Author’s Life

Amber

Amber
July 29, 1998 – May 13, 2010
Be at Peace, Beautiful Girl

My beautiful girl died peacefully at home in my arms late yesterday afternoon, with the loving and gentle assistance of my dear friend and Amber’s vet, Fern.

As some of you already know, she had been sick for ten days and at the Hope Center for Advance Veterinary Medicine in intensive care for the last three and a half days. We just received confirmation today that what we had suspected was true – a calici virus had ravaged her system, causing multiple problems ranging from laryngitis to pancreatitis, complicated by an underlying heart problem we didn’t even know she had, which made it impossible to find the right balance between providing supportive care and not pushing her heart too far. Yesterday it looked like she was getting better, but yesterday morning, she took a turn for the worse, and her prognosis was so poor that I decided against further treatment. I took her home and spent the afternoon with her. The final good-bye was very peaceful.

Amber was a wise old soul in a feline body. Her gentle, loving presence brought so much happiness and joy to my life these past ten years. She was the inspiration behind The Conscious Cat, and even had her own column here, titled Amber’s Mewsings. You can read her entire story here.

I’m still in shock – I keep hoping I’ll wake up and find that these last ten days were just a bad dream. I’m going to miss my beautiful girl terribly. Her little sister Allegra only got to know her for a little over a month, and it breaks my heart that the two of them never got a chance to become close.

Amber taught me to slow down, to appreciate the gentleness in each moment, and to listen with and to my heart. Every cat we loose takes another little piece of our hearts. Amber took a big piece of mine tonight.

Happy Mother’s Day 2010

Happy Mother’s Day from Ingrid, Amber and Allegra

If you’re fortunate enough to still have your mom in your life, be sure to tell her that you love her today, and every day.  My mother passed away 16 years ago, and I still miss her.  Even after all these years, I still feel a pang when I see Mother’s Day cards appear in stores.

But I also celebrate Mother’s Day as Amber’s and Allegra’s Mom.  Some of you have gotten to know Amber here on The Conscious Cat through her Mewsings.  She was a mother herself when I first met her, so I thought I’d share her story here with you again today.

In the spring of 2000, Amber and her five kittens were brought to the animal hospital I managed by a client who had found the little family in her barn.  Despite being emaciated and scrawny-looking, Amber’s eventual beauty was evident even then.  Her kittens found new homes in fairly rapid succession.

However, nobody was interested in the beautiful mommy cat.  She spent her days in the big adoption cage in the hospital’s waiting area, but with the constant inflow of homeless kittens that is typical for spring and summer, nobody wanted to adopt an adult cat.  I had recently lost my almost sixteen-year-old soul mate cat Feebee, and the grief over his loss was still very fresh.  I did not think I was ready for another cat, but coming home to an empty house was becoming increasingly difficult.

One weekend in July, I decided to take Amber home, “just for the weekend”.  I wanted to give her a break from the abandoned feral kitten we had placed with her after her own kittens had all found homes.  The kitten was a rambunctious six-week old grey tabby, and Amber was becoming increasingly exasperated with his constant need for attention.  As far as she was concerned, she had done her mommy duty with her own kittens.

After living in a cage for all these months, Amber was initially a little overwhelmed by having access to an entire house, and she spent most of that first weekend near or under my bed.  By Sunday evening, she began to  relax a little and started exploring her new environment.  I liked having her gentle and peaceful energy around the house, and I decided that she could stay a little longer.  Not quite ready to acknowledge that she was home with me to stay, I told everyone that I was “just fostering her”. Somehow, the flyers advertising that she was available for adoption never got distributed, and she only returned to the animal hospital for regular check ups.

Amber is a gentle, loving cat with a wise old soul.  For the past nine years, her peaceful and solid presence, not to mention her almost constant purr, have been bringing love and affection into my life every day.  She enjoys sleeping in our sunny living room, curling up with me when I sit down to read or to watch television, and watching the birds at the feeder on our deck.

