Fry (Part III)

2nd Update: Fry was found by the Everett Animal Shelter and was adopted. I found his picture in a Lost Cats of Snohomish County website and recognized it immediately. The Everett Animal Shelter sent the new owners by information and they returned him to us in September 2015.

Update: On June 20th, 2015 our cat Fry ran away and has not yet returned. He's been reported to the nearby animal shelters, he's microchipped, and he's easily identified due to his folded ear following his surgery last fall (see pic below). If he is found they should be able to return him to us. While we have not completely lost hope of his returning, we think it unlikely we'll see him again due to his chronic health issues and complete inability to look after himself in the wild after a lifetime of being a spoiled house cat. We think he would have returned home to us by now if he could have. At this point we figure he's either learned how to fend for himself, has been adopted by another family who assumed an uncollared cat must be a stray, or he's resting in peace. We're grateful for the nearly 9 years we had with him, and we hope whereever he is now, he's happy. Here's more of his story.

Although we never objected to our cats being indoor/outdoor, they were raised exclusively as indoor cats due to living in apartments for the first 7 years after adopting them. Fry was always more interested in the outdoors than the other two, often darting out the door when we'd open it, so we decided to let him go outside for short periods after moving into our first house. Oscar would occasionally take him outside while he worked on the yard, and Fry would typically wander around, never straying more than a few house lengths away, and would always return.

Oscar had recently put down red and black mulch surrounding our house, which we could immediately tell Fry hated. He refused to walk on it, and instead ran along the stones leading towards the back of our house. There's a fence back there with enough room for a cat to squeeze under. There's a big grassy area belonging to the complex behind us, which would have been a lot more interesting to Fry than our mulchy yard. We're guessing he squeezed under the fence but didn't have a strong enough sense of smell to find his way home.

Although we could tell Fry longed to be outside, we hesitated to let him wander around freely due to his health issues. Fry was diagnosed with chronic post nasal drip several years ago, which we attempted to medicate him for only to have it fail miserably. After putting a lot of effort into getting a pill down Fry's throat, he gagged it up 30 seconds later, and he would fight and struggle against the nasal drops too. This condition makes his sense of smell pretty terrible and makes him more sluggish than the other cats since he can't intake a full breath. This bodes terribly for him being able to find his way home, hunt, or defend himself, which is why we would only give him an hour or so of supervised outdoor time every so often. Usually Oscar could keep a pretty good eye on him, but since Tyler was out in the yard with him as well that day, Oscar must have been watching Tyler during the brief moment it took Fry to climb under the fence. We searched for him, called for him repeatedly, and left several things that had his smell out on our porch, but no luck yet. A couple of neighbor kids claim to have seen him, but as there's a black cat that wanders around our neighborhood daily, we think they might just be mixing Fry up with him/her.

Fry was definitely the cat that gave us the most trouble and cost us the most money. I have to admit it's nice not to have to worry about if he's going to pee outside the litter box today, and if so, where or on what? He also had a tendency to puke a lot since he'd often eat too much at once. There were many times that I was frustrated and wished he would just run away (particularly after he peed on my piano legs), but then when he actually did, I wished he would come back. We miss him a lot, particularly how social and unafraid he was around Tyler and other young children. What makes me most sad is that Tyler won't remember him :(. He's probably already forgotten about him.

Original post from early 2011:

One thing I love about Fry is how well he puts up with the abuse of children. When my Nephew was less than 2 years old, he would try to grab at Fry, sometimes grabbing his face and pulling. Fry obviously didn't like it, but would put up with it without retaliating. He'll run, of course, if kids are hurting him. But he won't hiss or attack back, and if the kids are being nice and petting him, he'll spread out and enjoy it. And generally if you pull his tail, he'll just sit down so he doesn't have to feel the pull.



Fry had some funny habits as a kitten. He loved to stick his head inside glasses. He hated being touched by water, but he sure loved being around it. One time he ran across the toilet while my husband was urinating and he got right in the middle of the stream. That didn't bother him, but the immediate bath we gave him did!



Fry really likes drippy faucets or any other source of continuous water.



He also used to drink out of the toilet all the time. He'd much prefer to drink from anything besides his water dish. It can be annoying though, since he'll walk around the dirty dishes in the kitchen sink and drink from their water instead of his own clean water.



My husband used to spin Fry around on the floor. He'd hold him around the chest and spin him a few times. It was funny to watch him get dizzy, and he seemed to like it too since he'd keep coming back for more. Leela, however, was even funnier the only time Oscar tried doing it with her. She flopped around like a fish trying to get away from the dizziness. It was clear she hated it so he never tried it again.



