Caliboy in Brooklyn: Introducing Picasso Kahn

KKAAAAAAAAHHHHNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!

Netflix is an interesting gauge for solitary free time. Like, what do you watch when you're by yourself and have time? For me, late at night I tend toward old X-File episodes or a series of random horror/suspense movies that look shitty and that I can only stomach for maybe 10 minutes. I watch these then because Corrie doesn't like them.

On the occasion that I return home when Corrie wasn't working, or nowadays when she's got something on (which is rare), she tends to watch animated fare. She'll pick one of the endless computer animated films in Netflix's Kids/Fantasy category.

It's not that I don't like these types of movies in the same way that Corrie doesn't like the horror/thriller films I watch. But not disliking them doesn't mean I'd choose to watch them.

Frankly I'm always surprised upon watching. In most cases the surprise is pleasant.

One Friday I got home and she was watching a Belgium-produced film called "Thunder and the House of Magic". Now, a title like that has about a 0% chance of being watched by me. And missing it would have been a shame.

I did miss the beginning of "Thunder and the House of Magic", and after hearing what it was, I am happy to have been absent for those initial ten or eleven minutes. The titular Thunder is an orange tabby kitten. The movie opens from his point of view, riding in a car. The car door opens and his favorite toy is tossed outside to the curb while he gives chase, leaving the car. The door slams behind him and the car drives away, abandoning him.

Horror movies, thriller movies, emotionally charged movies...none of those effect me, for some reason, like a kitten being abandoned on the side of the road. I'm trying to figure this out.

In any case, Thunder proves to be a resourceful kitten, eventually making a home with a magician and eventually saving the day. The plot is nicely convoluted, and there are many obstacles facing our young hero, but, of course, he prevails in the end.

Watching the movie and being a cat owner, one can see that the animators and producers both knew cats quite well, knew how they behaved and expressed themselves with their physicality, and tried their damnedest to realize that knowledge in this movie. That as a viewer I could tell all of that meant they were at least successful in that regard.

It may have been watching "Thunder and the House of Magic", it may have just been time, but Corrie was now convinced to finally go out and get a companion for Tuxedo, a little brother if you will. This was January.

We decided to head to the rescue shelters and take a look, think about it, decide when would be a good time to pursue a new addition, try and get our apartment in order, and make it happen.

Corrie doesn't handle the dog sections of shelters well: "They all look so sad! I want to save 'em all!" It's endearing. I'm exactly the same way with the cats. I want to save all of them. I don't know why I'm not affected the same way with the dogs, because I love dogs as well. I'm just not emotionally spent after ten minutes at the dog shelter like I am with the cats.

It would seem to come down to which kitten Corrie would want, because I'll be fine with any of them, even ones that would obviously not be good mixes with Tux.

We found a few candidates at the shelters, talked about them, eventually heading home as Corrie found one last spot on her phone she wanted us to go and visit.

At this last place they had one absolutely terrified orange tabby kitten I was smitten with immediately, but it was pretty obvious his personality may not have been strong enough to make it living with ornery Tuxedo. At this same place Corrie found herself conversing with a loudly purring black and white kitten with a serious head tilt.

He liked to nuzzle and his purr was blender-like in volume. I thought at first he was purring as loud as possible to get this human attention, but I was wrong, (SPOILER ALERT) his purr is just that loud.

5. The Name Game

Like Tux, this kitten picked Corrie, and she needed to rescue him. His head tilt was due to a poorly managed inner-ear infection from a few weeks prior and it may clear up, we were told. His name was Pepper or Mo-Mo, but we could change it if we wanted.

Tuxedo came with a collar adorned with the name "Tuxedo" on the nickel-sized aluminum medallion, along with a phone number, after he was found on the side of a San Luis Obispo street, having been dispatched like Thunder. His name was 100% perfect: it is cool, can be shortened easily, describes what kind of cat he is, and describes exactly how he looks to boot.

During our first few months with Tux, we started adding names to his moniker, mostly trying to accommodate his evolving personality. I think this may be only me, but I settled on Tuxedo Cartman-Katt as an official name: "Cartman" because he's a manipulative liar and food monster like Eric Cartman from "South Park"; and "Katt" because of his propensity early on to nap with his tongue out like Stimpy, who's last name was Katt.

The vet claims his name is Tuxedo Sherwood.

So now, a decade later, we have a new kitten, and this one likes to nuzzle. I've never seen a kitten climb up to your face, sniff at your nose, then bury his tiny face in your neck:

To quote Monty Burns: How wretchedly adorable!

