Tag Archives: cats

The Visible Soul

“I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.”

― Jean CocteauGypsy in window

That seemed like such a nice quote – until I thought about it.

Now, having thought about it, I’m concerned that the soul of our house, while cuddly on the outside, has a dark, blood thirsty, thieving, conniving side. And, to be perfectly honest, I’m totally fine that the cats have those attributes but if that is part of my home’s, soul I’d really rather it not be visible.

So forget Cocteau, let’s go with Wesley Bates, “There’s no need for a piece of sculpture in a home that has a cat.”

Thank goodness for that, the cats would just knock it to the floor anyway…

 

Creaky Old House by Linda Ashman and Michael Chesworth

Our old house had a disease, the remodeling disease.

For details please refer to: The Disease Part I , II  and III as well as More Roofing! 

We set out to fix a stairwell wall and we did.

…and then we had to fix a lot of other walls, and wiring, and insulation, and stairs, and the roof…

The disease hadn’t even finished running it’s course when we moved out and the DOT knocked the whole thing down.

For a very sad picture please refer to: Weekly Photo Challenge: Split Second Story

With that said,  no one should be surprised that this book followed us home from the library:

Would I recommend it? If you’ve ever had an old house with a touch (or a full blown case) of the remodeling disease this one’s for you!

Oh, the kids?

They liked it too!

Probably something to do with the great rhyming verse, detailed illustrations and the fact that there are labeled pictures of all the characters in the front.

My girls love any book with pictures of all the people…cat sitting on book

…the cat however has no appreciation for a good picture book when she thinks it’s dinner time.

 

 

 

Good Kitty


Despite the fact that Gypsy is the worst food thief of the bunch she’s still my favorite of the cats.

She purrs, she snuggles and last night she killed a mouse.Gypsy in a box

What a good kitty.

It’s been years –years – since a cat of ours caught a mouse. Fiona, our oldest, has never caught one. I’ve seen her disinterestedly look at one but that’s as far as she ever went. Henry, our old cat, has been gone for years but he caught mice…. kinda… Perhaps you need to read about Henry’s mouse catching to fully appreciate my excitement over a dead mouse.

For a story of the worst mouser ever (not to mention pictures of a tiny Ivy and Piper) read Henry the Cat.

And then, you will perhaps better understand why I am oh-so-happy to have a cat that kills the mice!

Black Jelly Beans

Today John observed that the only people who like black jelly beans are those who are so old they were alive before they invented good flavors for candy.

This seems to have the potential to be highly insulting to those of you who may like black jelly beans (you know, like my Dad), so I’m just going to leave that one as John’s observation.

My own observation concerns our cat, gypsy. Gypsy found herself a black jelly bean and loved it. She threw it on the floor and batted it, and chased it and carried it around. Me, being me, took her picture, looked down, checked the photo and made my own observation.

The only cats who like black jelly beans are those who have been taken over by an evil cat spirit.

I’m not sure how John’s theory is going to pan out, but I’ve got photographic evidence for mine.Gypsy with black jelly bean

The next morning  as I was coming up from the basement a gooey, fuzzy, squishy, black gob stuck to the bottom of my foot and refused to budge. The horror of my fears of what it might have been was equal to the sense of relief I felt at discovering that the offending goo was “only” a black jelly bean.

Being younger than some, and lacking my own evil cat demon, I do believe it was the only time I have been truly happy to have discovered a black jelly bean.

 

 

 

In Michigan…

“Well, I guess in Michigan they have really big cats and lots of snow.” Ivy stated as we drove to meet my Uncle for an afternoon of skiing and sledding.

John and I agreed. It was undeniably true that the house cats we had seen since arriving in Michigan  were huge (I think one of them is actually part mountain lion) and the snow was impressively deep.

While I’ve no photo evidence to show you that the cats were at least three times the size of ours (and part mountain lion), I did bring the camera out into the snow.

After an entire afternoon of skiing and sledding followed by a delicious dinner, we headed back out into the snow for a fire and s’mores.

Soon after Uncle Jim joined us around the fire, Ivy calmly walked over to me, tugged on my jacket and said, “Can I whisper something to you?”

“Mom, why is Uncle Jim wearing a skirt?”

In Michigan, they have really big cats, lots of snow and they take perfectly good Finnish candles, call them Scottish Cabers and then stand around them in their kilts.DSCN7527-(2sm)

Alright, to be fair to the rest of  Michigan, I’m pretty sure it’s just my uncle that does that.

But we are so grateful that he keeps putting our animals back together when they break that we’ll still admit to being related.

DSCN7468-(2sm)

No worries we didn’t bring any really broken animals with us this time. Just some veterinary maintenance that Clara presided over.

All in all it was a great trip, even the drive (two adults, three kids, two dogs, two cats through Chicago) wasn’t too bad.

Noisy- but not bad!

Dinner Time Logic

The two new cats have integrated themselves into the family surprisingly well and our evenings have been restored to their former peacefulness marked by a different furry creature sprawled out fast asleep on any available surface.

Until I think about feeding them.

Not when I start scooping food. No, long before that they use their super animal senses to determine that my sneaky herding of animals into different areas had to do with FOOD and suddenly I’m surrounded by the churning chaos of hungry animals.Gypsy

And then I’m in trouble.

John is still recovering and, lets face it, at this point he’s more like the furry animals sleeping on the couch than an able-bodied assistant.  So it’s just me and the hungry hoard. And trying to figure out how to make four-legged dinner time run smoothly reminds me of the logic problems I used to love solving as a kid. You know the ones that said, “If Tommy is wearing blue hat, and Gretta has a cat, what does Mable love?”   If I made one for the house it would look like this:

You are feeding Gyspy, the calico kitten, Cassie, the grey kitten, Fiona, the tortoiseshell cat, Storm, the brown hairy dog, and Trip the orange and white spotted dog.

All the animals’ food is in the basement.

The cats can not be blocked out of the basement.

Storm will steal any unattended food.

Storm will take Fiona’s food even if she is there.

Trip will not eat by himself.

The kittens will convince Trip they are feline killers and steal his food.

The dogs will sit and stay and wait.

The cats will not.

Fiona eats different food from the kittens.

Storm and Trip eat the same food.

Trip eats slower than Storm.

The cats eat slower than the dogs.

Cats magically multiply when they are twining your ankles meowing.

It is very difficult to carry two cats at once without bleeding.

Jessie does not want to bleed.Trip

What color is the animal who eats first, and where does it eat?

Hint: Never feed the salamanders while the cats are in the room.