Another hilarious thing Fry did was eat a piece of dental floss and then not quite poop it out. I walked out into the family room to see Leela chasing Fry and slapping his butt. When I got closer I saw the dental floss was hanging halfway out! Leela was trying to play with the string in Fry's butt! I started laughing hysterically and made Oscar finish pulling it out.

One thing I love about petting Fry when he's lying down is, that instead of pawing you or some other tangible object, he actually paws the air. It's hilarious and looks like he's trying to swim. It's too bad we don't have a video, but he's doing "the swim" in this picture.



Though Fry's not much of a bed cat, he LOVES the couch. He's on it constantly, and he's definitely the cat to love while you're watching TV. Both he and Leela love their bellies rubbed (which is definitely not true of most cats), and they'll display them proudly for rubbing. All of our cats make good vibrating neck pillows, but Fry is the best. I call him my Frylow. You can rest your head on his belly while you're on the couch and he'll purr up a storm. His intense purr is pretty funny, too. It sounds like somebody's trying to blow bubbles underwater as quickly as they possibly can.



One time Fry even seemed to sense that my dad didn't want him near while he was visiting. My dad is allergic to cats, and while he was there Fry would sit on the opposite side of the couch. One time while my dad was away from the couch, Fry went and sat in my dad's corner. Dad looked at him and said "now we had an arrangement," and immediately Fry went back to his own corner. I thought that was too cute!



Fry really, really likes cardboard and paper, and he jumps into all kinds of containers and suitcases. He immediately goes after any boxes that come our way, and beware of leaving any papers anywhere in the house since Fry will sit on them. I've had many an important school paper get wrinkled thanks to him. As you can see from the picture below Fry will choose a piece of paper (our apartment newsletter), over something much more comfy that's right next to him.



He's a nut for paper bags. We generally get plastic, so he relishes the joy of the rare paper bag.



A couple of times we brought a friend's cat over to "catsit" and Fry got mean. He became a total stalker with a pretty vicious growl and a nasty hiss. He's even been known to find a toy he likes and take it into the corner to hiss and growl at it. It's nice that even though he has that mean streak in him, he doesn't use it with us or even with strangers.



Fry has found some interesting things to sit on over the years. He looked adorable at Halloween on top of this pumpkin.



We got these place mats as a Christmas gift and Fry went right to them before we even noticed he was there.



He couldn't get enough of this large Christmas gift for Oscar. He got more pleasure out of it than Oscar ever did!



Just the other day he decided to sit on this tiny hot pad that got left on the floor.



This was a cute Fry sleeping spot from the other day.





Wherever he sits is going to get covered with white and black hair. He definitely sheds the most of all of our cats. This probably wasn't the best thing for us to let happen to our brand new white blanket, but he just looked so cute that I didn't have the heart to move him.



Fry is at his cutest when he's sleeping or cuddling.



I love these cute pictures of Fry cuddling with Nibbler.





I'm convinced that Fry would be a lot more boring if he didn't have other cats around. Watching cats together is so much more fun than having a single cat.



I really don't know why anyone would choose to only have one cat if they could have additional animals as well.



They keep each other company,



They get a lot better exercise (they climb everywhere when they're chasing each other)



It's cute to watch them play together,



and they just look adorable when they cuddle together.



I'm really glad we got Fry and Leela together.



They're my cute "origi-cats."



It's amazing how strong a cat's senses are. One time we saw Fry and Leela playing intently in the dark. When we turned on the light we saw it was a very small beetle that was giving them the time of their lives. It was the toy that never stopped. Especially because this beetle would play dead and then would start moving as soon as it was batted at by the cats.



On the downside, though, Fry definitely gets sick more than Leela or Nibbler put together. He sneezes pretty much the entire winter long. He also vomits a lot since he'll eat his food too quickly, and he's our only cat who gets hairballs.



But the worst of Fry are his litter box habits. I've read that many other cats are like this, but Fry does not like to pee and poop in the same box. He'll find somewhere else to pee if he doesn't think his box is clean enough for him. Sometimes he uses the bathtub, which frankly isn't so bad since I can always just turn on the water and wash it down. But he's been known to pee on the bathroom floor, or on paper or cardboard that he finds in another room. He destroyed a couple of my music books once since I'd left one open and he sat and peed on it. And we had to pay for our carpet in our last apartment since he'd peed on his cardboard scratch toy and gotten pee all over the carpet. I'm not sure how to completely break him of the habit. We try to be good about keeping the boxes clean, but we can't always know when one of the other cats decides to poop in his pee box. I've heard that the best thing you can do is try to reward your cat when they do what's right, but he always seems scared of us when we see him use the litter box. He bolts as soon as he notices us, so I don't exactly have time to reward him.