But we also have the head tilt to deal with. Turns out it was not going to go away. Check out this little video Corrie took:

It's silly cute. Corrie was thinking along the lines of "Sherlock", because of the inquisitive nature of the tilted head, but Sherlock is too close to Sherwood, and difficult to shorten. She suggested Picasso, because it was like one of his cubist paintings, and it can be shortened to 'Casso or even 'Cass. Why is shortening it so important?

Anyway, he came to us being called Mo-Mo, while Pepper was something from earlier and seemed too distant (for a four month old runt kitten? But still...), and we were compelled to make a change.

Related note: I was originally planning on calling this post "Cat People", with a stronger tie to the Thunder movie and how those producers had to have been cat people. But, while Corrie and I like cats, we're not so much "cat people" as we are "animal people who live in an apartment and can't agree on how small a dog will be acceptable." Then Tux went ill, this post got postponed...and postponed...and postponed...while we started to learn about Picasso, and the post's title changed.

6. Life Imitates a Horror Movie

And then life got interesting.

Picasso, newly minted newest member of the household, was doing kitten things. Tux was pissed off, making deep horn-like vocalizations displaying his disagreement with the situation, but mostly getting along.

After a few days, maybe a week, he stopped hissing and the angry horn-like bellowing, and it seemed like things were going to get better. He wasn't so pissy. This may work out, we said to ourselves.

Then one day Tux didn't want breakfast. Then dinner that night. Then breakfast the next day.

To repeat, Tuxedo didn't want anything to eat for three meals. When offered a piece of pork from my own plate, he demurred. WE HAVE A PROBLEM.

On top of that, he started looking uncomfortable, like he was constantly trying to choke back vomit. By day three, when he did barf, it looked like a huge green slug that wouldn't come all the way out. He hadn't used the box for peeing or deuce-dropping. He hadn't eaten in a few days. Cats not peeing is a certified emergency, and we knew that, so we headed to the vet.

What was up? Could it really be about the kitten? Tux'd seemed ready to accept the little bugger...

The vet took an x-ray and saw he was constipated something fierce and bloated with gas. They gave him an enema and me a $300 bill.

It was the next day, when Corrie was out at an after-work function (her own going-away party), where Tux had morphed.

He was hiding under the bed when I came looking for him. When I found him, I'll never forget his face: it had changed into something out of a horror movie. Later they told me it had become bloated due to his constant air-gulping. It was badly bloated and deformed, his mouth lay open, sagging and crusty, his eyes glazed over. This was not good. This was exactly what the vet wanted us to pay attention for. Back to the hospital with the little dude.

He needed to stay overnight. That turned into two nights. They weren't sure what was happening. I was oddly confident he wasn't going to be leaving us permanently, but Corrie was far more worried. Feeling helpless was the worst part. THIS IS A CAT AND NOT EVEN A HUMAN BABY. I started to see a bigger picture about fatherhood.

Meanwhile Picasso's nature was coming into focus. He desperately wanted to be around his brother, and even after getting Tux home from the vet and needing to sequester him, Picasso was unsure of what he could do:

His multi night stay at the vet gave us a $2k bill and more questions. And directions. Because of his bloated face and madly irritated throat, Tux needed to be "assist-fed". He also had five different meds that needed to be "assist-administered" at different times of the day and in specific orders.

Are you familiar with "assist-feeding" a cat? Essentially, you need a cat-food that is ridiculously soft, mixed with water, and able to be both drawn up into a ginormous syringe and shot out of the syringe down the throat of an angry and squirming cat. Corrie, newly done with working in Orange County, found herself in this role. Near the end of this horrific multi-times-a-day process, she and Tux had an unwritten understanding: he knew he needed the food, and that the act was as traumatic for her as it was for him.

Again, meanwhile, Picasso was too goddamn cute to pass up paying attention to, and he spent much time being doted upon by Corrie, in between the force-feedings and force-medicating. Also, it became apparent Picasso liked to TEAR SHIT UP. Here he is messing with Corrie's fifteen year old philodendron, aptly named Phil:

7. Corrie's the Real Superstar

In between all this, Tux being deathly ill and Picasso in DESTRUCTO-MATIC mode, she managed to study enough to pass her last ARE, eliminating the ticking clock of her seven nationally needed architectural exams. She's almost an architect! She only has the California supplemental exam, and then she'll be a licensed architect!

I'm so very proud of her. This could easily have been its own post, but time was never on my side in the six months of this year leading to now.

