NICE BLOG
I live with my wife Roby and our three cats. The oldest is Cyrus, a real big grey guy that looks like he’s half wild, or part wolf or something. His paws are enormous. Roby found him in North Carolina when he was a kitten. Supposedly she could put him on her shoulders and ride her bike around and he was into it. When he lived on a farm for a stretch while Roby was touring with Milemarker, he got into a fight with another animal and it fucked up his eye. He’s very gentle but he looks super fierce with the one torn retina. One time he caught a snake and drowned it in his water bowl.
Roby and I started right after I came to cat/plant-sit for her. I think I was allergic to cats then— it was the beginning of summer and I spent at least two full months with snot dripping out of my face. I got over it, though. Cyrus and I got along good while Roby was away.
Soon after we got married we decided to get another cat, a little girl kitty to be friends with Cyrus and keep him company when we were on tour. Our friend Nora’s cat had a litter of adorable little dudes and we picked out the one Nora and her roommates called “Hatchet-Face.” (We renamed her Goblynne.) When we picked her out the litter was still too little to leave. There was a tiny circus of little kittens all falling over each other and mewling like crazy, there must have been close to a dozen. It was adorable.
When it was time for us to go get Goblynne and bring her home, Nora asked us how we would feel about taking two. All of the kittens had been given away except for Goblynne and one little boy, a little orange guy with an “M” between his eyes. We were unsure until we walked into the room where Goblynne and her last remaining brother were asleep in each other’s arms. There was a guy who wanted the orange boy but Nora was worried that he wasn’t super serious about it. So we took him, and we named him Melvyn. It was so sad, thinking about how happy and funny all the kittens were, and how they’d all left the house one by one until it was just Gooby and Melvy— of course they were holding on to each other.
One time the cats stayed in a Motel 6 with us— when we moved from Chicago to Baltimore. We put the little ones in cages and sat them between us in the U-Haul, and Cyrus got to ride with just a leash on. Cyrus has been outside at other houses, but our place here in Baltimore is on a busy corner and we have no yard, so he doesn’t go outside much except when Roby lets him run out the door and follows him around. He tries to run out the door a lot. I’m sure he misses going outside. The little kittens have never really gone outside, except on leashes just in front of the house and on the back roof. There was one time Melvyn jumped out the window with a bag on his head and lived under the neighbor’s deck for a night and a half. He didn’t go very far at all and I woke up in the middle of the second night because I could hear him calling for me. Not like in a dream or anything— it was summer, so my window was open, and he was just two doors up sitting on the porch mewling desperately. Gooby hissed at him when he came home and hissed at him every time he got near her for a few days after that. Gooby is real brave on the roof lately but Melvyn seems scared— even when he has a chance to bolt out an open door he won’t do it.
We give the cats this holisitic food that they don’t sell at the grocery store because Roby says there’s an inhumane amount of ash in the grocery store food. Their whole life they’ve pretty much eaten the same little brown crunchies. But this summer— the kittens’ fourth summer— Roby decided to change it up a little and start adding a little clam juice, water, and nutritional yeast to the crunchies. It makes a little gravy that the cats love. They get real excited when it’s mealtime, it’s very cute— especially the big man, Cyrus. They have all been noticably more affectionate and kind (to us and each other) since the gravy started.
Anyhow, so now when I feed them, after I fill their bowl with crunchies from the bucket in the cupboard, I take the clam juice bottle out of the kitchen and sprinkle some on top. Then I put the clam juice bottle under the faucet and put water in it until it’s full again. Right now, the clam juice still smells like clam juice— I always take a good whiff before I put it back in the fridge. One day, though, I know it’s not going to smell like clam juice at all, and then we’ll probably go to the Giant for a new bottle of clam juice and start over.