Well, IBM (Irresponsible Bad Momma) has just had her call letters, so to speak, changed to RFPM (Retired Front Porch Matron). Having had “the Operation” just this last week, she seems to be perfectly happy to not be putting up with the various traveling salesmen who have been showing up forever around here with a line of goods that always resulted in new batches of kittens–some survived, some didn’t–I have at least two of the more recent survivors in the house and at least one shows up outside on the porch on a fairly regular basis. His brother seems to have gone off to greener pastures or just disappearance. Sunny, our regular visitor, accompanied his mamma to the clinic, which brought an end to his carefree gigolo days, but he still seems to be fine with it. Neighbor across the street reported a catfight possibly featuring Sunny but there are a couple of look-alikes around so who knows. He’s very fluffy but usually not real aggressive (and likely to be less so now that he’s had “the Operation” to adjust his attitude and his ass…umptions. Should be a quiet time on the porch for a while anyway. Everyone seems to have gotten used to the new cat food mix (heavy on plain old Purina–exotic victuals have not been popular–I have an overflow/backup supply, if anyone is interested–I’m about to start putting it out for the squirrels, who will eat anything, especially if they can rip something up while they’re getting to it); the usual suspects keep showing up and hanging out in the heated kitty kondos, as well as enjoying the unfrozen water bowl. All the comforts of home…and then some.
Grimmy does continue to spend much–most, even–of her time up on top of the kitchen cabinets. It is sometimes disconcerting to look up and see her observing from on high but I’m sort of getting used to it. Butterscotch got into some sort of an altercation with Fuego the other day (I think he’s getting way past the “old and crochety” description and gone straight to “ornery old coot”, with a side order of mean.); they were snarling and spitting and running all over the place. I thought for a minute that he was going to turn on me but he came to his senses, such as they were, and showed up to sleep on the bed later (So he’s not totally taken leave of his sanity; it was a close call.) Miss New Cutie Pie, Ruffian, or “Ruffy” to her friends and admirers–that would seem to include me–is doing just fine. She has her own favorite litterbox–with blue-n-white granules, she has her own private dining space in the downstairs half bath (That’s to keep the other, always-hungry characters–especially Champ–from eating her entire menu). She has quite taken to watching football on TV, since I do, indeed, now have a TV and that’s about the only thing that I watch (There’s way too much weird and ridiculous stuff on there…and don’t get me started on the commercials). It may have something to do with the fact that sitting down to watch the game means that I have a perfectly good lap just asking to be enjoyed. I don’t think that it means that she’s keeping stats for the betting pool.
At least when I hear odd noises in the night, I can generally figure that it’s one of the feline residents up to no good. The Week reported that a couple in NC called 9-1-1 when they heard disturbances in their downstairs. The town’s finest responded and found that the robot vacuum had somehow turned itself on, got itself stuck and proceeded to go back-and-forth bumping against a wall and scaring the family half-to-death. The inhabitants here can top that but I haven’t called emergency services yet….haven’t cleaned much either, but that’s another story. Speaking of which, my cleaning more resembles the other story that was in the same magazine–it was probably on TV too, I don’t know, I wasn’t up on New Year’s Eve–anyway, a bunch of folks in Washington State got trapped in their cars on said holiday evening when high winds blew enormous piles of tumbleweeds, some as much as 30 ft. high, across a state highway, stopping five cars and a truck for hours, until snowplow–snowplows!–could come in and clear the road. One State trooper referred to the incident as “Tumblegeddon”.
Brings to mind one of the many quotes attributed to that baseball fount of wisdom, Yogi Berra, “If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up somewhere else.”
I’ve always thought that.
