Yesterday I promised a blog about Pepper the Vietnamese Pot-bellied pig.  Sorry, but I changed my mind.  It's a woman's perogative after all. 

Instead, today's blog is a lesson in vocabulary.  Before you yawn and go check your horoscope or see what everyone's posting on Facebook, you should know that I'll be writing about cats with THUMBS.

Cats with thumbs, or any extra toes on their paws, are known as polydactyl cats, ie, cats with many digits.  Pterodactyls were flying dinosaurs.  They might have had extra toes.  I don't really know.  But pterodactyl SOUNDS an awful lot like polydactyl.

Why cats with opposable thumbs haven't taken over the world yet is beyond me, but I suspect it has something to do with their extra toe not being a true thumb.  So they're really not all that good for opening cabinet doors or handling tools or using computers--all necessary for world domination.

Polydactyl cats are also known as Hemingway cats because Ernest Hemingway had cats with extra toes down in his Key West home.  Rumor has it that all polydactyl cats are descended from a Hemingway cat.  I don't know if that's true, either, but it sounds really cool.  Ernie is from Jacksonville, Florida so there might be some truth to that.

We originally called our polydactyl cat Little Ernie Hemingway, but he quickly outgrew the "Little" part of his name and now we just call him Ernie.  He has a thumb on each front paw and is really good at catching toys tossed in the air. 

He also loves it when I weigh myself.  Out of the five cats in the house, on weigh day Ernie magically appears as soon as I step on the scale.  Usually he tries to grab my toes as I stand on the scale, but he was a bit camera shy today and wouldn't perform on film. 

I did, however, get him to look up at me.

And that concludes today's lesson on polydactyl vs pterodactyl.  Thanks for tuning in.  Ernie thanks you, too.

NOTE: If you're squeamish, find rotting, maggoty body parts gross or distasteful, or lack a sense of scientific curiosity, then I recommend you skip today's post and go read Hello Kitty or something.

Bo found a rotting cat's foot out in our jungle of a yard and brought it up to the back deck to gnaw on.  I walked right past it several days in a row, but upon closer inspection, I thought it was part of a dead bird.  Then I looked even closer and discovered that it was a cat's hind foot and lower leg.

And it was riddled with maggots.

Gross, huh?

Instead of throwing it in the trash dumpster like a normal person, the part of me that's kin to Victor Frankenstein wanted to examine the cat foot in closer detail.  I noticed that part of the tibia was missing, but the fibula was still intact.  I hadn't realized how thin a cat's fibula is.  Makes me appreciate my veterinarian's surgical skill.

Oh, I should tell you that I was a pre-veterinarian science major for two semesters in college.  It wasn't squeamishness that drove me to change my major, but Organic Chemistry.   And when I finally settled on Exercise Science, I had anatomy and physiology labs involving animal dissection and vivisection.  The first was fascinating, but the latter rather distressing since the animals vivisected were still ALIVE! I took an "F" on those particular labs.

So back to the Weird Science part of this post. 

I bagged up the foot, maggots and all, and put it in the fridge for several days until I could get around to this post.  I figured the cold air or plastic bag enclosure would kill the maggots, but when I pulled it out this afternoon, the maggots were alive and well and wiggling at the bottom of the bag.  So cold temperatures don't kill maggots, but it does seem to put them off their feed since they left the corpse to congregate together.  I suppose maggots don't use up much oxygen so the air pocket in the bag hasn't dissipated yet. 

I do have to wonder what happened to the rest of the cat?
Maybe possums ate it.  Opossums do eat carrion and our neighborhood is home to many possums.  Or maybe our dog, Bo, ate it.  He is a goat in dog's clothing, although I don't know if goats eat rotting meat. It's a mystery any way you slice it.

But the fun part about all of this is what my husband is going to say when he gets home from his business trip tonight and opens the fridge to find the cat's foot.  I can guarantee you it won't be yummy.

Stay tuned for more Weird Science at Casa Sullivan . . .

It's practically in the author handbook that if you're a writer and female, you're also a cat person.  Maybe even a crazy cat person.  I used to be a crazy cat lady, but once you reach a certain number of indoor cats, some or all of them will have pissing contests with each other in your house. 

And man, cat pee reeks.  Does it ever.

So, we're down to five cats in the Victorian house and that seems to be the right number for our square footage because the piss-offs have stopped.  Order has been restored and all the felines are happy again.  Because Lord help you if your cat isn't content.  It'll make your life a living hell. 

Pictured above are my two love birds, er, love cats, Zoe and Spencer.  Zoe came from the animal shelter and Spencer was born to a stray cat in my neighbor's yard.  They luv each other...can you tell?

Now, what would a cute cat story be without a Casa Sullivan oddity?  Check out the photo gallery below.  Before we acquired the Charles Wysocki painting of the orange and gray tabby sleeping together, none of our cats cuddled.  Once we hung it over our bed--BOOM!--we had 3 pairs of cuddling cats: Cosmo & Cleo, Zoe & Spencer, and Buddy & Ernie.  I had to stop buying cat art because it seemed like as soon as I bought a piece, a corresponding cat would show up wanting a home. 

This mystical happening inspired my short story, "Finding the Way Home," in my short story collection Fried Zombie Dee-light! Ghoulish, Ghostly Tales (available in eBook from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.com.)

Fix yourself a nice martini, kick back, and enjoy the story.  Or cuddle with your cats.  Or both.  And don't forget the olives.