It’s not the first time Ivan has identified with our rodent friends. He has always been fascinated with our hamsters:

He noted, for example, that hamsters line their beds with toilet paper.

Here’s Crenguța in bed:

And Valentina:

And Lucian:

Of course, Ivan followed suit:

Now that we’ve switched to guinea pigs, Ivan is having identity issues again. This time, he’s gone a bit further:

Matt described the event: “The pigs actually weren’t very disturbed when Ivan climbed in there, so I didn’t worry about them too much (Chuy actually likes Ivan quite a bit, and will follow him around), but about 30 minutes later, the fact that they’d shared naptime with a cat seemed to have sunk in, and they were a little retroactively freaked out, requiring lots of cilantro and fresh hay to compensate for. . . . ”

Apparently, there was some hay-eating on Ivan’s part too.

“Hey, look at that predator that out-masses us, let’s make friends with him!”

Or so wrote our friend Lee as the caption to this photo.

This is Paco:

Paco is a pet name for Francisco. But he went directly to being a Paco (and sometimes a Paquito) without ever having gone through being called a Francisco.

He’s a guinea pig, you see, and a Peruvian animal, hence, thanks to cultural imperialism, he’s a Spanish speaker. Hamsters, because of their link to Romania, get Romanian names (preferably ones only Romanians understand).

And here is Chuy:

Chuy is a pet name for Jesús. It’s pronounced something like “Chew-y” (though not quite so bi-syllabic, says Matt). It’s also the name of a Tex-Mex restaurant chain in Matt’s homeland. On another food-related note, Chuy is one letter off cuy, the guinea pig dish that shocks and delights tourists in Peru.

Chuy is the shyer of the two. Already Paco has taken a liking to Matt, while Chuy prefers me. Paco also feels some compulsion to bite Matt every time Matt picks him up.

Other things we’ve noticed in the few hours hours lives have intermeshed:

1. There have been bubbling, wheating, sneezing, whimpering and chattering noises. We look forward to learning the mysterious language of the guinea pigs.

2. Paco is afraid of the dark.

3. Paco and Chuy love carrots and cilantro.

4. Matt has taken to calling them The Cattle. “Our living room smells barn-y,” said Matt, sniffing at the hay that is the staple guinea pig food.

5. Our friend S. of Small Animal Rescue of BC called Paco and Chuy the “Brillo pigs.” Their fur is indeed very bristly, nothing like the amazing softness of a Syrian hamster.

6. Paco and Chuy like Ivan better than us.

7. Guinea pigs don’t need as much sleep as hamsters.

8. We have noticed two kinds of guinea pig poops. Are guinea pigs coprophagic?

9. Paco has a black paw and a white paw.

10. Guinea pigs can sure run.

Why did we decide to give up on hamsters? Well, we didn’t really. After Lucian’s sudden death last September, we’ve been quite unhappy. We still aren’t ready to replace Lucian with another hamster. Nor can we quite yet bear to fall in love with a new hamster and have our hearts torn when that new hamster inevitably passes away.

Whereas a hamster has a life-span averaging around two years, Paco and Chuy, both at three months, will be part of the household until about 2013.

Ivan recently turned eleven. That’s 77 in dog-human years. After 15 years, 50% of cats are senile. So far, Ivan is still with it.

To celebrate his birthday, Ivan got a plate of his favourite food:

• A whole can of tuna
• Cheese
• Olives
• Ground coffee

We didn’t let him watch The Godfather, his favourite movie, because we needed to save a present for Christmas.

This morning at 10:30 am, after procrastinating for a long time, I buried Lucian in a corner of our neighbourhood park:

With my new trowel, I managed to get only about 5 cm into the ground below a blackberry bush:

The plaid thing is his shroud. A pair of Matt’s boxers collapsed recently and this morning Matt asked me where the clothing recycling bag is - after Matt left for work, I cut the butt part off to make the shroud. Don’t worry: the boxers were freshly laundered.

I collected dirt from around the park to augment the mound on the grave.

I took one last photograph of Lucian in the sunshine. It was, I realized, the only time he ever had the sun on his face.

A friend reminded me about Lucian a few months ago and then I cried.

Matt wondered if Ivan the cat knew all along that Lucian was sick. In the last month, Ivan would lay in front of the cage and watch Lucian for hours at a time. Why did the cat suddenly take in interest in the hamster?

