It was Easter Monday, and we had been away in Brisbane for the long weekend, spending time with Mum and our manchild who has moved out (so he’s probably just “man” now).

When we have small stays away we have an amazing young girl- Little A- come and mind our cat. She comes and stays for hours, forcing pats on Woofa The Shitcat, and just hanging with her. Sometimes in life you meet people who are true animal whisperers, and cats know them, and know them well. You see, this little sunshine came to live next door to us when Woofa was spending one of her 482748972957892759 lives. In those weeks I was feeding her Ziwi pellets like they were tablets and giving her water in a syringe. Little A was right there with me much of the time. Cheering Woofa on, and sending her the good juju.

Once Woofa recovered (no one fully knows how) Little A was there to give her ear rubs and toe tickles. Woofa was a cat who loved very few, and Little A was one of them, and for that I am grateful. For the next part of this story is not so nice.

Warning: Not nice stuff to follow. 

When we got home from our trip, Woofa did what she always did- as we bought in the cases, she shot out like a bullet to make her ablutions. She would abide the shitty-litter when needed, but she always preferred a fresh air toilette. Before too long she was back inside to spread her fur over as many of our black clothes as she could- marking our legs with her scent and making us angora-like. I used to find that annoying, or at least the depilation that was always required after a Woofa encounter. I would take that annoyingness now.

As I was starting on the washing, Woofa decided she needed another run outside. It was nearing dark, and I usually wouldn’t have let her out, but she had been inside all weekend, and I thought, “Why not?” Why not indeed. Sometimes in life you have to be cruel to be kind, and other times you think you are being kind when unbeknownst to yourself you are actually being cruel. This is my guilty cruel.

I let my cat out for some freedom and to let her breathe the cool night air, and within minutes the massive cat-killing-listed-dangerous-dog next door; the one who is not allowed to be unmuzzled or in fact off its lead, EVER, had my little mate in his mouth, crushing that night breath right out of her.

Crushing her little lungs until they couldn’t draw in one more ounce of air.

Crushing her and crushing us at the very same time.

Flashback:

We got Woofa at a time when life was tricky. My Dad had died earlier that year, and I had a gaping maw in my insides that didn’t feel like a hole at all, but a lump of bluestone; just as heavy, just as cold, just as grey. I didn’t know quite how to grow around grief back then (oh what a thing to know: joy not joy) so when I looked into the blue eyes of that tiny kitten and I felt a little chip of bluestone fall away, I had to have her. Don’t get me wrong: I pretended that she was for the children (MOTY, me) but I think we all knew she was for me.

And so she was.

She was the one who sat with me through the long nights of worry about Coco. I would sit on the couch in Coco’s room, watching the rise and fall of her chest in the eon-nights before the horror-relief of transfusion day, trying to decide if she was doing the “puffy breathing” that constituted an emergency (what the hell is puffy breathing anyway?) and Woofa would purr a rhythm of a normal life. Some nights I could even believe her song.

She was the one who sat on my feet and kept me warm all the nights when Hayls was crook and I didn’t have the words to cheer her on in a way that she would feel buoyed. And then after. She was there with that same warmth in the after, when she cajoled me to believe that one day I would feel warmth in my blood again. And she was right, that cat of mine.

Or perhaps I was hers.

I guess that’s more true. I was hers. She owned a piece of real estate in my cells in exchange for all of the things she gave me.

By and by and through the years my life got easier and less grief filled. Less death, less fear, more life, more fun. Things got easier and harder and easier again, and all the while, any time I had sleepless hormonal nights, or early morning wakings, she was there and there and there with me. I’d open my lids and there she’d be, right up close and staring at me with those blue eyes saying, “It’s okay. You’ve got this. You’ve always got this. Now get me some food. And by the way, I don’t really give a shit about what ails your mind, give me the food. Now would be good.” I would raise myself from the bed and the so-familiar-it’s-almost-unnoticed ba-dumph of her hitting the floor would follow me to the kitchen.

Flashforward: 

There’s now been a little time since the Cujo next door killed my mate. Enough that you’d think I’d be used to going to the pantry without being accosted for “meo-ore food, meo-ore food”. But I still reach for the bag.

Enough that you’d think I would have stopped dream-thinking there is a little warm comfort weight on my feet at night. But I still feel the heft of her.

Enough that you’d think that I would have stopped half waiting for the ba-dumph. But I hear it in my mind.

Death is a strange and cruel thing. It allows your brain to leave you with things added: guilt that you let your cat outside to be picked up by a monster, fear that you might lose it like George at the murderer’s owner if she dares come near, anger that some deaths can be so so simply avoided, and yet they are not.

But the reaper? He leaves you not with things added, but with things taken away:

your comfort,

your solace,

your little friend,

and perhaps most of all the ba-dumph as she follows you, to salve your heart.

RIP Woofa Shitcat Butterball Popsicle Asher. You were a Goodcat after all.

I’m sorry.

The Shitcat isn’t dead (again).

