It’s been 10 years since I last posted! Wow – where does the time go? Well, Mom’s been busy and she’s my secretary so it’s been some slow going. Anyway, a lot has changed in my life since December of 2015, when I was finishing my first year in my new home with Mom in fabulous West Hollywood. Above pic, by the way, is of me leading Mom down a nice woodsy path in Watkins Glen, New York. So, yes, quite a different place from Los Angeles.
I think where I last left off, things were going well with Rhea (one of the “strange squirrels” who I later learned were called CATS), and the other strange squirrel, Katusha, was still learning to warm up to me. Eventually, Katusha and I did learn to like each other and even grow to be top of sofa buddies. Mom was quite happy when we began sharing the most coveted place in the apartment together.
Anyway, we spent about two more years in our WeHo abode. Mom’s aunt was sick and Grandpa was having a hard time dealing with it all himself and Mom found herself driving back and forth between LA and Phoenix far too often. I was spending practically every other weekend in Posh Pet Care, which I liked because I had a cute boyfriend there, another chiweenie named Bruno! But Mom got tired of driving through the desert, and of driving in crazy LA, and she was also a little tired of the noise in WeHo and of apartment living in general, and the houses, she said, were just not in our budget. So, she got a job lead through a friend at work, and, off the four of us moved to Phoenix.
At first we lived in a rented condo in a part of North Phoenix called Deer Valley, which I liked because there were lots of small dogs there, like me. It was really fun walking around the complex to chat with all my friends, and going to see Grandpa, whose house was just down at the next intersection. But then we bought a house all the way down in a place called Sun Lakes, way south of Phoenix. It was kind of out in the boondocks, and Mom called it the desert boondocks house. But it was great because it was quiet and we had lots of space and there were five big lakes and we took lots of walks around them.
That’s a pic of me and my new sis, Irina – more about that nutter in a sec – walking around one of the lakes. The lakes contained so many great scents – and I am a scent-hound so it was a perfect place for me! Also, duck poop was fab, although Mom always stopped me when she saw me munching on some. Mom loved the lakes because, she said, they were beautiful, but hot in the summer. I never noticed hot.
Anyway, other wonderful thing about our Sun Lakes home was the huge backyard! We could run and run and run around it, and sometimes there were cottontail rabbits and gophers, and lots and lots of birds and lizards. It was a cornucopia of critters out there!
Here I am smelling a newly dug gopher hole. We called him Gunny! We never did find him. But we knew he was there from the smells and the holes he dug. Mom called it the Caddyshack backyard, whatever that means.
But some bad things happened in Sun Lakes. First, Rhea got sick. Mom found a bump on her head that wouldn’t go away. She took her to the vet and it ended up being cancer. Rhea had stereotactic radiotherapy and for a little while got better. But then, early one morning, Rhea was bumping all around. She couldn’t walk straight and she was trying to climb the stairs and was so woozy I was afraid she’d fall down them. I ran to get Mom. She was not happy about being woken up and she yelled at me and told me to hold my pee. I said, no, I don’t have to go to the bathroom! And I kept licking her face and pawing at her arm. Finally, she got up and stomped out to the patio door to open it when Rhea came bumping up, walking sideways, her head lopsided. “Oh no!” Mom cried. Mom took her to the radiation vet and when she came home she did not have Rhea with her. Mom was so sad for a long time. And so was I. Rhea had become my bestie. Katusha and I had become friends by then, but Rhea let me play with her in a way that Katusha would not. Rhea let me bop her in the face with my nose; Katusha let me sit next to her on the couch and bed but there was no touching.
Mom used to let Rhea go outside in a harness and play on the rock sculpture. She’s out there, Sofia, she would tell me. But we just can’t see her anymore. Her spirit is there. I kind of understood. For a long time, I sat at the patio door, waiting anyway.
