out, sometimes after business hours no less. And is about the unfriendliest sourpuss of a postal worker I’ve ever seen, though that’s beside the point. Anyway, the check arrived too late to get it in today’s deposit at the bank.

The hits just keep on coming and my luck continues to suck. But again - California!

There’s just really no time to be spared, so pardon me for this hit & run update.

1. A little while ago, I ate a cheese Krystal - because I was badly in need of food that I could get quick and didn’t have to cook and it was 3 in the morning - and it was unbelievably, horribly, terribly, awfully & ungodly bad. I have never had a Krystal that tasted that disgustingly, putridly bad in my life. Yes, I realize that Krystals are not haute cuisine, but come on - it’s a Krystal. How can you screw up a Krystal that bad?? If I die in my sleep here in a little bit, you’ll know what happened. Blech. A shoe sole would have tasted better I think.

2. I’ve been eating entirely too much fast food lately anyway, which is kind of okay because I never eat anyway and all I ever get is, like, one little McDonald’s cheeseburger, and they’re all of a dollar and I DO NOT HAVE TIME to cook. But let’s not talk about the fact that in the past two weeks I’ve been served (A) a cheeseburger that was between two top buns, and (B) got home one day and opened the bag to discover I had a top & bottom bun with cheese in the middle - and no burger. Wake up, people! I know it’s just an unimportant $1.00 cheeseburger, but it might just be someone’s only meal of the day that you totally screw up.

3. I know I shouldn’t have laughed because they’re both elderly and one’s a little sickly and might be a bit senile, but watching not just one but two of my cats fall off the desk a few minutes ago, within a few minutes of each other, with an empty chip bag (the small 99-cent Big Grab size) on their heads was almost as funny as a few years ago when my elderly then-16-year old cat got his head stuck inside an empty Krystal Chik box.

4. On a not-as-amusing note, Maggie’s (same Maggie as in the pic above) new favorite place to nap is with her head on the edge of my keyboard, which usually eventually occurs to me at some point after being puzzled as to why I’m typing in all caps or ““““` is appearing on the screen again.

5. I am apparently now completely and totally assimilated into the electronic communications world at this point, because now that my fax AND my printer are both borked, and a fax that I needed to get where it needed to go so I could start getting some commission payments didn’t go through because that dinosaur of a mid-’90s era fax that I inherited from my old office is totally dead now… it took about a month for it to finally occur to me that I could just put a stamp on an envelope and MAIL it.

6. Besides the petered out fax and printer, now my desktop is apparently on its last legs too - I’ve known it was coming, was hoping to hold it off a little longer, seeing as how that’s pretty distressing since I do 100% of my work on this computer these days - but it spit out a frightening serious error at me the other day and threatened to not start (but it eventually did). In the course of seeing what I could afford to ditch in an effort to get it speeded up a little and prepare to defragment the drive for the first time in I dunno how long, after going through some other directories, I took note of the millions of Notepad files I’ve got saved to the desktop - and had a bit of a chuckle over the title of some of those files, such as: CLC Links Widget, WP Tutorial, Moved Blogs, kathyt, kathyt Links Widget, More Moved Blogs, B Blogger Template, one simply titled B, B Tutorial (yes, I don’t remember why I felt I needed to make her her own instead of giving her the one I gave everyone else), and Sarcastro Stuff (which reminds me yet again that I STILL need to repost all his old photos one of these days, ugh). Anyway, giggle - yeah, I’m a blog geek.

7. There are angels in the blogosphere and in my MySpacesphere too. Angels, I tell you.

8. I’m so tired I don’t have time to BREATHE, and I don’t have time anyway because I have way too much work and projects to do. This staying up for a day and a half at a time, sleeping a few hours and starting all over again is getting a little old. I’ve been up again for about 38 or 39 hours now and worked straight through for about 22 well, really about 29 or 30, of those, so yeah - ’scuse me if I’m a little loopy right now.

That is all. But seriously, if I don’t at least show up for a minute on Twitter by tonight? Food poisoning. Ugh, a nasty, dirty, filthy shoe sole would have no doubt tasted better. Yuck.

9. (Yes, Lesley and Brittney, I know I shouldn’t eat meat anyway.)

10. (But still - it’s a Krystal! How can anyone screw up a Krystal??)