On Tuesday morning there was quite the commotion at Asher HQ, as the MASSIVE horsedog who is agisted next door and who is, how shall we say it, not a cat person, pulled his owner over and dragged her over our driveway like cheese on a grater, to chase Woofa the Shitcat. (Who was most likely lying supine and flashing her derrière at him.) The owner came running at me, screaming, “My dog just killed your cat.”

So I calmed down the sobbing dog-jockey whilst I looked for a trail of blood, tiny cat bones and general destruction in the direction of #deadcat. None. And no deadcat to be seen.

Except said cat was nowhere to be found. Strange behaviour for a dead cat indeed.

As if in response to the mayhem and maiming, the heavens opened up, and we had what Queenslanders call “a drop of rain”. The type of rain that makes you glad you are wearing a bra. And waterproof mascara. And you have sandbags in your garage that your Mum made you get from council once, when they were going for free (I case of floods. No we don’t live near a river. But: free.)

I searched and searched through the deluge for #deadcat for at least two minutes, before deciding the lack of blood spatter meant she was without harm or without a trace (I’ve watched the shows, I know how this stuff rolls) and it was time to do what all good cat owners do: wait, call “pusspusspuss” in that high pitched voice that cats universally love loathe, wait, shake the dry food pellets, wait.

By and by, the thing that all cat owners know about happened: #deadcat reappeared. Bedraggled and a bit skittish, but decidedly #alivecat. No sign of blood or eviscerated entrails or shards of bones chewed by the jaws of megalodog. Nothing.

She stared at me for a beat, did one cross sounding miaow, demanded food and then started licking her puckered area. Definitely not dead today.

The overall casualty count was: two skinned knees (The Meg owner), one wet t-shirt that was winning NO competitions this day (cat owner), one heart on the verge of infarction (cat owner).

I know one day #alivecat will be #deadcat, but my goodness it’s hard to believe that supershitcat will ever meet her maker. And she sure knows how to burst my corpuscles. We do love you Woofa, but can you hold off on the near death action for awhile?

The vet said ‘cats like this’ often live into their twenties. Pass me the smelling salts.

Aren’t cats amazing?

…From The Ashers

***2023 Edit*** Eventually that shit dog (who was never supposed to go outside without a muzzle because it killed another cat, did get to Woofa, and did in fact kill Woofa. Yes, we reported it to council and had multiple meetings with them, and no, they did not give that foul murdering dog the green dream. It still lives next door to it. The owners still walk it past the front of our house. And there’s not a goddamn thing we can do about it.

We have a cat.

It looks like this:

Hairy.

Very hairy.

Sometimes this cat does poo.

Mostly the poo ends up in the kitty litter, and all is right in the world.

Once upon a time, the poo didn’t end up in the kitty litter, but remained in the hairy hair for quite some time before my nostrils were assailed by a fecund faecal odour not befitting this establishment.  There was a kitty-dag.  This was bad, but the poo was quite firm and could be easily removed with toilet paper, a little water and much gagging.

Once upon a THIS time, the poo didn’t end up in the kitty litter.  Neither was it firm.  It was quite pliable.  And securely affixed to the hairy hair.  Entwined in fact.  Almost poo-plaited in.  I believe surfers have a term for a similar phenomenon, when they have been surfing for hours and their arse-hairs get a little matted and then they desire deft defecation.  I have it on reasonable authority that this is known as a “netty”.  (Don’t.Even.Ask how I know this.)  So Woofa Butterball Popsicle Asher had a feline fur-netty, and was showing no signs of removing it of her own accord.

The other three sooks in this house were gasping and gagging and basically carrying on.

So, as with all things daring and dangerous and disgusting, it fell to the woman.

I demanded gloves, scissors and toilet paper STAT.  I also demanded a camera, because: blog.

I donned the gloves, held the cat prostrate, and performed the nettyectomy.

A little bit of vomit might have scalded my throat as I swabbed the area clean.

And that is that story of why an unfortunate event has led to me imbibe my second Stella on a school night.

For your viewing pleasure: a blurry pic of the netty. It was difficult to get a clear shot due to the retching.

You might not believe me, but I SHIT YOU NOT: less than five minutes after I cut that poo-pouch off, the cat was LICKING HER BUM HAIR.  I know not why.   It was cut it off.  And if she likes licking faecal-fur, why did she wait?  Why was she licking it at all?  What is wrong with nature-y things?  Excuse me now, whilst I go and eat a placenta I have in my freezer*.

*This is not true.  I do not have a placenta (although our midwife was strangely keen for us to keep them).  I didn’t have a crock-pot back then: opportunity missed.

…From The Ashers xx

So we have a cat: Woofa Butterball Popsicle Asher.

(Not taken today)

We got her at a time when I maybe wasn’t going so well.

When you have a kid with a “thing” sometimes you can be a bit of a mental as you chisel away the entrenched stone of your heart that is made up of all the ridiculous notions of perfection you had, and sculpt yourself a new shape.  One that encompasses the reality of loving the kid you have.  I say “you”, but I mean “me”.  It was ME who was a bit of a mental.  I guess I was working my way through the stages of grief, but not of a loss of something tangible, but of a potential.  A potential life for our daughter that existed only in my imagination.

