Well, not just yet.
You won’t see the Porch Kitties in long johns real soon, but it won’t be for lack of their pointing out the inadequacy of their current accommodations. Everybody got displaced by the painting of the front porch, which necessitated the clearing-out of the miscellaneous items of furniture, food service and fol-de-rol of all sorts which had been parked there since God-only-knows when. I cleared out the kitty kondos–pretty ratty-looking, I have to admit–and left the regulars to rough it all through the summer with naught but carpet pieces and cat beds to recline on at their leisure–tough times!
Anyway, the porch is now restored to its previous splendor–colors brightened, floor swept, furniture placed in conversational arrangements (for people, that is, the cats are not talking to me anyway)–or at least most of the junk is gone (I might get it back for Halloween; it’s pretty scary). But now I need to find some new, large styrofoam boxes to use to make the new, more up-scale kitty kondos. No high-rises, they would make it hard to see out across the lawn to the sidewalk and street–security issues, ya know. I need two more large boxes to eliminate the likelihood of any conflict over who gets the “good spots”. There are four Porch Kitties, four food dishes, one water bowl (plus the heated one for when we get the coming OHIO WINTER, or to make tea), so there needs to be four boxes that can have heating pads installed (I have those). If one of these coddled beasts would take up cat carpentry, it would be a great help, but I don’t see that happening. Maplewood is not offering anything of that nature, last I looked.
Inside, the story is somewhat different, though with the same origin, more-or-less. With the Christmas Walk looming, cleaning had to be done. You know that line which I have used before, “Cleanliness is next to godliness, but I say it’s next to impossible.” ? Well, I’m using it again. I have a brave volunteer in helping ( Helping? Heck, she’s doing the major lifting.) to do the cleaning. Of the whole house (not counting the attic and the basement, that would be cruel & unusual punishment) ! This requires moving piles of stuff, which have to go somewhere.
After they’ve gone, I can’t find anything, because it has disappeared from its usual location to somewhere I wot not of (I frequently burst into Old English in times of stress…that, or cursing, take your pick.) All of this shuffling around, running of vacuum cleaner, toting of scrub buckets, spritzing of cleaning stuff, etc. has disturbed the indoor residents ( I am one of those but I was disturbed anyway.) and the five felines have reacted in five different ways.
Grimmy has gone to live upstairs in the attic. Guess that it is a change of scenery, after perching on the kitchen cupboards, which she did for quite awhile, but it means another location for a food dish, a water bowl and, of course, a litter box, all of which must be tended separately from the accommodations for the other four. They are at the “same old, same old” facilities down in the basement but somebody is having trouble being “on target”, so-to-speak, and is missing the box rather frequently–not on purpose, mind you, but because of an excessive caboose overhang. I do not wish to cast aspersions here, but it is the old guy, Fuego, who is having this difficulty (for me, not for him, he cares not a rodent’s rear about the problem that I have with it.). He’s simply getting old and a little careless. Our second-in-command, Champ, and Butterscotch (Scotchie) have decided to take up residence in the bathroom, the warmest room in the house, unless it is being cleaned, then they head to somewhere in the basement.
Champ is particularly fond of getting inside of boxes that are too small for him or ones that he cannot be seen in–like the vacuum cleaner carton that I went to move and found it to be full of cat. Little Miss Cutie(Ruffian) goes to the basement too and has figured out how to climb up into places that Grimmy used to hide out in and get into the upper level stash of catfood. She has also taken up yowling as a pastime designed to bug everybody else in the house–especially me. So…once the house is cleaned up (Mirabile dictu !) and The Christmas Walk is over, will we all go back to normal…whatever that is? Will the Porch Kitties recover from the hardship of it all? Will they sign ”paw-to-graphs” for visitors (for a slight charge, of course) to finance their purchase of an up-scale catamaran to take on a world cruise? Will the indoor dwellers in the lap of luxury take to demanding better digs so that they may survive this social cataclysm or will they turn the downstairs into a set of catacombs in which they can hide out, if we ever do the Christmas Walk again?
I’ll have them supervise the cleaning next time. Ha!