Fortunately Leela's litter box habits are not nearly as bad, though more disgusting to clean up. Only once did she have an accident, and that was when we lit the fire at our first apartment in Renton. We didn't clean the ashes immediately after putting it out, and she peed in them. But I can't fault her for that. It's easy to imagine why she thought that was just another litter box. Her only annoying litter box habit is sometimes pooping off the box. If the box is getting dirty she'll sometimes position herself in a clean spot in the corner, but then hike up her butt and poop over the edge onto the tile. I really try to keep the boxes clean to prevent her from doing that. It's much more annoying to clean up than when Fry pees in the bathtub.

Next up is Leela (Part IV)

Getting Our First Kittens (Part II)

The first day we picked up our first 2 cats from the Bellevue animal shelter, we fell in love at first site. It was pretty heart wrenching to walk into the kennel and hear the cats immediately start meowing for us to pay attention to them. I wanted to take them all home! But we knew we wanted kittens, and there were 3 small kittens all curled up in a cage. Oscar had actually seen a picture of one on the shelter's website and decided that was the kitten for him. He really likes the look of a tuxedo cat. I'm much, much more into multicolored cats. When Oscar turned toward the cage, the kitten from the website actually stuck his paw through the bars to touch him. He immediately said "I pick this one." Meanwhile I'd come up to the cage and seen the kitten I thought was the most attractive - an adorable gray tabbie with a super sweet little face. I put my hand on the cage and she came up and sniffed it (the remaining black kitten stayed in the back of the cage curled up and not caring in the slightest that we were there). I told Oscar "I pick this one," and we named them Fry and Leela, a change from their given names of Fergie and Lola, and an homage to one of our favorite shows - Futurama.



The lady at the shelter let us get to know our new kittens for awhile while she finished up some paperwork for us. It turned out she got several phone calls while we were sitting in the room playing with them, so we certainly had an ample amount of time to know what kind of kittens would be coming into our home. Leela stayed in my arms for the most part, but she was extremely stiff and obviously not comfortable with the situation. Fry, on the other hand, was exactly what Oscar wanted. He was very, very playful. Oscar loves to play with dogs and was thrilled to be able to play with a kitten. Towards the end of our stay Leela began to struggle and I let her go, thinking she'd want to play with the string Fry was playing with. Wrong. She was completely uninterested. All she wanted to do was hide in the corner.



Once the paperwork was done, we took the kittens over to my sister's house before we took them home, and Leela pretty much hid the whole time while Fry played with my 2 year old niece Hana. That night we tried to get both of the kittens to sleep in our bedroom with their own little bed set up. But Leela was not having it. She found some corner in the other room and hid there for the whole night. Fry, though, could not get enough of us. He stayed between us vigorously purring and nuzzling us the whole night long. I really don't think he slept at all. While I lay down enjoying Fry's company I was beginning to regret picking Leela. Sure, she was beautiful. But what use was an attractive kitten that was going to be so incredibly timid?



The next day, however, everything changed. To this day almost 4 and 1/2 years later Fry has not slept on the bed with us again. Only on very rare occasion does he even get on the bed, and even then he merely walks across it, rarely sitting down and never sleeping. He still remained playful and cute, but only ever sat on my lap once and didn't sit on my lap again for 3 years. He was never very holdable, and even now gets very tense, completely locks his body, and struggles when you try to hold him. I was very disappointed since I love having holdable cats and cats who sit on my lap, but he was still a lot of fun and we still had plenty of good times with him. Unfortunately he grew up entirely too quickly. Within a week he doubled in size and began looking more like an adult cat than a kitten. At least he still had his cute kitten habits.



Leela, on the other hand, has become the bed queen. My shy little kitten began to realize that we meant her no harm and soon started showing her true colors. She was absolutely delightful.



She had the most adorable meow that made us want to give her anything to make her happy. And to top it off she had this deep, rumbling purr that sounded like a motorcycle was revving up inside her. You can hear it if you watch this video. And see how she presents her tummy for petting.



She doesn't love being held but she doesn't protest against it either (though there is a hold Oscar puts her in that she loves).





However, she loved to sit on our laps and she loved to snuggle up in our arms.



