The invisible cat

We had to take one of my six cats to the vet to be there at 7:45 in the morning.  That meant leaving at 7:15 with him in his carrier.  The cat in question is Sugar Ray, my soulful paci-pussy who will not harm a fly [fortunately for us since we live in the woods, we have two mousers].  He is a wise gentle cat who always sleeps with me.Somehow at 6:30 this morning he understood something dreadful was about to happen.  He vanished. We turned the entire house upsidedown, looked in every closet, under every bed and couch, in the back of closets, under desks and tables and anything with legs.  We could not find him.  I called the vet’s office and left a message we could not bring him in.  We had not fed any of the cats since he might have to be sedated to secure an X-ray.Once I had called the vet to say we could not bring him in and Woody went downstairs to feed the cats, Sugar Ray appeared. We still don’t know where he hid.  Woody thinks he simply turned himself invisible and watched the whole thing.  So he went off to the vet in his carrier wailing pitifully.Woody never believes that the cats know certain words, but they do. They all know ‘vet,’  ‘out,’ ‘treats.’  Puck, the ‘blue’ Abby who is actually James Beard reincarnate, knows the word ‘chicken.’  They all know their names and each other’s names.  For instance, if I say ‘Mingus,’ the other cats will look at him.Puck is a gourmet.  He loves chicken and when it is on the spit going round and round, he will sit and watch it.  But loves a good sauce also.  He eats mango, persimmon, cantaloupe, papaya.  Eggs in any form.  French toast.  Spaghetti. Lobster. Has a passion for shrimp and will steal it if he can. Vanilla ice cream.Corn bread.  We have to watch what he eats, but he never gains weight.  I think he is too active.  As a male cat, he is unusual in being one of our two good mousers.I have lyme disease, I learned yesterday from my doctor after the blood work was in from my annual checkup. It’s not the first time.  As my doctor says, lyme disease is the price we pay for living in such a beautiful and wonderful place.  Now I’m on doxycycline.  It’s a nasty antibiotic and I have a semi-permanent stomach ache.  I hate antibiotics, and doxycycline is one of the hardest for me to endure.  I find it makes my brain fuzzy and saps my strength worse than the lyme disease was doing.The rains have finally stopped.  I hope to get outside and finish planting the flowers waiting to get out of their little pots and into the ground.  Today I must finish freezing spinach.  Then I can get to the weeding of the perennial beds, as all four vegetables gardens will then be weeded.  The black currants may be ripe. I was planning to write today, but my head feels stuffed with cotton batting.The cats are all yowling or mewing at me.  Sugar Ray is everybody’s favorite and they knew he was taken away.  His cousin Mingus is the most upset.  He is the smallest cat, even though he isn’t the youngest.  The youngest is his girlfriend Xena, who fit into my cupped hands when we got her from the shelter, but now is the biggest cat in the house, by far. At eleven months, she is three times his size.  When they curl up together, she surrounds him, but she is gentle and sweet tempered, a beige and black classic bullseye tabby.  He is a sable Burmese.  Size doesn’t seem to bother him.  He calls her and she comes to him – unless she doesn’t feel like it.