She is a teacher to the core of her being, and she is my writing muse.  There are days when I sit down in front of the computer and stare at the blank screen with no idea of what I’m going to be writing about, but as soon as she comes into the room and curls up on the window perch next to my desk for a long nap, I feel inspired, and the words start flowing.

Animals come into our lives for many reasons.  Some very special animals touch our souls and change us forever.  Amber is one of these special animals.

Amber

 

New Family Member: Meet Allegra

The Conscious Cat has a new family member!  Amber and I are excited to welcome Allegra into our hearts and into our home.  Well, right now I might be a little more excited than Amber, but so far, things have been going really well.  Amber is watching the newcomer from a cautious distance, and if she comes too close for comfort, she lets Allegra know who’s in charge.

I found Allegra on Facebook on the page of a local veterinary hospital. When I contacted the page administrator for more information, I was told that she was seven months old and “very very sweet, loves cats, loves dogs, loves people, loves life!”    I knew I had to meet this little girl.  The first time I met her, I spent about an hour in an exam room with her.  She was your typical ADHD kitten – discovering and exploring everything, whether it was a stethoscope hanging from a hook on the wall or a syringe cap on the floor.  She didn’t pay all that much attention to me, but I started to fall in love with her anyway.  However, I didn’t want to make a hasty decision.  I had only just begun to even think about bringing another cat into our lives.  I didn’t know whether I wanted a kitten or an adult cat.  So I went home, slept on it, thought about it – and I just couldn’t get Allegra out of my mind.  I went back to see her again the next morning.  And that’s when I just knew.   She was meant to come home with us.

Her background, as far as I know it, is this:  she was rescued from a county shelter in Maryland, and fostered by two different foster moms.  Her most recent foster mom described her as a “total love bug lap kitty” who loved to follow her everywhere.

I brought her home yesterday morning.   And so a new chapter in our lives begins.  Allegra spent most of yesterday exploring her new home.  She was particularly fascinated by windows – something she hadn’t been able to enjoy for the last ten days when she lived at the animal hospital.  Everything seemed to delight her – bumble bees flying by, leaves blowing in the wind, squirrels rushing by outside.  It’s so much fun watching her discover her world.

Amber is not so sure this was a good idea just yet.  I’m sure you’ll hear all about it from Amber herself soon.  And you never know, Allegra might eventually want to contribute to The Conscious Cat, too, once she adjusts to her new home and new life.

Buckley’s First Christmas

Christmas card large

In memory of Buckley’s first Christmas with Amber and me:
An excerpt from Buckley’s Story – Lessons from a Feline Master Teacher

Soon, it was time to get ready for Buckley’s first holiday season with Amber and me. I traditionally put up my Christmas tree during Thanksgiving weekend. It is a small, four-foot high artificial tree that I have had for close to twenty years. While I like the idea and especially the wonderful pine scent of a real tree, I also find it too much of a hassle to deal with having someone bring the tree into the house for me and then to remove it again at the end of the season, so I have been quite content with my artificial tree over the years. And since having a fake tree has even become the environmentally conscious thing to do in recent years, rather than feeling like I should be making apologies for it, I am now politically correct. The tree sits on a small table next to the dining room cabinet. The table is draped with a red tablecloth that reaches all the way to the floor, creating a perfect little cat tent underneath. Amber always enjoyed hiding underneath the tree during Christmases past, and now Buckley got to share in the fun. It provided endless entertainment for both cats, and it was a new experience for Amber to be stalked by Buckley from underneath the tree.

In addition to playtime, the tree also provided lovely moments of quiet contemplation for all three of us. Most evenings before going to bed, I turned off all the lights in the living room except for those on the tree and put on some soft Christmas music. With both cats curled up on my lap, we simply sat by the tree and enjoyed the lights, ornaments, and the profound sense of peace these moments brought. This experience has always had a meditative quality for me that was greatly enhanced by the shared energy of the two cats.

