I’ve got a Shakespearean drama going on over here that’s only appreciable to a cat lover. I’ve got this kitten I called Hamlet because Hamlet is one of my favorite characters in literature even though or maybe because he is a load of trouble. So is the kitten. He’s seven months old and still gives me suspicious looks that ask, “Did you kill my father and marry my mother?” In fact he looks at everyone who comes in the house that way.  Except men. He seems to trust men.

He spends a lot of time behind a curtain. The baseboard heat is below this particular window so he sits in a little warmth shadow. I can see his outline. Occasionally he peeks cautiously out. For those who don’t know the play, Hamlet, there is a fair amount of hiding behind curtains—arras—and listening to soliloquies and conversations. It gets everyone into trouble.

So far he gets along beautifully with the kitten who came with him: Laertes. In the play, Hamlet and Laertes are great friends until they kill each other. That has yet to happen and I’m hoping it doesn’t.

If it does, it’s more likely Artemis, the 14 year old goddess of the hunt cat, will be the perpetrator. She’s been quite hostile in the six months I’ve had the kittens but she’s coming round. I came home the other day and all three were curled up together on the couch. As soon as they saw me they shot apart like shrapnel and Artemis hissed at Laertes. I need to start hiding behind curtains to learn the inside story. Also something only appreciable to a cat lover.

Hamlet came to me with an auto-immune condition called stomatitis, which is expensive to treat. The vet suggested we keep him comfortable and see if his immune system caught up to him as he grew. I have hopes that a nurturing environment and good food will be better for his immune system than the streets of Yakima where he had been trapped.

His first few trips to the vet have been documented in this blog. We made our fourth trip a week ago and a merry dance it was.  Tricking him into the cat carrier was now completely out of the question. This time I lured him into the bathroom with his favorite cat treat (Churu, which I think is Thai for “tube of goo”) and closed the door so it was just the two of us. I let him lick the creamy stuff off my finger until he’d eaten the entire tube.

I put on gloves and got hold of his scruff. He twisted away and dove into a cat bed that had been his safe space when he first became part of the household.  I reached in and pulled him out. I was stuffing him into the cat carrier when he wrenched himself away, clawed my face, took out the ceramic soap dish and a glass tea light holder and went back to what is now his ironic space. I pulled him out again and succeeded in getting him into the car carrier. We were both breathing hard and one of us was hissing. I’m not sure which one.

Once I got the cat carrier zipped up I tended to the blood dripping down both sides of my face. The scratches were still wet and red when we got to the vet. Hamlet glowered and hissed from the carrier and I was the hero of the waiting room. Well, sort of. Maybe it was pity.

It was a good appointment. His gums looked better. But he had lost weight. He’s a skinny little thing to start with and didn’t have any weight he could afford to lose. I stopped at All the Best Pet Care on the way home and asked for recommendations for never-fail cat food for finicky eaters. I bought small cans of four different meals and more tubes of Churu.

Nope. Not this either.

Ceding the ground

He tucked right into Tiki After Dark chicken and quail egg. It really had a small cooked egg in it.  A little later he went for BFF chicken and turkey in gravy. The next day he ate Lotus chicken stew and BFF chicken and lamb in gravy. My main concern was making sure Hamlet got most of whatever was being served. The other two will eat anything anywhere anytime. They tend to pace like street thugs around Hamlet when he trying to eat. He gets nervous and cedes his ground.

By the third day, Monday, he was turning away from everything. He wouldn’t eat AvoDerm chicken chunks entrée in gravy, an early favorite. He wouldn’t eat tuna water. He wouldn’t eat Gerber Baby No 2 chicken and chicken gravy which used to be my secret weapon. All he would eat was Churu so I fed him Churu off my finger every two hours while Laertes wasn’t looking or smelling and that was a difficult op to pull off.

My friend Susan brought me some Royal Canin kitten food. I asked her to give it to Hamlet. Susan ooed and gooed and put a pinch of kibble on the floor. Hamlet scarfed it up and Susan gave him another pinch. She fed him all morning while we water painted. That afternoon I bought a bag of Royal Canin kitten kibble. Hamlet wouldn’t eat it.

I bought a few cans of “kitten instinctive small chicken slices in gravy.” They were a huge hit on Tuesday but by Wednesday Hamlet was refusing everything again. Back to the Churu with which I started dolloping some of the expensive chicken dinners he was pushing away. He licked off the Churu and walked contemptuously away from the meal.

Now during the day all over my house– anywhere Hamlet once previously ate– sit little tapas bowl with spoonful’s of different gelatinous looking goulashes. After a certain point even the other two won’t eat the stuff. In the evening I scoop money down the garbage disposal. This is my life now. For the time being, small chicken slices in gravy and Churu are in charge.