Maplewood, beware!
I’m thinking that the cats—at least some of them—need occupational/vocational counseling.
One of the guys(It’s always the guys)apparently thinks that he is a watchcat, protecting us all from dangerous gray tiger cats out on the back porch. He pays no attention at all to the calico incipiently-maternal feline that appears on the front porch. When he spots this gray interloper looking in the window, he growls in the fiercest possible manner, from somewhere south of his liver and paces along the top of the handy chair back, hurling threats and imprecations at this creature that had DARED to look in the window. Sometimes he yowls really loudly and runs to another window to repeat the whole thing…maybe he’s trying to give the impression that there is a whole cat posse inside here just itching to get out and make short work of the trespasser.
However, if I open the door, guess who takes off and heads for far parts? Got it in one.
Then there’s some individual here who is laboring under the delusion that he, or maybe she, is a florist or horticulturist of some sort. I bought flowers, see, just because the place could use some color and some illusion that winter might come to an end someday. Company was coming and while running the vacuum was a necessity, it wasn’t real uplifting…so…flowers. They were O.K. as long as there were people in the house but under cover of darkness, SOMEBODY removed the baby’s breath and fern and the flower buds and blossoms from the vases and strewed them artistically across the top of the buffet and down on the carpet; different arrangements on different occasions You haven’t lived until you’ve stepped on something small and soft and unmoving… in the dark. It’s a wake-up call, for sure. This happens every time there are flowers are in the house. Somebody else is chewing off the leaves on a shamrock plant(Not much Luck of the Irish here) but the miniature daffodils are safe, so far. The escapades have continued from poinsettias to primroses and roses. Whoever is doing this is not picky, just determined. Anything green is regarded as a challenge.
Then again, there’s somebody around here who is , perhaps, pursuing a career in writing or in interior decorating. Pens move around. Papers travel. The lid to the kitty water fountain downstairs keeps moving off to new locales and the cat food cups can’t be counted on to stay in the same place for more than a day or two. I don’t use them, honest. I wouldn’t even mind all of this movement, if I could just count on them to clean up once in a while. Not happening. One of them has taken to curling up in the bottoms of the drapes. Certainly picturesque but not really helpful. A couple, the older ones, I think, make a point of watching for my return by sitting in the window and watching for the headlights. This is why the front windows have got nose prints. The back door has got paw prints, from the littlest guy standing up on his back legs and scratching away at the glass to let me know that he wants out—NOW! He’s really good at making known his desire to come back in too. He just stands there staring in…staring with yellow eyes and real intensity. Never takes very long to get my attention. This is a smart cat. When it was REALLY cold, he would go to the door to be let out and I would go and open the door. He would put maybe one paw out into the frigidity then turn around, come back in and give me a look which was clearly meant to say, “Are you kidding me?” Nope. Still COLD.
And we won’t even start on the soccer players… the balls have bells..games at night.