Though she'd shown zero interest in the string on our first day with her, she became the friskiest little kitten who could not be calmed down whenever she wanted to play. Watching her with the cat fishing pole was hilarious. She's a very good jumper and would launch herself several feet into the air and twist herself around trying to get to the toy. Fortunately she grew up slowly and stayed kitten cute for a long time. It happened so gradually I barely even noticed when she became an adult cat. She also quickly established herself as the dominant cat, which was something we never expected from our first day. She always picked the playful fights with Fry, in spite of being half his size for a large portion of their kittenhood, and even to this day she usually has the upper hand when they play together.



Of course, they've changed a bit since they were kittens. For the next 3 years we watched them grow and develop their own unique characteristics. Some of their differences may be due to the fact that Leela was feral but Fry never has been. I'm guessing he was brought into the shelter by a family whose cat had had kittens and they simply couldn't care for them all. Because of that Fry is much more interested in the outside world than Leela is. He couldn't get enough of the raccoon that kept coming to our porch when we were on a ground floor apartment. They'd mirror each other and just stare at each other for hours! We were also able to leash train Fry for awhile. He enjoyed it at first, but one day he figured out how to wriggle out of his harness, and I haven't risked taking him out since then. His leash wrapped around the body like this one below.



Leela, on the other hand, freaked out the first time we took her outside on the porch. She immediately started crawling up the screen door trying to get back inside.



Though Leela loves us, she's still pretty terrified of strangers, particularly children. But if you don't go after her when she runs away, and if you come over often enough, she'll start to warm up to you. She used to hide all the time when our home teachers would come over, but after a few months she started going up to them and rubbing against their legs. Once she knows you're not going to hurt her, she'll be your friend. However, if you go after her when she's hiding, she will hiss, and she never hisses otherwise. At least she won't attack back if a kid tries to grab her. She'll just run.



Fry, on the other hand, is not at all afraid of strangers (in all honesty I can't think of anything that Fry is terrified of and runs away from, even the vacuum). Sometimes he doesn't even notice or care that they're there. He'll often just stretch himself out on the table like it's nobody's business. Though he stopped sitting on laps, he would still walk back and forth across laps, and he'll do that to any stranger who's sitting down on our couch. He also raises his butt when you pet him so that he can feel more of the pet.



We did some funny things to our cats while they were small - like sticking them in our shoe containers. Luckily no permanent damage was done.



To know more details about all of my cats as individuals, proceed onto Fry (Part III)

Cats, kittens, and why I've never regretted paying a lot of money to keep mine alive (Part I)

A mere 10 weeks ago, Oscar and I were sure that we would never spend a lot of money to save an animal's life. We'd talked about it occasionally and agreed that, as much as we love our cats and any other animals we've had in the past, we'd rather have the animal put out of its suffering than pay thousands of dollars simply to add a few years to its life. We figured we'd miss them, but that we'd simply get a new cat or dog and have all kinds of fun adventures with them. And since animals, especially indoor only cats, don't generally need extensive medical care until they're getting close to the end of their lives, it didn't make sense to throw a lot of money towards prolonging their old age. I remember saying "I love my cats, but I'm sure I could love a new one just as easily. Why waste money extending our cat's life when we could put it out of its misery and give a poor shelter cat a new home?" In my mind it was at least as merciful to give a stray cat a home as to save a dying one, so why not go with the cheaper option.



And then it happened. To our complete astonishment we were faced with either paying for an expensive surgery for our 16 month old cat, or letting him die after enduring considerable pain. We'd hoped that the vet would be able to fix the problem without surgery since we knew that surgery could cost many thousands of dollars. But based on what we'd ascertained from our research, we knew deep down that ours was the worst case scenario and would not be fixable without it. And since we'd previously been so firm in our resolve to not pay for surgery, we simply accepted that our beloved kitty was going to die.



The weight of that realization hit me just before we took him to the vet, and as it did I held my sweet cat to my chest and wept profusely into his fur. I was overwhelmed by emotions that were completely foreign to me. I'd never known what it was like to have a pet die, and my heart ached to think of losing him. I did everything to hold my composure for the few minutes we were at the animal hospital before the vet took him to the back room, but once we were back home I started crying hysterically. My husband put his arms around me, and it wasn't long before he too began crying.



For about 20 minutes we held each other, each describing why our cat was so wonderful and how much he didn't deserve this to happen. I remember saying "why did this happen to my sweet kitty? He's been the greatest joy and given so much to us that it just isn't fair to have his life last so short and end in this horrible way." Oscar expressed similar sentiments, and pretty soon we knew what needed to be done.



