TALES FROM THE TRiP : THE HAPPY CAT

 TALES FROM THE TRiP

HAPPY’S DAY

Welcome to the first tale of my “Tales from the Trip” sections of Delic Dishes!  There are a few of these scattered throughout the remainder of this book and what they are are a series of personal stories that I am sharing with you all from the “trips” I have had over my life and career. They are each attached behind selected recipes and some are the experience I had under the influence of that particular recipe.  This tale, however, actually isn’t my “trip”, but it is a “tail” of a trip and the one on their magical journey was - The Happy Cat. 

Happy Cat is my companion in this life.  A seal-tip siamese feline that I adopted at the Las Vegas Animal Shelter in November of 2013.  She was a little over a year old when I adopted her.  I remember that day so vividly as my roommate and the woman I moved in with here in Las Vegas had met someone and moved out of country.  So, I was left a little lonely.  I traveled so much that it would’ve been cruel for me to get a dog so I decided to adopt a kitten.  As I went to the shelter in the kitten room, which I swear they rig so that you just adopt them all, I was flooded with kittens.  There must have been over 40 kittens in that room and as I am looking down at all these adorable little babies, my eyes gaze up to the cages in the adult cat section where I saw the biggest bluest eyes I’ve ever seen staring right back at me. 

The Happy Chef and The Happy Cat’s first photo. 

I knew right then that that was my soulmate, and so being that we were family, we had to share the same initials of T.H.C. and thus she became The Happy Cat - and boy was she!

Happy is unlike any cat I had ever met, her personality was more like a dog or that of a human.  She was always wanting to hang around me and my friends and hanging in the kitchen being my sous chef (especially when I cooked shrimp). Every time I would smoke cannabis, she’d be right there like it was her turn as if to say, “come on ma, smoke meowt!”(lol) and she would guard my herb too.  When I was growing in my home, she would sleep under my plants, even chew on the low hanging fan leaves and she would do the same with my mushrooms, we were literally - made for each other.  (mama’s girl, lol) 

Happy sitting on top the mushroom mono-tubes in their dark phase, guarding them. lol

I could go on and on about how much I love my little fur angel, but instead, let’s fast forward to March 2018 to Happy’s “Tale from the Trip”.

HAPPY’S DAY

Beginning of 2018, I lived in a 4 bedroom house with 2 house mates in the Mountains Edge area of Las Vegas. Suddenly I felt that it was time to minimize things in my life and to move out into my own place.  So I then downsized, sold all my furniture and packed up my kitchen equipment into storage and rented a fully furnished condo on the strip in a high rise called the Martin. The lil apartment was adorable!  A two bedroom, two bath on the 29th floor, and the decor was very modern and simple - just how I wanted things.  At that time I felt a lot in my life was moving to fast and I felt that I needed peace.  I had just partnered with a cannabis research company, built and designed their production kitchen/lab at their head quarters here in Las Vegas, had a staff and meetings to have meetings to have meetings.  So it was a refreshing needed change  and a room with a view. Happy and I settled in just nicely and now that I was all moved in I decided to start doing some r&d (research and development) on some different genetics of psilocybin spores that I had. 

Some of my readers here aren’t familiar with the grow terminology so I will break it down for you as simply as I can.  Also, if you are looking or interested in growing your own mushrooms, subscribe to my patreon channel at www.patreon.com/edibledee , I have “How To” grow videos as well as recipe videos up on that platform ready for you!

I had 4 different types of genetics in 10mL spore syringes; Colombian, Hawaiian, Penis Envy (PE) and the old faithful Golden Teachers. I had 4 mono-tubs already prepped and ready with substrate holes 2 inches from the bottom and then 6 gas chamber holes 3 inches above the substrate holes evenly spaced, 2 on the long ends and 1 on the small ends.  Substrate holes are small pen size holes that you drill above the substrate line and leave open; and gas chambers are larger holes roughly 2 inches in diameter that you stuff with poly-fill (the same stuffing that is in your pillows, hypoallergenic so it allows air to come in but acts as a filter to protect against contamination). The poly-fill looks like 6 big fluffy white bunny tails sticking out all around the tub.  I used a corn tech for this round.  I did my grow method organically using natural sun from my patio, laid my lasagna layer of substrate, vermiculite and the mycelium covered corn that I had already prepped weeks before allowing the mycelium to spread layering in the bottom of the mono-tubs up to the substrate holes; and then covering them for dark phase with a blanket.  Happy cat would sleep on top of the mono-tubs, guarding the babies per usual. 

Now, on this run, I was testing to see the change in yield per tub by letting a few I call “over achievers” spore out to see if my yield went up.  When you pick the mushrooms their caps are down, the gils are hidden and spores intact, or I like to say “the panties are on”.  This is when the caps are down.  You will see mushrooms with their caps flipped up at the rim and at this time the “panties” are no longer intact, but broken, gils exposed, and the spores have released.

On the Colombian run, one of the first “over achievers” released its spores all over one of the gas chambers poly-fill; coating the white fluff inside the tub, changing the white to all black. I looked at it debating what to do, as I hate waste, but left it as to “it happened so guess it was all part of the universe’s master plan” and journaled it down in my notes (I’m always learning). 

The following morning, I woke up to go make my morning tea and I look over at the tubs and I see some of the poly-fill scattered all over the floor along with substrate bits and remains. I put down my tea, go over to the poly-fill to inspect and noticed that the missing poly-fill was the poly-fill that had the spores released all over it that was scattered around, except I didn’t see the spore coated (black) poly-fill - all I saw was white fluff balls all over the floor.  And the mushroom as well as another next to it that had the cap down WAS GONE! I then begin looking for Happy Cat...