Mom knew I was depressed over Rhea, so she decided to bring a new companion into the house. She didn’t want another cat because it took me so long to learn to get on with Rhea and Katusha. So, she went to the shelter she volunteered at to adopt this little brown and white chiweenie whom she said looked just like me. But that dog, Lucy, was adopted right before we got there. So, the adoption specialists said since I was there to meet a new friend, Mom should have me try out some other dogs. So, I waited in a big play area while they brought several dogs by to play with me. One of them was a crazy jumper and Mom worried he would jump the fence in no time, one was way too high-strung and wouldn’t stop barking and then whining, and one actually had the nerve to growl at me when I made a stink about him warming up to Mom too quickly. We were about to go home empty-handed when they brought this big coyote-looking dog in, who’d just arrived at the shelter from rural northern Arizona. She looked scary but seemed pretty cool. She sniffed at me, but didn’t get too crazy, and when she sniffed at Mom and I made it known she was mine, this dog just acted like no biggie, little dude, and trotted away to run about the field. The adoption lady said, hmmm, they’re tolerating each other anyway. Since coyote lady had not reaction to the cats in the cattery, we decided to do a slumber party.
For the whole weekend all this dog did was sit in a corner. Mom introduced her to Katusha and she carefully went to sniff her and Kat turned herself into a porcupine and hissed and the dog whimpered away. That was a good reaction, the trainer said. So, Mom went back to the shelter and signed the adoption papers. They had named the dog Irii, after some character on Game of Thrones but Mom didn’t like the name so changed it slightly to that of a ballerina she liked, Irina.
Well, the second Irina got home after the official adoption, it’s like she knew something was different. She knew she was being brought to stay this time and she felt the need to assert herself. Instead of going to the corner she curled up in all weekend, she ran to the kitchen and stole the Beyond Beef taco Mom had brought home to have for dinner. After chowing that down in one swallow, she ran to the master bedroom where Katusha was and practically banged down the door. When Katusha hissed from the other side, Irina barked and jumped at the door. Poor Mom. Long story short, we went through three trainers, two of whom told Mom to give her back to the shelter; she was too much for Mom. But Mom just couldn’t. She’d made a commitment and had to make it work. It was mainly Katusha who wasn’t having any of Irina because Irina just wanted her so badly to like her so they could play. By that time I knew Katusha and knew it wasn’t personal; she just didn’t like being touched by a big-snouted dog. My annoyance with Irina was that sometimes she tried to take away Mom’s attention from me. I’d be sitting next to Mom on the sofa and Irina would come up and want Mom to pet her. I’d growl, but so low that Mom didn’t notice it. But Irina did. She treated me with more respect than Katusha. She didn’t persist; she walked away with her head down. Well… either it was respect or she played Mom well, walking away and acting all hurt so Mom would tell me to be nice and go after her to give her a cuddle. Sofia be nice; she’s new and insecure, we have to make her welcome, poor thing! Irina would give me a smirk. But then Mom would cuddle her, then cuddle me, then go back and forth insisting that she loved all of her kids equally.
Eventually, Irina and I both realized that Mom was true to her word and loved us all. No one was getting left out. It look Katusha a little while longer than me to make friends with Irina, but eventually she did. Really, it happened during the pandemic, when Mom was home all day and spent all day with us. She separated Kat and Irina forever, but one day, Kat walked right out of the bedroom and climbed up her cat tree right in front of Irina and sat on the top rung. Irina sat down below and gazed up at her like she was the most gifted creature in the world to be able to climb up that tree.
Eventually, Irina learned to respect Kat’s boundaries. And we became a happy family. But our time as a happy family was cut far too short.
Because then, one day, Katusha would not eat or drink. She just sat in the cupboard and would not come out. Mom tried to feed her her favorite bonito flakes but Kat refused. Mom took her to the vet and they ran a bunch of tests and first came back with silly diagnoses like thyroid disorder and allergies. But eventually, they found it was stomach cancer. It was too late by that time to do much. So, Mom had Kat undergo steroid treatment that would alleviate her pain for a while. And then when Kat wouldn’t get up, Mom wrapped her in a blanket and took her to the vet, and, just like Rhea, Mom came home alone.
For weeks afterward, Irina would sit at the cupboard and wait for Kat to come out.
Like she told me of Rhea, Mom told Irina Kat was outside in the ether, in the air. Maybe one of the hummingbirds who came around was her in spirit, like the lizards who crawled up the front stained glass window during summer, whom Rhea always watched with fascination. We had to listen and watch very carefully for the spirits to make their presence known. But Irina wouldn’t listen to Mom. She stayed at that cupboard for ages. If we hadn’t moved to another house in another city, she’d probably still be there, waiting.
