Cat Tales

There are some days I just have to shake my head at my kitty-crew. I mean, as a general rule, cats are pretty amusing. Just take a gander at your news feed on Facebook, or at any of the videos that are offered  on YouTube or even some of the regular News news feeds and you will find an abundance of cat videos and stories from Grumpy Cat to the cat that took off after a bear. Seriously, there is no end to the entertainment these creatures provide.

So, most of you know I have a bunch...I got the starter kit from my youngest daughter (Mom, I swear, I found him on the road and he was just crying and, and...can we keep him? Mom, her dad will put the kitten outside and she'll starve to death or get eaten. Can we keep her?), and the race was on to see if I could put a stop to the constant influx of kittens before the next heat. Yeah, I know, I should have fixed him straight away, but who knew that kittens as young as six months could start such an avalanche??

Anyway, I'm down to my basic eight...Gir, Squirt, Uno, Snickers, Harpo, Yoda, Widget and Dorrie. Gir is the Queen, the starter of all of this and a Snowshoe Siamese. What that means is she's a tabby who looks like a Siamese with an attitude. Not the normal Siamese attitude, mind you, one that is more ghetto, for lack of a better description. Of course, she's the alpha in the house, even to the dogs. Bailey, who's my alpha dog will even get out of Gir's way if she's in a mood. Yup, the girl knows who has it and who doesn't. She's Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown with fur on, but she only supplies a little bit of entertainment.

Snickers, the only girl of Gir's that we kept is our resident fat cat. The girl can take up more than half of the width of our table by herself, but she's a big love bug...and a crazy individual. You would think that the plastic bag caper that she was involved in when she was under a year old would have taught her not to get into plastic bags with handles. Nope...every time I come home from the store and have plastic bags, she's right there trying to eat them or get into them or both.
The plastic bag caper happened when she was about nine months old or so. I had a plastic bag on my bed and was talking/showing something to my youngest when Snickers decided to check the bag out. Next thing we knew, she was flying down the hallway, poop dropping in a line, with a bag around her neck. By the time we caught her and got the bag off her, her eyes were as wide as saucers and her heart was beating a mile a minute. We tried to console her as best we could, but she took off and started wolfing down food like a hoover vacuum. That's when we figured out we were going to have a fat cat...she's a stress eater.

Yoda, who had gender issues as first (we thought he was a boy and named him Zeppo)...but, oh...wait...there's nothing there, but look at the cute wing pattern on its back. Let's call 'her' Bunny Foo-Foo (don't know what the thought pattern was on that one), but, uh oh! What are these white things back here?? Yeah, Bunny Foo-Foo wasn't going to cut it. So the next logical step was to ask the one person in the house who could have cared less about any of the cats what to call him. He looked at him, sucked his teeth and went back to what he was reading. After a moment he said, "Yoda." What? How does this adorable ball of fur resemble an ugly green, whateveritis? It stuck, but he still comes to Foofy every once in a while.
This one, he's a clown. His favorite toy is the crinkle balls. Find one and toss it to him and he does more somersaults than a gymnast. Every once in a while, he'll jump up and pretend he's a pole dancer, Goofy cat.

The rest, apart from the occasional sleeping and falling off of a desk, couch, ledge, etc., are pretty laid back. Not much goes on with them. They watch the clowns of the group, roll their eyes and go back to sleep. The occasional fight for the sunny spot comes up here and there, but they're pretty much just decorations that move around from time to time.

But, every once in a while, they come up with gems. Like Harpo. He's my big, muscular boy. Loves to sit on the back of my computer chair and sniff my hair after its washed like Niles Crane did to Daphne on Frazier. He doesn't 'talk' much, hence the name, but when he does, its to get a pet from Dad or to talk back when you talk to him. Otherwise, like I said, he doesn't talk much.

Then there's Squirt. Skinny, more oriental looking than the rest of them, but in tabby form (Daddy Billy was a big tabby), he has mama's attitude, but he loves on this mama like no one's business. Loves to be held and gives kisses. Don't know how anyone couldn't like him. Well, on occasion Harpo doesn't. Okay, so Harpo's not only his brother, but another cat, how does that work? Let me tell you what happened this morning.

I'm sitting here, reading the news about Greece...sad state of affairs there...and thinking about one of the projects that I'm currently writing (which has to do with Germany and finances...sorry, that's all you're getting for now), and here comes Squirt to see what's in my cereal bowl and to enquire whether or not I'm done with it. After being told to bug off, he turns his attention to Harpo, who is silently sitting in the sun, but turns to see who I'm talking to. He gets up, turns around and an ear twitches. Uh oh...not an auspicious start to my morning, especially when my coffee and laptop are in the line of fire. Squirt sits up to his full, skinny size, which is about the same as Harpo's just less muscle, and one ear goes back. I can hear the kitty-swearing going on now. They're talking "stuff" to each other...I just know it. They bat each other across the heads a couple of times before I realize that my coffee and laptop are in danger. I move the coffee to the other side of the computer, fuss at them, telling them there's more than enough room for the both of them and Squirt begrudgingly gets down. So what does Harpo do? He stretches his full length across the disputed territory and slowly blinks at me. Smh. When he realizes that Squirt really could care less now, he gets down and Widget gets the spot.

Okay, so now that I've bored you to tears with my morning, let me leave you with this. Smile. Make eye contact and smile. Say hi to people you pass. Shake a veteran/police officer/fireman/woman's hand and tell them thank you. Tell someone to have a nice day. Tell someone about Jesus. Sing. Anywhere you want to. Dance like no one's watching. Enjoy the new day and new mercies God has given us. Oh, and watch this video and laugh.
Have a great day, everyone!




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