Amber had never been all that interested in the ornaments on the tree. I decorate the tree with ornaments I have collected over the years, many of them cat-themed, which should come as no surprise. Some of the ornaments have great sentimental value, such as the silver bell that I brought home after cleaning out my father’s condominium after he passed away. As far back as I can remember, that silver bell was on the Christmas trees of my childhood. Other ornaments were gifts from friends or items I had picked up while traveling. I always hung the breakable ornaments on the side of the tree furthest from the dining room table. In the past, Amber had occasionally jumped up on the table and batted at the ornaments she could reach from there. Thankfully, she had never tried to jump up on the table the tree was sitting on. I was not sure what to expect from Buckley, but she turned out to be far more interested in the tent underneath the tree than the actual tree or ornaments. I never once even saw her on the dining room table trying to bat at ornaments she could have reached from there.

Buckley’s first Christmas was a special time for all of us. This little cat had never gotten presents before in her life. Needless to say, I completely overdid it that year, and I was not the only one. Many of my friends also showered Buckley, as well as Amber, with toys and treats that Christmas. Buckley had a difficult time deciding what was more fun—the actual toys and treats or helping me tear them out of their colorful wrappings and ribbons.  She had a wonderful time that first Christmas, playing with abandon and giving herself up to total joy.

Thanksgiving ABC’s 2009

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Thanksgiving is a time to gather with family and friends, but it is also a time for reflection on the many things we have in our lives that we are grateful for.  Gratitude is a wonderful way to raise your vibration and shift your energy.  The vibration of gratitude is a powerful force.  It can shift your mood and your thoughts from a place of scarcity to a place of abundance.

I’ve come up with a whole alphabet of things I’m grateful for this year:

A – Amber, for her loving, wise and gentle presence in my life, for being the inspiration behind The Conscious Cat, and for reminding me to slow down and appreciate each moment.
B – Buckley, for opening my heart and changing my life in ways I never could have imagined, and for inspiring me to write her story so that her lessons can be shared with the world.
C – Cats – I can’t imagine a world without these wonderful creatures.
D – Dogs – my friends’ dogs, my Reiki clients – dogs are so much fun to be with.
E – Eating out – one of the great pleasures of life, especially when shared with good friends.
F – Friends – I am richly blessed in that area.  Since I no longer have any family left, my friends are my family.
G – Google – what did we ever do without it?
H – Health.  The fact that mine is excellent.
I –  Inner peace – when you have it, life makes sense.
J – Joy – it’s what we all strive for.  There is joy in life’s small moments, as well as in the big ones.  I’ve had both this past year – in spades.
K – Kindness – being kind to others, whether human or animal, is what matters most.
L – Law of Attraction.  It makes everything so simple.
M – Music.  Everything from classical to hard rock.
N – Novels – the best way I know of to escape reality for a little while at a time.
O – Openness – being open to new experiences allows life to grow and expand beyond self-imposed limits.
P – Passion – especially the fact that I finally discovered mine.
Q – Quiet time.  It’s essential for my personal balance and well-being, and I make sure to carve out time for it each and every day.
R – Reading.  I usually have at least two or three books going at the same time.
S – Social Media – I’ve made so many wonderful new friends, and reconnected with old ones.  What an amazing world we live in where keeping in touch is made so easy.
T – Tea on a cold day.  Current favorites:  Celestial Seasonings Sugar Plum Spice and Mandarin Orange Green Tea.
U – Unlimited possibilities – the fact that you can achieve anything you put your mind to.
V–  The color violet – this should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me!
W – Walking.  It’s the one exercise I’ve stuck with consistently for decades.  I love the combination of exercise and contemplation.
X –  No matter how hard I try, I can’t think of anything starting with X!
Y – You!  My readers, my friends – thank you for all you bring into my life.
Z –  Z-Rock (the tv show) and the real life band ZO2 whose lives the show is based on.

Writing this blog post and coming up with this list turned out to not only be fun, but a very powerful example of how focusing on gratitude can shift your vibration.  I encourage you to consider making a gratitude list for yourself this Thanksgiving.  What does your Thanksgiving alphabet look like?

Amber and I would like to wish all our readers a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Buckley’s Story – Release Day

Amber reading Buckley's Story

Even though Buckley’s Story has been available online for the last few days, I choose to make today the official release date.  Today would have been Buckley’s “birthday”.  I don’t know her actual birthday, so I designated the day she came home with me as her special day.  I think she would like the idea of her book being announced to the world on this day.