Though we hadn't even discussed the idea of actually paying for surgery, my husband turned to me and said "I'd be willing to pay whatever it takes to keep him alive." We didn't need to discuss the money issues we were going through, we didn't need to discuss the risk that we might have to pay for surgery and still have our kitty die, and we certainly didn't need to discuss the idea of simply putting him to sleep and getting a brand new kitten. In that moment we knew that our cat deserved a chance for a full life whatever the risks and costs might be, and we were eager for the vet to start helping him as soon as possible.



Before I explain what ultimately brought us to this decision, I'm delighted to announce that the surgery went perfectly and that my cat is completely recovered. He's his adorable little self again and has in so many ways made his surgery worth every penny we spent. In spite of the large dip in our bank account, I've never once regretted our decision to save Nibbler. He truly is a fantastic cat who has given us lots of love and hours of entertainment, and this post is dedicated to him and to my 2 other cats for all the happiness they give to us.



I have several friends who post constantly about their children - the joy that's come into their lives and the fun they get from watching them learn, grow, and figure out who they are. I'm sure I will do the same whenever I have children, but in the meantime I think my cats deserve a little recognition for how much love, fun, and delight they bring into our home. I believe that learning to love our cats so dearly has made us better people and increased our capacity to love others simply for who they are. And I'm grateful everyday that all I need to do is look at one of them, caress their fur, or think about something funny they did, and before I know it I'm smiling contentedly.



I've already done a couple of posts about our cats. I'm not really interested in cats. I'd rather have a dog tells how Oscar really wanted a dog and I really wanted a cat, Fry and Leela - Our Kittens and Fry and Leela - the Kitten Months are about getting our first two cats and their kitten habits, and Nibbler tells about Nibbler joining the household. I may end up repeating a little bit of what's already in those posts, but mostly I want to talk about their different traits and what makes them unique as individuals.

Though this started out as me simply wanting to publicly thank the Animal Hospital at Murphy's Corner for saving my kitty, it ended up turning into many months work of blogging about all of my cats. Since I'm sure not all of you readers are interested in reading the whole thing, I've split the monstrous post up into 7 smaller posts. If you simply want to know how Nibbler's sickness and surgery turned out, go immediately to Nibbler's Illness, Surgery, and Recovery (Part VII). If you want to know more why Nibbler is so fantastic that we decided he was literally worth his weight in gold (though we only ended up paying his weight in silver :-)), go to Nibbler (Part V). And if you're a huge cat lover, or you're just really bored and want to read all about my feline experiences, proceed on to Getting Our First Kittens (Part II).

Oregon waterfalls and the Columbia River Gorge

We got to see some gorgeous scenery as we drove north through Oregon. We went east a bit since we wanted to go to Silver Falls State Park, and we got to see Mt Hood and a lot of Christmas tree farms. I learned that Mt Hood is not the mountain I got views of from Portland and Mt Ranier. That was Mt St. Helen's. You can tell by the flattened top from its 1980 eruption. Mt Hood still has its slanted shape like Mt Ranier.

Silver Falls state park is really beautiful, and I'd like to go back to it in the spring when the waterfalls are at their fullest. This is South Falls, the first one you see as you come in. It's the start of the 9 mile hike that will take you through 10 waterfalls. We want to do that hike someday. There's a trail that will take you behind the falls, which is really cool to see the falls from so many different angles.

I have to admit it was a bit scary under all that rock. I kept picturing it would come falling down on me at any minute and crush me forever. We continued hiking towards the bottom of the falls. We would have liked to continue the hike, but we would have needed all day, and it was going to be dark soon. The only other waterfall we could see was North Falls. Supposedly you can walk around that one too, but we could not find the path. The arrows kept pointing us back to a parking lot and we didn't know where to go from there. We continued north and luckily arrived at the Columbia River Gorge just in time to for sunset. Next we hiked down to Bridal Falls. Though I've been to Multnomah Falls multiple times, and Bridal Falls is only a few miles away, I'd never been to Bridal Falls.

I was missing out. It was gorgeous! As we hiked back up we saw some even prettier views of the sunset over the gorge. And just before we drove home we stopped at Multnomah Falls. I must say it's stunningly beautiful at night. I thought it was even prettier than when I've seen it on a sunny day. But it's difficult for our camera to take night pictures, especially without a tripod. It took Oscar several tries, but eventually he was able to hold still for 15 seconds for the shutter speed to be able to capture the photo.