There was also the sense of loss in knowing that I would have no more children, for I couldn’t, once I knew that we both carried secret mutations on a precise spot on a particular chromosome that when coupled, would make a kid with a thing, one out of every four times.  Again, a loss of potential, a fleeting wisp of an idea of a baby that I allowed only to exist in my peripheral vision.

So when I saw that Ragdoll and her deep blue eyes- kind of like the eyes of a kid I know- I had to have her, even though it wasn’t the best time for me to be looking after another life.

And if you could see that kid with a thing cuddling that cat, pushing it in a pram or touching noses together, you’d probably agree it was a good choice.  Even if you think cats are a bit shit.

Her name was Popsicle when we got her, but we wanted to name her ourselves.  I wanted to call her Johnno or Chairman Miaow.  Liam wanted to call her Fooey Fooey Meow Meow, and Nath didn’t give a toss ‘cos he hates cats.  But Coco wanted to call her Woofa, so of course that is what she was named.

Woofa is the laziest cat in the known world, and usually comes in around 5pm on a big day.  Today she didn’t.  And then tonight she didn’t and then late this evening she didn’t.  And even though I profess not to like that cat, I started to feel sick at the thought of what we might be scraping from David Low Way tomorrow before the kids got up.  I called her one more time tonight before bed, even doing the silly “pusspusspussPUSS” thing that no self respecting cat has ever heeded.

And she came.  She came all wobbly and miaaaoww-ing and strange.  I couldn’t tell immediately what was wrong although I knew it was something.

It’s her eye.  The entire thing is full of blood, so much so that at first when I held my breath and prised the lids open I thought there was no eye, just a dead red socket of eyelessness.  I’ve looked three times and taken a photo and sent it to the vet, and I’m still not convinced that what I’m seeing is her eye.  Her azure is crimson.  I want to quote Lady Macbeth and say “The multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the blue (sic) one red”.  Or something.  A bit melodramatic, but it’s her eye.  Or not an eye.  I can’t decide and I can’t sleep yet until I look one more time and be sure that someone hasn’t just done a King Lear and an “Out vile jelly” to it, like I first thought.

Seems I’ve read too much Shakespeare and Stephen King (the World’s two greatest storytellers, by the way) for sleep to come easily tonight. (But of course the bloody cat is asleep next to me on the Time Capsule, dreaming the dreams of the innocent.)

I guess you don’t see with your eyes when you dream.

Do you want to see the eye photo? (You know you do)

What are you, lovely readers, Team Dog or Pussy Lover?

…From The Ashers xxx

Ah, AHEM, it’s my birthday this month too you know.  It came and went without even a purr this year.  That was noted, my lovely family, oh yes, it was noted.  I am not happy.  Not that this is news.  I am pretty much always at least marginally pissed off.  I don’t like, well, anything much really.

The four things I do like:

• Peeing right on the edge of the path, so when I dig it in, a bit of soil goes on to that path- it gives the Woman something to sweep up.
• Rubbing against the Woman’s legs when she is wearing black pants- the fluffy bits that stay on her leg are very pretty.  I try to make patterns.
• Scratching on the bedroom doors at night until I hear the Boy and the Girl stir a little- such a satisfying noise (Both the scratching and the waking.  Zing.)
• Staying awake most of the night and making things mysteriously fall from spots on high, then sleeping on the Man’s pillow most of the day.

That’s about it I think.

The Man and the Woman really don’t like me much, and that’s fine, I don’t like them either, but they are warm.  So I usually try to sleep on either one’s legs most nights.  I used to sleep on the Man’s chest, until he launched me right into the full-length mirror one night.  I got just one glimpse of my own startled eyes before I whacked into it.  So I’m more cautious these days.  More stealthy too.  It’s good for my instincts, because God knows I’m bloody hopeless at catching wildlife.  So far all I’ve managed are a few geckos and cockroaches.  I can take or leave the geckos, stupid clickity-slimy things they are, but the ‘roaches are bloody lovely.  All crunchy on the outside, with a gooey centre.  I can’t come at the wings though, so I leave them lying around for the Woman to clean up.  Reminds her of what a useful pet I am, in case she is getting ideas, if you get my meaning.

So, about the birthday celebration, or lack thereof.  I heard the Girl ask if she could get me something, and the Woman said no, I wouldn’t even know it was my birthday, I was “just” a cat.  The Girl secretly took me off into her room and gave me a tea-party anyway.  It was a bit shit really, no actual tea, or party, for that matter, but at least she didn’t dress me up in that ridiculous pink hat and make me sit in the doll’s pram. (I’m too big for that thing.)

I started my vengeance last night: knocked over an ornament and climbed back onto the bed every time the Man kicked me off. You should’ve seen me, I was relentless.

And this is just the beginning, dear friends, just the beginning….

Tonight: my bum and the kitchen bench have a meeting.

I’ll keep you updated.

You.Just.Wait.

Do you have an evil pet?