I worried all day that his grave would not protect him from raccoons or coyotes, so I got a flashlight tonight to examine it. So far, so good.

Tomorrow I will buy some bleach to disinfect his cage and personal effects.

Cat ownership is new for me. The cat my family had when I was eight doesn’t qualify: it was a working cat. It made itself useful by prowling the exterior of the house looking for varmints.

Ivan, instead, is a house cat and a lavishly hairy one. I found out how hairy he was when I recently tried to comb out all his loose hairs before they could shed themselves on my freshly vacuumed carpet.

(I am allergic to cats. I used to hate vacuuming. My stepcat has made me love vacuuming.)

My methodology was to comb him until A) no more hair filled the cat brush or B) Ivan got bored and ran away.

Half an hour and twenty handfuls of cat hair pulled from the brush later, I started brushing against the grain. I brushed Ivan’s head, his back, his tummy, his tail and his legs. He purred the entire time.

After 40 minutes, Ivan was covered in dandruff. I was afraid that I was brushing off living skin cells, but Ivan seemed to love it. He licked my toes.

Finally, when it was all over, 45 minutes after the brushing started, this is how much cat hair I accumulated:

Can’t read the measurements? Here’s a close-up:

Are all long-haired cat this shed-ful?

With the Great Vancouver Blizzard of 2006 here, Ivan the Cat has forsaken his lust for outdoor jaunts. In a rare interview with this feline who zealously guards his privacy, Ivan explains what led him to turn his back on friends for a warm place on a woolly blanket.

Maktaaq: Mr. Ivan, first off I want to thank you very much for honouring us with your time.

Ivan: Gratitude accepted.

Maktaaq: Your newfound love of the indoors is making headlines. Witnesses claim that you no longer pace by the door meowing annoyingly - what has led to your sudden interest in the indoors?

Ivan: It all started yesterday. I meowed at my servants frequently and with increasing urgency at higher and higher amplitude. Finally they turned that bulbous projection on the portal to the Great Outdoors (your so-called “door”) and let me out. I had a good time as usual. Beating up the Tuxedo Cat. Traipsing on roofs. Exploring the woods. Playing with my life on the road. After ten minutes, I realized I was hungry. So I returned to the portal. No one heard my scratches on the portal. Mildly worried, I went to the front of my domicile. Still no answer at that portal. It was then that I saw the thunder carriage disappeared. I must have ordered the servants to bring me more Friskies Tuna & Salmon Treats. They usually took the thunder carriage on their missions. I sat down to await their return. I waited for hours, as the morning ebbed into afternoon and then into evening. Evening brought with it the snow.

Maktaaq: What were you thinking during all this?

Ivan: Those hairless ape bastards have forsaken me for a new cat. I vowed to smite them.

Maktaaq: It must have been very traumatic.

Ivan: It was. But the worst was yet to come. Weakened with hypothermia and frostbite, I was about to throw a brick through the clear brittle walls (these appear at intervals along the outside of my domicile), when my servants returned. The next morning, I meowed at the servants for the turning of the bulbous portal projection. They complied; imagine my shock when they opened the portal to reveal a white void.

Maktaaq: What was it?

Ivan: A practical joke, that’s what. The primate imbeciles had blanched the landscape. I was not, needless to add, amused. I pouted pointedly at the servants. Certain that they felt the sting of my displeasure, I decided to give them time to put everything right again by taking my early morning nap.

Maktaaq: And this is what led you to take interest in the indoors?

Ivan: No. My ordeal was not yet over.

Maktaaq: What happened?

Ivan: The servants - insolent monsters! - called me with smiles to the portal. False Judases! Suddenly I found myself raised in the air - for a moment of exultation I thought they were holding me up for the admiring crowds outside. They opened the portal and I found myself airborne with nothing but the abyss below me.

Maktaaq: Yet you survived.

Ivan: The impact nearly extinguished life from this soul. I felt as though I had been plunged into a fire. The cold burned. The delicate pads of my feet cracked like porcelain on concrete.

Maktaaq: It is understandable that you no longer go outdoors.

Ivan: I have since grown to love the fresh scent of newly laundered linens. Whereas once my greatest pleasure was fertilizing the earth with my life-giving turds, I now spread my message of life through missives on white cashmere cardigans.

Maktaaq: Thank you for your time and for reliving your harrowing struggle for survival.

Ivan: Worship me, mortal.