Smokey Rose Interlude

Two large "bullet" holes and lots of complete cracks

I don't know how well the picture shows my poor car windshield, but the whole thing is just toast right now. We had a large, violent, sudden and short hailstorm on June 29. Lots and lots of hail damage to vehicles and buildings. Insurance adjusters are living in all the extended stay hotels, and of course, fly-by-night people have moved in too, offering to fix you whatever right now for cash and....

This and That - May 24, 2105

I'm kind of stuck about what to write at the moment so I'll just send you some pretty pictures from Red Butte Garden so far this year and maybe some random thoughts and call it good. We have had a LOT of rain this month and so the flowers are looking great. Right now it's the irises that are stealing the show.

At the moment, these peach colored ones are my favorites

Travel My Way

I love to travel. There are so many places in the world that I want to visit. I am looking forward to being retired so that I will be able to have the time to go places I want to go. But I intend to travel the way I want to travel. I'm kind of set in my ways about this. I want to be able to fully enjoy my trips and that means I need to do them my way.

Big News and little

Baby Ava Irene on her birthday

The BIG news is the arrival of baby Ava Irene in Chicago. My dear niece gave birth to her on January 20. Mom, dad and baby all doing fine. As you see she has lots of lovely dark hair...got that from her dad for sure.

The name Ava is found both in Sweden and Iran so my niece decided it was a good one to go with Ava's dual heritage. Irene was my mom, really loved by my niece. I am so happy to see that name continuing.

Let's Try Again

Happy New Year

I am better now. I still have a cough which startles people sometimes, but I feel pretty good. When I tell people I was sick, I get very little sympathy. Instead I get topped. "Oh I was too! I was in bed for 6 days and couldn't move at all...throwing up all over the place, almost had to get admitted to the hospital. etc, etc. etc." It's a bad winter for health around here.

Right now it's difficult to be outside because the annual January bad air is back. We are regularly having red and orange alert days when we are not supposed to drive. Everyone does, of course, because for most people there are no good alternatives. Those who have options, like me being able to commute by UTA, are already doing that no matter what the air alert is.

One Year Later

Hi, there, Smokey Rose here. Most of the time my Mom writes about me, but this time she's letting me have the keyboard. It's now been one year since we have been living together. I have to say, I had no idea what was in store for me last year about this time. I mean, I just kind of schmoozed up to that lady with the blonde hair and glasses because I just like people. She wasn't anything special. But before I knew what was happening, I was inside this travel box going who knows where for a very long time just with HER. All my favorite caregivers from Best Friends .... haven't seen them since that day.

Miss Lily, 1992-2007

This year I spent my birthday at our annual fall faculty retreat. People asked me if I minded spending a birthday at such an event, and I said it was all right this year. I had done it before, and this year was fine, kind of boring actually.

I won't ever forget that first birthday retreat because my poor kitty, Miss Lily, was in the animal ICU, dying that day. I kept getting phone calls from different vets as we talked over her condition and made decisions about what to do next. I would get a ring on the phone, excuse myself to the corridor, talk to the doctors while pacing the hallway, and eventually return to the meeting in tears, only to do it again a couple of hours later.

The Adventures of Smokey Rose

Since we last checked in, Ms Smokey Rose has had some adventures. I'm not sure what she actually thought of them. I think if I had said in advance "how would you like to do this?" she would have answered, "No, thanks. I'm fine here," but, of course, I'm bigger than she is.

A Vist to the Cemetery

The first adventure was back in late October. On a bright sunny afternoon, I put on her old harness and lead, put her into her carrier box and took her for a little ride about a mile away to the City Cemetery. I found a quiet road and parked in the middle. Then I let her out to see what she thought about this grass thing.

At first she didn't know what to do. She sniffed around the car and the tires a lot. I picked her up and put her onto the grass a couple of times, but she kept coming back to the car. She got a little spooked by cars driving along other roads. (No one drove on the actual road where we were parked.) Then finally she set off very determined across the road to the other side and started up the little hill. Now I had a problem because I had left two of the car doors wide open with my purse and stuff right there. I didn't want to go very far away from the car, so I picked her up again and carried her back.

She just did NOT want to explore the south side where we were parked. Smokey Rose had decided the north side was where it was best. Finally she just gave up fighting with me and got into the car.

After that she was quite content to explore all over the inside of the car. She was especially fond of the place right by the pedals where my feet would be if I were driving.

My car is always filled up with stuff. She had plenty of places to explore and then hide in. Eventually I decided it was time to go home. I had bought one of those animal car seats, like you put a small do into, so I put her in there and fastened her in instead of using the carrier box. At first when we were driving, she was interested in looking out the window, but pretty quickly she jumped out of the seat. She was tethered to it, so she could not go far, just underneath the seat. There she had to stay until we got home because I couldn't pick her up and drive at the same time. I put her back in the carrier box and took here home.

I was encouraged because she did not protest about riding in the car in her carrier box. That bodes well for long distance travel next spring. We'll maybe practice again on another sunny afternoon with the grass. This time I'll park on the north side of the road.

A Visit to the Kitty Doctor

In early December, on a Sunday afternoon, I noticed Ms Smokey was doing a lot of licking under her tail. She was mad at me for doing so, but eventually I got a good look under her tail. I found she has licked away all the hair under the actual tail, and the skin there was bright red. The whole area did not look good really, but it was hard for me to see well.

I thought about it for awhile and decided to take her to the vet ER. A storm was coming in and I knew I would not have time during working hours to take her any place on either Monday or Tuesday, so I decided it was prudent to get her checked out rather than wait to see if she got better...or more likely worse.

