Cat update: Semi-feral Honeybear gave Nemesis an intestinal disease because he uses her litterbox whenever he can, because that is who he is. Nemesis was very sick and then unbeknownst to us, Honeybear bit Nemesis and while we were on vacation, her injury became infected. She had lost weight with her first illness and she kept on losing weight.

We had her treated and she recovered but she’s very, very skinny and weak. Every few steps she takes her backside falters to one side. It’s disturbing. We are now giving her steroids and an appetite stimulant. She may have cancer but we’re not going to do chemo so we don’t know. Either she’s just a slow recoverer or she’s chronically ill, but we would like her to be with us, intact, for as long as she can be.

My theory is that she wants to breathe together

At night Nemesis sits on my chest, her face on my face, and we breathe together. I don’t recommend this as a practice, as it does involve breathing in a lot of fur, but she needs to do it so we do. She has been my best friend for the past few years and if she needs to breathe my air, okay then but not for that long or I start to sneeze.

Meanwhile Honeybear is doing well, and I’m not going to lie—I was very angry at him for getting Nemesis sick and possibly killing her. I avoided him except during petting time. But I know that he’s not a manipulative killer of cats. I think. He’s a cat. He’s not Ted Cruz. He is doing the best he can despite a mountain of issues. He loves being pet but he hates hands. If we could pet him using an invisible appendage, he would be thrilled. Just the sight of a hand makes this cat insane.

The other day I was busy petting during our daily pet meeting, which is approximtely 6:38 AM through 6:45 AM. This is when I sit in a certain chair and drink coffee and this is when HB (that’s Honeybear) requires petting. It’s post breakfast, which he wolfs down so you can see the outline of the food in his gut like the snake who swallowed the elephant in the Little Prince, and he paces next to my chair meowing, demanding pets.

Not with the hand!

These pets, however, must be delivered without him seeing my hand. He then purrs, this singing, deeply satisfied purr, and I scratch his head. He loves this but one false move and he whips around and glares. A few weeks ago, I messed up and he turned and really punched me with his paw. His claws were barely sheathed so I had tiny scratches on my knuckles, but it hurt! He punched me.

HB has some issues but he does love Calvin

He loves Calvin because Calvin loves to feed anyone and Honeybear loves to be fed. Now they are companions. It’s the first time a cat has really liked Calvin and it’s good to see.

The worst thing about HB is he is a very smelly, very prolific pooper. He has his own expensive Litter Robot. Truth be told, he’s down to really one litterbox. I say this because for a few months he had three. Yes, the cranky orange cat had three litterboxes. Who has three litter boxes?

I fantasized about opening the door and just letting him run away, back to where he wasn’t killing my cat or making me clean his horrible, horrible poop. I have a long and storied history with cats pooping and me cleaning it up, but HB’s poops blew my mind with their wretchedness.

We couldn’t even get him to the vet for a checkup because we couldn’t get him into the carrier. He’s very scary when he’s cornered. When Nemesis got really sick we took her and the vet gave us sedatives for HB. They just chilled him out a little bit and we threw a towel on him and got him to the clinic. The vet said to us: “Ignore this cat. Don’t give him the time of day. That is what you must do.”

And that has worked. We pay attention to him when he comes to us (breakfast, petting, snacks, dinner), although sometimes Calvin and I crouch down next to him and talk to him in silly voices. He hates that. He now spends all his time in the basement window or on a dining room chair. He follows Calvin around. He doesn’t like me much but we all get along.

Last week I did get him to go outside onto the deck. Once he was out there, he freaked. He crouched under the BBQ staring and I worried that he was having mental issues because the last time he was outside was when he was trapped by the shelter. But then I got him back inside.

So that’s the cats. Besides that, it’s a rainy, intermittently gorgeous spring. Daisy is graduating soon and Wyatt skateboards with his friends. Maggie’s house remains empty but there are workers there every day and I am in a low-level state of dread. What can you do? This is the hand life has handed us.

Like Honeybear, I guess I’m not a big fan of hands either.