(Souper lenthee post warning) (I'm done now.) Cat tales ~ What's in a name ~
Somebody didn't lock the back door last night. (I think that would be me, and it's okay if I tell you, but I'm not admitting anything to MJ.)
When you remember to lock it many nights in a row, Lupita and Stumpy don't tinkle the handle to see if it's openable. (Well, not tinkle, more like "wham." Whammit.) Unless it's a dark and stormy night and they really want in.
But when we woke up this morning, the door was wide open when I came down to work on the puter.
Little grave robbers, they are.
When MJ came down, she said, "That little kitten from next door was in the house."
"How do you know?" I hadn't seen him, and she'd just come from the upstairs.
"I saw him, when I went down the hallway. He was going down the stairs. I could tell, because the clump-clumpthunk noise was different from Stumpy and Lupita, so I looked over the edge, and he was going down the stairs."
That means he went right by me. I hadn't noticed. Well ~ who's surprised?
He's grey-black. A little less than four months old? He's the one MJ tried to save, helped the little girl next door nurse, and his brother didn't make it. Pneumonia or something.
Now he doesn't have anyone to play with, and he thinks maybe we want to. He comes over when no one is home next door. MJ just says, "He's lonely." It's a good thing for him Fui is getting too old and sore to mess with him, or she'd open his nostrils to the back of his head. Chickenshit Stumpy doesn't know what to do with him; and Kitten just makes Lupita sick to her stomach to look at. "Disgusting." But she's too sweet to do anything, and looks over at us. Like she's about to puke, and we should be doing something about this. This is Her yard, and it's very upsetting to have uninvited walkers throw trash on the beach; and we should do something if we don't want her heart to break. She's certain it's our responsibility. Contractua; or she never would have graced this place with her presence. She can't believe we'd let her dangle in the wind like this.
There was a big cat in the yard last night, and Stumpy saw him from the back stoop, but was uncertain about what to do. (Fui would have made poop shoot out of his butt sideways.) I try to explain to him about initiative. But he's worried about getting too close. He's decided to hunch here, twenty five feet away.
"You know, dude, if you zoom over there, he'll take off," I suggest.
When we first saw him, he was facing away ready to run, now he's sitting up on his rear facing us.
I get behind Stumpy, and give him a little boot. He decides to go slinky to the top of the steps, to avoid getting stepped on. Oh wow. Big Tiger's scared of that. Tiger's watching me, but laughing at Stumpy. He's not even postured.
"This isn't working, Stump."
That guy is going to start thinking we're both weasels, if we don't do something. It's up to me, now.
I'm looking around for something to throw at him. I really should throw it at Stumpy, to get him off his butt; but if he sees me do it he'll hate me for weeks.
There's a sack of PC magazines by the door, waiting to be recycled. I pull one out, reach back, and fire it across the deck. Boy, it flaps and flutters like the nuclear powered condor from hell. But it's got enough kaolite in the paper and cover that it spasms straight across the deck, right at Tiger.
"Egads!" thinks Tiger.
I could tell he thought he had two wimps. He went right through calophytum, about two feet off the ground. It's big spear leaves are shaking like he hit a trunk on the way through.
I like it.
I'm giggling.
Only problem is, the Phoenix Devil Skyrocket Cat-Chomping Noisemaker has, as usual, caught The Boy unprepared, and without his defibrillator. Thank God he's got claws for good wood deck traction footing. Anyway.
"The best thing to do," he thinks on the fly, about a foot in the air, "would be too blaze across the deck and under the house."
He's there. He's crossed from the steps, over the deck, and jumped from there into the Exotic rhody, headed to the Secret Hole in the basement door.
He just wants out of there. And, hopefully, his tail isn't following too far behind. He'd pull it in, running at full speed, if he could. Something, might grab it. Something, back there; but he's not turning around to look. At whatever's back there. "Oh, the carnage!" "Cats and cat parts were everywhere!"
I look at it as exercise for him.
If his heart holds out.
But Stumpy has a lot of pride. For no particular reason. For no reason. I'd call it "foolish" pride. He thinks it's Lion Pride, but it's really silly fat squirrel pride. Sit in a box on the porch with your ears above the water hippo pride.
The other day, he was out there and realized there were birds at the bird feeder. Boy, he's quick. Even though they're about seven feet off the ground, he thinks he'll go over there and get one. He slithers over to the pathway about ten feet from the feeder, and hunkers. He wonders if they're scared yet, but they're not, so they must not see him. He hunkers some more. The usual conclusion here is for him to think about breakfast and fall asleep.