So we went for another drive down to Cottonwood. She did quite well in the box in the car. We had to wait awhile because there were several animals there that day. The techs took her to the back and cleaned her butt off (I heard some yelling for a few seconds), and then we settled into a room to wait to see the doctor.

Ms Smokey explored the room and then settled down to wait. I had my kitting so I was fine. Eventually the nice doctor came to meet her. Together we had a real good look at her bottom which was indeed inflamed all over. The doctor decided to be aggressive in treating her, given her history. We went home with oral medication, prescription cream and the collar.

The collar did not make her happy. I made her wear it for two days. She got better quickly with the treatment and has been fine since. But I am keeping a really close eye on her bottom even if she doesn't like that. Too bad, so sad, must do, boo hoo.

A Visit From a Photographer

Our final adventure was a home visit from Miss Sarah, the photographer from Best Friends. Sarah is obviously very good with getting nice pictures of animals. Ms S. Rose was pretty leery for a long time. She was interested in Sarah, and couldn't help but play with the toys we offered her. But given the chance, Rosie tried to run away and hide. I had prudently locked her out of the bedroom before Sarah arrived. I think if Rosie had been able to get into the bedroom, she would have just gone under the bed and then no more pictures after that.

Eventually I more or less forced myself upon the little lady. I kind of held her down and petted her even if she did not seem to want it. But she had this look on her face that made Sarah say, "Oh you know you want to, you want it bad. Don't be so stubborn; just give in and relax."

Sarah stayed about an hour. She took stills and some video. She said she got some good pictures. Today I was interviewed by a writer from Best Friends. he said Smokey Rose's story will appear after the first of the year on the website and maybe even in the magazine or on a YouTube video. I'll let you all know.  I don't think we'll be doing interviews or autographs though. I think Ms Rosie would not really enjoy a book tour.

Welcome Smokey Rose

I have a kitty living with me again. Over Columbus Day weekend, I went down to the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab Utah and found New Kitty. She was the very first kitty I met because she was a lobby cat at Cat World HQ. She just came right up to me as I was waiting and began schmoozing. She does that. She loves people but not so much other cats which is why she was a lobby cat.

I visited some others cats at HQ, but they weren't right ... 14 years old is too old for me, new kittens I'll leave for someone else. So as we were sitting in the classroom talking about where to go next, Ms Smokey comes up to get some more attention, and the staff told me her story. That did it. I was hooked.

I did go and check out several other cats in other buildings, even spent a couple of hours with Nirvana whom I had picked out on the internet. Nirvana was hard to get to know, but I would have taken her if there had been no Smokey. Nirvana tended to stay up in the rafters, playing hard to get.

I came back after lunch and declared that Smokey was the one. Then it was a big flurry of stuff to do so that Smokey could go home with me. I went away to another building and spent time with another internet cat, Bing, who was dying of cancer because Smokey had a huge parade of caregivers coming in on a holiday Sunday to say good bye. Bing reminded me far to much of little Poppy. I hope she is all right now, one way or another

I don't want to put Smokey's whole story out on the internet for all to know, but she suffered dreadful abuse by some person when she was about 3 months old. She was so lucky she was brought to Best Friends because I am sure that other shelters would have just euthanized her. She's now 7 years old and has had all kinds of surgery, medical care, rehabilitation, and just general kindness from everyone at Best Friends. She is almost normal, but her health is precarious. She needs a strict, special diet, medication twice a day every day and close assessment every day.

She's been home with me for a week now and things have gone well from the beginning. I decided I did not like the name Smokey ... every gray cat seems to be called Smokey and besides people assume it's the name of a male. But I need to keep the name because I anticipate continuing to deal with Best Friends over the years about her. I decided just to add the name Rose, so now she is Smokey Rose which sounds kind of pretty. I call her Rose or Rosie. The sound of that is similar to Smokey, and she responds to either name now.... well she responds to the same extent that any cat responds to a name which means only when she darn well feels like it.

She is her own self. She does not have any of the little habits that Poppy or Lily had. She has her own likes and dislikes. For example, she spends all her time in places that are off the ground and have a view. She likes to see what's inside cupboards and closets, but she spends no time there at all. I plan to write more about her as a "person" as time goes on.

She remains a total love bug. I can cuddle with her at any time. She does cute things like what they called at Best Friends "Eskimo kisses" in which she bumps her nose and mouth right up against my mouth. So far she hasn't licked me, but maybe that will come one day.

I realize that having Rosie live with me is as big a responsibility and change as having another person to care for. I will become much more of a homebody now. I can travel if she has a really good caregiver while I'm gone ... not just someone looking in on her and filling up the food and water. I have that in SLC in the form of Russ, the Animal Nanny, a professional animal caregiver. But I'll not be able to afford Russ for lots of days at the same time. And I have no Russ equivalent at my summer place. Plus, I don't really want to be far away from Rosie. Already I know I would miss her a heck of a lot.

I have figured out that I can travel out of Salt Lake for short lengths of time, and Rosie will be well cared for. I can take her with me and care for her myself, but I perhaps will not be able to leave her alone at the summer place. Any way I cut it, it looks like I will only the taking short trips from time to time over the next 5-10 years.

And, you know, that's ok. I'm fine about stopping thinking about that round the world trip. I feel good about just settling in and being content at home, Rosie and me snuggling together. Autumn is here, winter is soon. Time to just take a nice long rest with the best kitty in the world.