11. Zzzzzz…

Anyone who has had a dog probably knows that they are often easily amused and can find the dumbest stuff to play with.

Mine have been abusing what was an almost empty plastic jug of coffee creamer (the large size Kroger kind) that a cat who won’t stay off the kitchen counter (Missy) knocked off, and have just had a fine time with it for about three days now. Especially because it makes lots of noise too, if you’re Petey and having fun tossing it around like a basketball on the hardwood floor in the living room.

Yesterday was an extra special day as they finally got all the wrapping off of it, so there was that to play with and tear up and chew on and toss everywhere too. Yep, it’s super exciting at the Zone this week.

Readers will recall my youngest cat, Tojo, the Psycho Cat, who was apparently my consolation prize for having my car destroyed in a car accident last year (that wasn’t my fault).

Tojo, as many will also recall, has no friends among the other felines in the house (nor the canines for that matter, but they generally pay no attention to the cats anyway). In lieu of having friends, he found all my Beanie Babies, Teenie Beanies, and other generic beanies last year - all dogs and cats with the exception of one flamingo, who seems to be the more mistreated of the bunch - and has made them his friends. They are generally scattered all over the bed back there where he spends most of his time, sometimes on the floor (usually the flamingo and the UT clothes-wearing Smokey Dog are the ones that wind up on the floor).

My friends and colleagues on Twitter witnessed this in real time yesterday…

First, I walked into the bedroom only to find the Beanies lined up almost perfectly down one side of the bed, against the wall. Odd.

A little later, I looked in there again to discover that ALL of them had been moved, now up against the (normally closed) door.

Later on, they were back on the bed in single file again.

I slept back there last night, and when I woke up, they were scattered all over the bed as usual.

Now they’re back lined up against the wall again.

What is this little feline freak up to?

(1) Skittles Chocolate Mix - Well, I’m a big fan of Skittles in general (especially the Sour and Tropical), but as many know, I’m not a big fan of chocolate. (It’s “okay”.) So I wasn’t really expecting to like Skittles’ new Chocolate Mix that much, but I sure did expect to like it more than I do. With flavors like S’mores, Vanilla, Chocolate Caramel, Chocolate Pudding, and Brownie Batter, you would just think they’d be better than they are. The Brownie Batter ones make me cough. Real chocolate fans will probably love them though.

(2) Dogs with Little Dreadlocks - Enough said about that, but if it would just (A) stop turning cold or (B) stop raining…

(3) No No No No NO Tornadoes! - Speaking of the above, it’s a gorgeous day out right now and feels REALLY nice outside even though it’s about 100 degrees in my house, and I am so sick of rain. So the news from Channel 2 Weather this morning regarding potential tornado activity here in the west is a bummer, and I don’t deal well with the sirens nowadays. Go away, tornadoes, shoo!

(4) The Beanie Army - Tojo, my cat who terrorizes the rest of the house and lives in the guest bedroom otherwise (but he’s such a sweetie when it’s just me and him), has a new project going too, I noticed. As I’ve mentioned before, since no other animals in the house want to be friends with him, he has made all of my old Beanie Baby and Teenie Beanie cats and dogs that were back in the bedroom his only friends. (As Churlita called him, he’s “resourceful” like that.) Yesterday I noticed he’s got them all lined up, almost in single file, down one entire side of the bed back there. I wonder what this means?

(5) In Hiding - Also, wonder where I put my W-2 and 1099? Hmm.

Next will be showing up on The Squirrel Queen’s doorstep and visiting Mabel…

I hadn’t been by one of my fave blogs in a while, Abbie the Cat Has a Posse, so when I stopped by tonight I was distressed to learn that Abbie had been missing for a while (for real) earlier this month.  Upon further reading, I was relieved to discover that he had been found, thank goodness.   Not really surprised he turned up - a 20-lb. tuxedo cat wouldn’t get overlooked very easily, I don’t think - but certainly glad he did, after what was apparently a pretty large effort by many folks to help find him, and his owner, known as The Guy, is understandably relieved.  Hopefully Abbie will get back to blogging and report on all his adventures away from home soon.

And, if by chance you missed the Oscars tonight, The Squirrel Queen live blogged the whole thing, so drop by and catch up if you have a mind to.  Apparently red was the in color this year, and you know, I’m sorry, but