I found Happy under the bed.  Her pupils were dilated so big that you couldn’t tell that her eyes were blue any more, they were all black, and the first thought I had was - FUCK!  It was clear what had happened, Happy had eaten the mushrooms and the black spore covered poly-fill...Happy licked that bitch clean!

I tried to get Happy out from under the bed, she looked so freaked out, not blinking, eyes wide - staring at everything around her.  I kept trying to reach for her, but she kept scooting deeper under the bed beyond my grasp.  After many failed attempts, I got up from under the bed and immediately got on google.  I was researching “what do you do if your cat eats magic mushrooms?” and reading through forums as quickly as I can wondering if I needed to take Happy to the vet hospital.  As my thoughts were circling around rushing her to the vet, my gut was telling me to calm down. I kept taking deep breaths and sitting with my thoughts; going through what I knew with thoughts like, “it’s natural, let it run it’s course”, “I’m certain a dog or animal has eaten a magic mushroom in the wild and been fine”, as I was reading forums that were comforting to state the same conclusions.  So, I called my head of production at my lab and told them I would not be in that day and stayed to take care of Happy, so I waited and watched.  

In my fully furnished apartment, the decor was very modern.  Different shades of grey on the walls and decor, a white faux leather couch, with a space ship looking floor lamp that bent over the couch to the middle of the living room floor which sat a bright light green, grass looking, circle area rug.  In the bedroom, the shades of grey carried through with a light grey wavy comforter, and the bed had a white headboard which sat against an accent wall of charcoal grey with looking like silver chrysanthemums covering it. Photo below :

 

Photo taken from my Instagram @edibledee in stories section “GOOFY”

At this point my main concern was keeping Happy hydrated.  Magic mushrooms can make humans nauseous so I was thinking that I would see Happy to have vomited somewhere, but I didn’t see anything, not even under the bed.  So, I prepared for when that would happen and put fresh water bowls all over the apartment. 

It was about an hour since the discovery as I laid down a bowl of water with a couple ice cubes in it beside the bed where Happy was under when she finally started to move to come out from under the bed.  She crawled right up to the bowl and began drinking.  She slurped and gulped for it felt like minutes, longest I’ve ever seen her sit and drink.  I thought to myself what cold water feels like drinking it when I’ve taken magic and smiled imagining that Happy was experiencing similar. I was in the kitchen when observing her and called her name, “Happy...how are you darling?” She looked up at me head kinda shaky, almost resembling the same effects as someone with Parkinson’s, and began walking towards me with a sway in her walk in each step.  Happy was peaking.  She was walking toward me and as she got to the green area rug, she paused.  She crunched down like a lioness about to pounce and just stared at the rug.  I want to say it was a good 3-5 minutes of just her staring.  I would call her name time to time, but she never broke her concentration. After that time, she reached her paw out slowly over the edge of the rug looking to take her first step.  Once the first paws were over, the others followed as she walked still in the crunched position almost like an army crawl over the rug. She got to about the center and stopped moving her head around looking all around the rug and then she plopped over on her back, and there she stayed for quite awhile - maybe an hour.  

Photo from Instagram @edibledee under section “Happy Cat”

I sat at the island in the kitchen just watching her as she moved from side to side, rubbing herself on the rug trying to imagine what she was feeling and also thinking to myself, “that’s a good idea Hap’s”(lol).  As I sat looking at her the lyrics from the song, “Spill the Wine” by War came into my head as Happy was seducing herself on the rug at the verse of “and then I lay myself down to rest... in a big field of tall grass.  And there I was! (jazz flute plays) I was taken to a place...”.  Then I thought, “oh shit, Happy needs music!”  I usually am playing music constantly, my collection is extensive from everything from jazz, opera, french, latin, hip hop, trance, lounge...etc...so I then became Happy’s DJ for the day beginning with “Spill the Wine” and I sat there and just watched her enjoying herself. 

After awhile she sat up, exhausting herself from her rug massage and looked up at the over hanging lamp that came from the couch.  She looked at it, tilting her head every which way, changing angles.  Then she stood up and with her paws acted like she was trying to swat at it, either that or “imaginary bugs”.  I then called her name again, this time her focus broke and she looked at me and started walking towards me.  I get up from my chair and sit on the rug with her and she started rubbing herself against my legs purring loudly, back and forth as I pet her head to tail. I then picked her up and took her to the bedroom and put her on the bed as I laid down with her continuing to pet her with comforting words, “aw see yes, you’re ok Hap’s.  You living the dream”.  As I was petting her talking to her, “you know I think you needed a day like today, how boring must it be to lay around the house all day, while I get to see the world you are stuck in a 1000 sq ft apartment.  As I am petting her we were both facing the television on the wall in front the bed and then Happy turns around and then ... she got lost again.  She was staring at the wall papered accent wall behind the bed, I immediately laughed.  After her initial gaze of a few minutes she began to stand up on the bed leaning on the headboard and swatting at the petals on the wall.  At one point she took both front paws and pounced them on one, I assume trying to pin whatever was moving.  This continued awhile...

Happy remained entertained and under the influence the rest of that day and I started in the evening seeing the peak decline and then was comforted that Happy was going to be just fine. (:

Till this day I wonder what Happy must have seen, I could only imagine.   In ending this tale, Happy was HAPPY.  Her experience only lasted for a day, although I kind of think she had some delayed responses throughout the week.  As well, I learned that Happy loves mushrooms (lol).  I have now added the regular (non-psilocybin) mushrooms to her diet and she just loves them. (-:

Thought to share Happy’s story to those of you out there that may have had this happen, or have wondered what would happen to your cat or pet...this was Happy’s experience - under the magic influence.

#MushLove for you Happy!