But he's up and awake. Upright even. Frisky. He decides to creep up some more and get like right under that guy on the feeder That guy will see him then and flee for his life. He'd tear him to shreds in a few seconds. A combination of stealth and ferociousness and Mongol terror packed into saber claws and fiber-nylon springing deltoids.
He's convinced. As he's sitting immersed in flexing in the Roman gladiatorial sun, the bird finishes eating and drops down out of the tree and flies off toward the maple in the direction Stumpy has come. I think, oh god, Stumpy's gonna get him. He's going to fly low right over him and get snatched out of the sky in a leap of leopard trajectory from the missile man on the ground.
I don't want Stumpy to get him, I mean we don't put bird feeders out for him to catch birds; but it's never been a problem before. It's a focus thing for him. It's a little more work than he wants to do. Maybe a lot more. He doesn't.
But as I watch this story unfold out there I think oh god, Stumpy's going to get his bird. Like a deer leaping after a butterfly, he's going to score, in the end zone. It's as unlikely as the center running for a touchdown, but it could happen.
He's caught off guard, dreaming, by the noise of the bird wings, and what does he do?
He ducks.
He ducks.
He dips his head fast and turns his helmet around to see the bird's headed far away into the wilderness. "That was a close one. Wow. Jeez!"
That's my boy.
How do I raise such wimpy buckers?
Fui can take care of herself. Stumpy knows, he knows, not to get too close to her windmill right, unless he wants his ear divided into flapping sections. She's a fanner. It's just a blurred disk, like a blender blade or fan, until you get your finger in it. He's learned she can only do it in one spot, as she has to brace three legs like a tripod to balance the force, and if you stay out of that range, that circumference, you'll be fine. But don't go banging into her to rub her to say hi. She's not feeling very cordial. And if the paw comes off the floor, look out. That's all Fui has to do, is lean back and lift that paw, and he's leaning back himself. That damn nose is poking out too far on his face there; he needs to pull up fast and bank right. Swoop. "Swoop, Stumpy; swoop!" "Dive!"
Fui is not above raking your nose, either. Ask MJ about her furrow. The dredging of the Grand Canal. About an inch long and a sixteenth deep; a Hutsi decoration.
Now, that's a cat.
Oh dear, my word-counter here says 1,470; and I haven't told you about the kitten from next door. While he was in the house.
Yah, he was in here, upstairs because I left the door open, and we were discussing him, but I couldn't remember his name. Neither could MJ. It's a weird name, for a cat. I tried to remember, out loud.
"Wellington?"
"No," she laughs.
"Wellesley? Uh, Winston? Winchell? Wimbledon?"
"No. It's not British."
"Wooster? ....Bertie Wooster?"
"No; it's a President."
"Oh yah. McKinley."
"Yah. McKinley. That's it."
"What a weird name for a cat. What kind of name is that for a cat?" I want to know. I think Wellesley or Wooster is better. Winchell.
"She wanted them to be named after Presidents, so she thought of Lincoln and Mckinley."
"She's seven. McKinley? And what kind of kid wants to name their cats after President's that have been assassinated?"
"It was an accident."
"No it wasn't." I'm trying to think of the name of the labor activist or commie who offed McKinley.
"No; Dodo. The Presidents. The names. Naming them after dead ones. .....Assassinated ones."
"Kind of bad luck, if you ask me."
"Well, Lincoln's already dead."
"See what I mean."
Wellesley isn't going to be long for the world either. Besides coming in with the other cats and eating their food, he has taken some pretty startling liberties.
I have this puter on a rolling cart, and at 5:30 in the morning I'm on the couch, trying to encourage my stocks. Think them up. Right around 8:35, I daily realize this is the dullest activity on earth, and the sleepers start hitting me on the head. It's naptime.
But Stumpy and Lupita want to go in and out, in and out, in and out, in and if you want to get some sleep, you might as well get up and open the back door, and leave it open. You have your choice; and you know what's going to happen. What kind of nap do you want? I like a nap nap.
So I door, concede Austria to Hitler, and I lie back down, pull up a knitted cover to my chin, and take one last look at the dimming five minute intradays.........
zzzzzzzzzop
zz
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzip zzzzzz
I wake up from total narcosis at about eleven, and there's a cat curled up on my chest, squishing me. I hate when they do that. I don't let them, but they sneak on me anyway. I get really mad. I'm trying to get my arms out to get Lupita off of me, and I relise it's not Lupita or Fui, it's the kitten from next door. Winchell. He's sitting on my chest, and he's been sitting there comfortably enough, long enough, that he's curled up like a croissant, facing away from me.
"Comfy?" |