This has been a whirlwind week for me.  On Monday, I received the first softcover copy.  I can’t even describe the feeling of opening the package and holding an actual book in my hands.  I’m not given to overly dramatic displays of emotion, but I jumped up and down and danced around the house!  On Tuesday, the hardcover arrived.  I didn’t think it was possible to get even more excited than when I received the softcover the day before, but apparently, it was.  The hardcover is the most beautiful book I’ve ever seen.  Okay, so I may be a bit biased, but the glossy cover is perfect, the interior design and the photos came out crisp and nice.  The overall effect is exactly what I had hoped for.

My publisher had told me it would take four to six weeks for the book to appear on Amazon and BarnesandNoble.com, so when I got an e-mail from a friend Tuesday afternoon telling me he had just ordered the book online, I just about fell off my chair.  My hands were shaking as I entered amazon.com on my keyboard.  And oh my gosh – there it was!  My book.  On Amazon.  And on BarnesandNoble.com

The book will be available at bookstores nationwide eventually, but it’ll take a little while for that to happen. 

Meanwhile, as if all the excitement about the book wasn’t enough, my brand new website, http://www.ingridking.com, also went live on Monday.  This is my first professionally designed website, and I’m so happy with what my wonderful web designer came up with.  I feel that the site perfectly reflects me, and the book.

What an incredible week.  It still seems surreal at times.  And in the midst of all this joy, there is a bittersweet component.  While the book is a lasting tribute to my sweet little cat, it also makes me miss her all the more.  But since Buckley’s message is all about living a joyful life, I know she’s celebrating right along with me.

“Tortitude” – The Unique Personality of Tortoiseshell Cats

tortitude tortoiseshell cat personality

Tortoiseshell cats are named for their distinctive coloring – a combination of patches of black, brown, amber, red, cinnamon and chocolate.  The size of the patches varies from a fine speckled pattern to large areas of color.  The term “tortoiseshell” is used for cats with brindled coats that have few or no white markings.  Cats of this coloring with larger areas of white fur are called calicos. Sometimes, these colors present in lighter versions such as lilac or cream.  Torties with this lighter coloring are called dilute torties.  Occasionally, the typical tortoiseshell colors are also seen in a tabby (striped) pattern, and these cats are sometimes referred to as “torbies.”

Tortoiseshell cats are almost exclusively female.  Tortoiseshell and calico coats are the result of the interaction between genetic and developmental factors.  The occasional and very rare male tortoiseshell cat is the result of a genetic mutation.

In addition to their distinctive coloring, torties also have a reputation for unique personalities, sometimes referred to as “tortitude.”  They tend to be strong-willed, a bit hot-tempered, and they can be very possessive of their human.  Other words used to describe torties are fiercely independent, feisty and unpredictable.  They’re usually very talkative and make their presence and needs known with anything from a hiss to a meow to a strong purr.  These traits are stronger in tortoiseshell cats than in calicos – it seems as though these traits are somewhat diluted with the addition of more white to the color scheme.

As of the writing of this post, I share my life with Amber*, and those of you who’ve followed this blog for a while have gotten to know her in her Amber’s Mewsings posts.  You will soon be able to read all about Buckley in Buckley’s Story – Lessons from a Feline Master TeacherThe photo above shows Buckley in the front, Amber behind her.

Prior to Amber and Buckley, there was another tortie in my life.  Virginia was the first office cat at the animal hospital I managed.  She was my introduction to torties, and my love affair with this particular type of cat began with her.  She, too, had the “tortitude” I so love about these particular cats.

Do you have a tortie or calico in your life?  Does she have “tortitude?”

*Sadly, Amber passed away on May 13, 2010, after a sudden, brief illness.  I now share my life with Allegra and Ruby, two tortoiseshell cats who have their own columns here on The Conscious Cat, titled Allegra’s World and Ruby’s Reflections.

Photo ©Ingrid King, all rights reserved

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