Mom’s law job never returned to normal after the pandemic ended. One of her friends from New York City back in the day called her and told her of a job at his new firm, in a place called Rochester, New York, which was in the same state they’d worked in together before, but was in a different part of the state. Mom told Jonathan she had barking dogs now, one of them quite big and would not fit into a shoebox apartment. I knew she was talking about Irina, because she was the “big” one, but I couldn’t live in shoebox apartment either. She always told us Rhea was her New York cat which meant Rhea lived in a shoebox? How? Anyway, Jonathan said no, Rochester’s not New York City, you can buy a house here. It’s very livable, and there are vegan restaurants, he assured her.
Anyway, Grandpa was now settled in his living facility and his sister, Mom’s aunt, had passed on, so Mom was no longer really needed in Phoenix like she had been before. She put us in boarding and took a trip to this Rochester place. When she came home she told us it was strikingly different from Phoenix – the most different place we could imagine! The houses were smaller and older and quaint and the city was very arty and the people were a lot more liberal! We didn’t really know what it all meant but she was excited so we were too.
So, we sold the big house with the big backyard near the lakes and booked it cross-country.
Mom was too scared to drive out there since there was a big snowstorm and she wasn’t used to driving in snow, so she sent us in a van with a company called Happy Tails while she flew.
I was so scared. Irina gets along with humans better than I do. I’m still generally timid, although I’ve gotten better since our days in West Hollywood. We stopped at a lot of places along the route and it took a while. I was so happy when we drove up to a little house and Mom came out!
Before Mom could buy a house we rented one from Mom’s real estate agent, Joe. We lived in his house in a placed with a complicated-sounding name, Irondequoit. Well, it had a HUGE backyard – even bigger than in Phoenix! And it was all covered in snow when we arrived, and it stayed that way for weeks! We had so much fun galloping around in all that snow. Mom was surprised since, one time when we visited the Grand Canyon in May and there was still a bit of snow, I was scared of it. But that was before Irina came to live with us. Irina told me she’d lived in snow in Northern Arizona and it was super fun. There were all kinds of scents and treats to be uncovered! And she was right!
We had a blast! But then, Mom found a house to buy in the city. She didn’t like living out in the suburbs, especially since she wasn’t used to driving on freeways in icy conditions. She wanted to be able to drive on smaller streets and sometimes take an Uber. And she wanted to be close to the museums and galleries and fun things. So we moved into a little house in the city.
This house is fun. It’s been around for a really long time and is creaky and has an attic and a basement and a side door. Mom calls it our antique doll house. Irina and I call it the up and down house because we’re always running up or down stairs. Up to go inside, up to go to the bedroom for night, down to the kitchen to eat, down to go to the backyard, down again to help Mom with laundry. It’s a fun house and we get a different kind of exercise than with the big flat house in Phoenix!
The backyard is a lot smaller than in Phoenix or Irondequoit. But it’s okay. We just run around and around it to get our exercise! And it has interesting smells all the same – lots and lots and lots of squirrels! And birds, all kinds of birds. And rabbits! And sometimes even other creatures who dig holes. Our neighbor had an encounter with a raccoon which Mom hopes we don’t ever have. But when we go walking sometimes, we can see a deer far off!
There’s a little community garden to visit when we go out on walks.
And we have lakes around too.
The one above is in Cobbs Hill.
Sometimes we take a road trip and go down to bigger lakes, called The Finger Lakes.
It’s very very different. But home nonetheless! It’s colder for sure. And Mom’s and my joints are a little achy in winter. But snow is, as I said, super fun, and summer is nice and warm and we spend a lot time sitting on the back patio or on the porch when it’s warm out. We have lots of nice neighbors who say hi to us. Grandma took this pic of us with Mom on the porch. Mom travels a lot now to faraway places like Africa and Alaska to take photos of big animals. When she does, Grandma comes to stay with us. It’s great when she stays because she gives us lots of treats!
I’ve lived in lots of places now and they have all been really different. Life is fun!
That’s all for now. Mom’s law job here keeps her very busy but I will try hard to get her to write more often!
Beautiful story.