A Farewell to my Stevie Cat (and an important PSA)

After five and a half years of being my best friend, our kitty, Señor Stevie Nicks, succumbed to heart disease*.

If I had known it was coming I would have taken the time to have a few more days with him to do all the lovey things people do:

Chasing butterflies

Spinning in a field of flowers

 

Drinking milkshakes together

Going for boat rides in Central Park

Snuggling at home

   

But he was sick... and scared, and we lost him so suddenly. He was barely showing any signs of illness, still eating and playful, sleeping with his butt in our faces, drinking milkshakes, and rowing boats, but then he was gone just moments after getting him to the vet, leaving me and Mike shocked and devastated. I don't know how I have managed my whole life to avoid the up-close death of a pet with as many as I've had. It's a really horrible concept and I don't know who came up with it but I would like to unsubscribe, RIGHT NOW.  In the end, I am glad he chose us and we did everything we could to give him the best life possible. I love him so much and I will never forget my sweet Stevie cat.

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*Stevie died of cardiac arrest from an enlarged heart. He had a grain allergy, to the point that he couldn't even eat poultry that was fed grain or he would itch terribly and barf/poop/gain lots of weight. We found him a grain-free food that had all the nutrition he needed to keep him healthy, in theory. Unfortunately, I am finding now, much too late, that grain-free pet food currently on the market seems to contain some ingredient that might interfere with taurine uptake, which cats (and dogs) need to avoid heart damage. The FDA is investigating this, but there are things you can do in the meantime.

Please, if you are feeding your pet a grain-free diet have their taurine levels tested IMMEDIATELY (or as soon as you can afford to).

If they don't have allergies, stop feeding them a commercial grain-free diet. If they do, please, get their taurine tested and consult with a vet on how best to proceed. Once they have symptoms, which, in Stevie's case was only abdominal breathing, it is often too late, but the damage can be reversed if it is caught early enough with taurine supplementation. No one should go through what we're going through now, losing our pet so young, so please, share this information so every cat lives long enough to replace us as the dominant species on the planet.

Cheeseblarg does Makeup - Episode One

Despite being a lizard girl, I decided to see if I could actually produce a video of me putting on makeup that was entertaining enough to watch so that I can progress towards my goal of fancy makeup companies sending me free samples. According to my husband, it helps to actually care about putting on makeup when you watch it, which he really doesn't, but I did get a few laughs out of him when I held him down and forced him to preview it before I put my dry crackly face on the internet where hopefully I won't attract hoards of trolls who will mock me and make me cry for the rest of my life. Sorry, I digress. His final assessment was that it is worth watching and that I'm cute, and I like that sort of feedback, so here it is.

It IS somewhat long. I will learn in the future that blending times are times for quietness so I can fast forward through them without sounding like a chipmunk, but if you like makeup, or me, or just want to pretend that we hang out when I'm putting on makeup, maybe you could watch? And subscribe? And encourage me to make more and better videos of all sorts* where you get to see me doing things and talking? And even share it? Maybe?

*Like drawing... I have the technology to show myself drawing comics for the blarg while possibly speaking about what I'm doing.

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Twentyish by Fortyish

 I add "ish" to my bucket lists. Like 4 before 40-ish, give or take a few years.

— Jennifer 

Tomorrow I will be 39 and a ½ so following the tradition of age-related goal setting, with the all too poignant reminders I’ve had lately that life is far too short, I am coming up with a list of things I would like to do before 40, but as my twitter friend suggested, I’ll make it by 40ish, because I am chronically ill and I’m not willing to beat myself up for not reaching goals that are arbitrary to begin with. So these are things that I would like to do in my life and soon, that I am willing to put some effort towards. Also, I do stuff I want to all the time, so I’m pretty sure I’m not going to come up with 40 things I really want to do that I haven’t done before (or in a really long time), so, here’s 20ish by 40ish:

1. Go to the Grand Canyon
2. Pick my nose at the Grand Canyon

I could make them really easy related things like "Go to Grand Canyon" "Pick nose at Grand Canyon" #40by40ish

— J Rose

3. Get a book published by an actual publisher (and not just self-publishing- clearly this requires cooperation by entities other than myself which makes it so much harder)
4. Gamble in Las Vegas
5. Pick my nose while gambling in Las Vegas (also counts if it is just done in a casino)
6. Pet a llama
7. Snuggle goats (I would say pet a goat, but most of my childhood was spent petting goats apparently)

 

8. Meet internet friends in person
9. Read a new Stephen King book
10. Collect all the cats in Atsume Neko

My goodies bring all the kitties to the yard. #nekoatsume #newbie

A photo posted by JRose (@cheeseblarg) on Mar 30, 2016 at 10:24pm PDT

11. Go to a dentist despite being a complete dental phobe (extra points for not having overwhelming anxiety whilst doing so)
12. Try bone marrow
13. Vote for Bernie Sanders
14. See the new Ghostbusters movie in the theater
15. Pick my nose while watching the new Ghostbusters movie
16. Plan a surprise party for my cat

17. Write a short story
18. Purge a bunch of my belongings that I don’t need or ever think about
19. Make pasta from scratch
20. Have funny colored hair (again, my college career was a time of rainbow hair)
21. Eat an entire village
22. Eat a fruit I've never had before, for dessert, after eating an entire village

And with that said, stay tuned for this exciting project!

Coming to da blarg (with extra content at Patreon for supporters) at the end of April!

No Snuggles for You!

Stevie WILL NOT cuddle with me like a snuggly kitty... unless I have been asleep for several hours. Then he wants to lay up against my face/chest and nuzzle, but just until I wake up completely and think, "Aw, he's snuggling," then he gets up and leaves.

So, in short, I think my cat might be a snuggling version of a necrophiliac.

Señor Butter Butt

If Stevie had his way, he would eat margarine for every meal. He seems to have no shame about it. I tweeted this the other night:

as I was turned to the computer, making fun of him online, this happened:

My husband just stood there and watched the cat happily licking the margarine off the piece of matzo I had gone into the kitchen to get (which prompted his meowing in the first place). Somehow he thought I had allowed this because I guess he thinks I am totally okay with disgusting cat mouth on my food.

This is not the first incident with the margarine. My mom left the end of a stick on the counter in the kitchen. I found it the next morning with suspicious tongue prints on it. He seriously won't eat anything else left out . My husband sat some chicken wings on a tray on the bed the other evening, walked away... cat totally ignored them. But he left an eaten ear of corn (that had margarine on it) and the cat was carrying it through the house, happy as could be.

Seriously, if he ever figures out how to open the refrigerator, I can totally see this happening:

Hooked on Straws

We've found that my cat's favorite toy in the entire world is a regular plastic drinking straw. On the bright side, his toys are REALLY cheap, or free, basically, if I bring extras home when I go out for fast food. He'll even fetch them if they're thrown for him, and will come back and drop them at your feet to throw again... after mauling your hand a little.

There are only two negatives... my house is full of chewed on straws. I tuck into bed at night and find them buried in my sheets. And then, there's this:

edited to add:

The Supervisor

This happened the other day:

Other than the talking part, but I know what his meows mean....

Then last night, I'm watching TV and I look over into my bathroom, and I see this.  I have no idea what it means, but I am pretty sure it is an intimidation tactic.

Meow.

It is a special day here on Cheeseblarg....

Which is more like...

I got a cat on Tuesday from our Humane Society.

 His name is Señor Stevie Nicks. 

This is what he would look like if he were an astronaut.

So now you can look forward to comics about cats. 

*blows noise maker*

*startles cat*

So far his favorites are meowing and sitting on my head.