8. Tux Feeling Better; The Boys "Getting Along"

After a while Tuxedo was feeling better, eating on his own, but his voice still hadn't returned. The vet said that it would be the last thing to return. We weren't too upset, seeing as how Tux has long been known for his mouthy actions leading up to the two meals of the day.

But now there was another mouth to deal with, and occasionally the two would sit together long enough to pose for a picture:

Now may be a good time to reflect on the size issue: at first I was sure that Picasso was going to be substantially smaller than Tux, but only because Tux is a beast. It wasn't so much that Picasso was destined to be smaller, it was more that it's not fair to be gauged against such a large specimen. At least 'Casso's attitude and demeanor matched a beast far larger.

Pretty soon they were chasing each other all around the apartment. Tux finally was getting the exercise an older cat needed as well as some camaraderie. They "played" often, and by that I mean they bite, chew, and generally beat the hell out of each other, going at it pretty roughly, until Picasso screeches and Tux lets up. But Picasso is right back at it. They say cat play shouldn't be as rough as our boys get, and it has to do with who's training whom in the play, and because of Tux's aggression that Picasso won't learn easy-play. Um...okay. Not exactly sure how to manage that, so we just let them do their thing.

Afterwards, they pass out together for hours:

9. "Kahn" or "Stitch"?

If there is a writing instrument, tag of some kind, plastic label...anything actually made out of matter, it seems, floating around, Picasso has deemed it enemy of the state, and will try to destroy it. On top of being labeled THE DESTRUCTOR like Gozer in Ghostbusters, he turned out to be a fearless acrobat, jumping at bad angels and turning his tiny body into a torpedo of claws and soft, soft fur.

The bad angles are due to his depth perception issues related to his head tilt. It's cute and tragic. He manages like a champ, though.

Corrie and I likened him to the indestructible alien Stitch in Disney's Lilo and Stitch. But that didn't seem to capture his attitude as much as his physical daring-ness. That's when we finally settled on Genghis. Genghis Kahn, or the historical perception of said Mongolian leader, seemed to align perfectly with our little ball of energy.

Corrie was quick to defend Picasso, saying that Tuxedo was able to spend this age outside at our Palm Street place in San Luis, where he had two little buddies as well (Bullet and Cous-cous). So we didn't get to see the kitten-destructor mode of Tux. That's true, but Kahn fits as a moniker.

Picasso Kahn.

10. Five Pounds of Life Altering Change

Corrie mentioned at one point during this entire half-year of adjusting: "It's amazing how much 5 pounds can change your life."

Picasso has been that. And now he's getting bigger and won't be such a runt, and Tux has slowed down on his rough play, likely because he can't just throw lil' 'Casso around like he used to (and boy, how he used to). It seems like we found a good complement to Tuxedo.

This was also part of a larger master plan, one which I'll leave alone discussion of for the time being. Finding a pal for Tux and trying to adjust to cramped life in our beloved Long Beach apartment...

11.

One last thing to mention is the noticeable shift in pet-owner-ing styles Corrie has adopted. Ten years ago when Tux was brand new in our lives Corrie was loving yet stern. Tux needed the attitude adjustment. Nowadays, Corrie is a softie using the kid-gloves while I am the disciplinarian. Not that I wasn't with Tux, only that with Tux the needs of the situation were different.

Watching Corrie adjust her "caring-for" styles has been interesting. She's much more patient these days.

Oddly, I'm finding it hard to describe exactly the truth of the matter. She's just different. But that makes sense: we're different people than we were a decade ago, like everyone.

12. Time Gets Away

I wanted to post about getting a new cat before now. At first it was going to be tied in to "Thunder and House of Magic", but then Tux fell deathly ill. Later I was trying to figure out how process all of those tough emotions about the possibility of losing a beloved pet.

We dragged Tux to Kingston, then to Brooklyn and to Austin and back to California! He's better traveled than my charges; Corrie and I weren't even engaged when we got him---now we've been married for more than a half-dozen years. We expected at least another five-to-seven years with him, but those few weeks made his final exit a much more tangible thing.

Being able to celebrate a new addition was clouded over by difficult realities.

Work demands were constant and draining, and blog life took a seat way in the back of the bus.

Tux has recovered from that mess, but now he's chewed his ass nearly bald, and we're not sure what's up. We are sure, though, that we won't be going back to the vet until he stops eating: we don't need to throw another thousand dollars at a problem and get no answer.

Life rolls on. The boys play, they eat, sleep, frolic, bask in the sun, play some more, and sleep a whole lot more.

13. The Boys

When we first saw this, our hearts melted a little: