|
You cat lovers will be happy to hear that the CAC cat population has now tripled. Molly Longtail manifested in July, our first feline since Nancy's untimely departure a year ago. She was a kitten delivered by my granddaughter Ivy who stopped by on her way to the local cat crematorium. I am now convinced Molly is the reincarnation of Nancy my favorite late night companion at the shop because she follows her old routine to a T. Anyway, it was around the 4th of July and Vikki and I had just returned from a night of dancing to our favorite local band, Roadhouse, at the Log Cabin Tavern and as we were walking down the trail to our house, I thought I heard a cat's terrified meowing coming from deep inside the woods. We both stopped but did not hear it again. Vikki said I must be imagining I heard something. The next night Vikki phoned me from the house after leaving the shop. "Avaton, I think that was a cat you heard last night because I heard one too, just now walking down to the house. It was really faint and sounded scared. When you come down tonight would you bring a flashlight and check around in the woods."
I did, it was two AM but I didn't see anything but the eyes of two raccoons on a limb of a huge maple tree. The next morning as I left the house to walk up to the shop, a workman on the roof called down, "You really have a noisy cat. He's been meowing all morning." I asked him, what does it look like and where is it now'? "It's a black and white kitten," and he pointed at the woods. I started up the path leading into the woods, calling "here, kitty, kitty"
Fifty feet into the woods I could now hear a persistent meowing coming from a large clump of maidenhair ferns. I approached and hidden inside saw two little terrified eyes peering up at me. I reached down and withdrew a tiny quaking little kitten which I petted and who clung to my chest as I followed the trail out of the woods and up to the shop and dropped into the lap of an astonished Vikki sitting at her computer. She fell instantly in love with this velvet-soft little creature with such beautiful blue eyes and named him Julius, for Julius Caesar, because he has a large rump and would fall over backwards every time he tried to jump into her lap. When Molly Longtail spotted him she arched her back and hissed. After all, he was in her shop and she was the first cat in a long time, even if she only arrived two days earlier.
That night I left the shop at 1 AM and while walking with Bear down to the house was astounded to hear a piercing "yowl" coming from deep within the woods. We stopped, I cocked my ears, the Bear bristled and huddled against my leg. We heard the cry one more time but it was fainter and even further away. For a moment I wondered if that cry could have come from Julius locked inside the shop but remembered seeing him curled up inside Vikki's open purse sitting on the floor next to her computer and he was fast asleep. The scene was so sweet and comical I intended to tell her about it in the morning. No question, there was another very frightened cat out there in the woods and I intended to track it down when daylight came. It was hard trying to sleep because my head was going and I kept remembering that woeful terrified cry out there. I wondered if a mother cat lived out there somewhere in that rainforest and had built her nest under a log and had her kittens in that cold and wild environment. Had someone deliberately dumped her or her kittens on the road going by our shop and she hauled them into the woods for safety?
Vikki and I had talked about that as Julius cuddled in her lap. We had never seen a cat like him before in the neighborhood, in fact we had never seen a black and white cat around here. For years we have been taking the Bear for a daily mile and a half walk and intimately know and recognize animals along the various routes. There are numerous cats on lawns and porches who silently regard the Bear with a leery eye as we pass, but no black and white ones, so we deduced Julius and his parents were not from this area and most probably dumped.
I headed up to the shop at 10, my usual time, knowing it was a Thursday and Vikki would not be there. She had picked up her best friend, my ex-wife Jean, at 7 and gone to Ballys gym for their regular 4 hour weekly workout. I quickly started up the trail into the woods, fully determined to find that cat. Thirty feet into the trees I called, "here, Kitty, Kitty" and immediately came a loud mewing response; and from beneath a huckleberry bush out scampered another little black and white kitten, almost the spitting image of Julius. It was frightened, hungry and terrified from that long ordeal. I picked it up and it began to purr and clung to my chest. I looked briefly around to see if I could find a nest or a mother cat around but not a sign of either. When we reached the shop and I opened the door, there sat a welcoming committee of Molly Longtail and Julius looking up at us.
I set the little kitten down and immediately she and Julius came together and started licking each others little face. The next moment their little feet were locked around each others neck and they were playfully rolling around on the floor. The new kitten was so soft and melted into my chest when I picked it up so I named it Maggie (after an old girlfriend years ago who did something similar).
Like Molly, we figured our new little cats were two months old. They were so soft, gentle, affectionate and social, their little motors purring continuously, that we wondered what breed of kitty they were. Vikki's cat book and the Internet had nothing similar pictured, the closest was something called a Birman cat, a legendary feline believed to have originated in Burma where they were considered sacred. A pair was later taken to France and today is recognized as a breed. So we don't really know or care what breed; they are just groovy and wonderful little creatures full of life and playful energy and they have raised a literal hell of continued mischief that has forced us to change our routine. They explore every inch of the shop, scampering from desk to desk kicking and littering papers, books, pens, paper clips, staplers, purses, clothes, bottles of pills etc.
When we're working the treadmill they try to jump on it and run along with us. They are each demanding continuous lap time, dashing and leaping into our laps or suddenly climbing our legs (a no-no) where they curl up and instantly start to snooze. We quickly learned some preventive measures: a sprayer full of water on every desk and table lets them know when they venture into taboo areas. They are not allowed to chew electric wires (my son Marc had a cat that did this and was self immolated and almost burned his house down); they can not jump up on the dinner table, they can't chew on the ends of our fingers. To protect our piles and piles of paper which is everywhere in the shop, we bought boxes of assorted lengths bunji cords and stretched them along the shelves and-tables to hold everything down and now when the thundering herd comes racing through the shop and leap from desk to desk their damage is minimized considerably.
During the last 4 months while our house was being torn apart we slept in the shop. In the print room, Vikki laid out a huge piece of foam rubber that Paul used to lay on when he gave the Awareness sessions at the house and with blankets and pillows on it, made a comfortable bed. The kittens discovered it immediately and it became their territory, of course. They scratched and chewed on the foam rubber, burrowed under the covers and played with our toes, insisted they sleep on us or inbetween us till we both were afraid we might roll over and squash one. Vikki solved the problem by luring all three into the storage room with a small sack of "Finger Licken" kitty treats. They love it in there anyway because that's where the litter boxes are, as well as several secret daytime napping spots they discovered among the various storage. When Vikki goes in there to clean the litter boxes all three come galloping through the shop to join her. For some strange reason those little cats simply love those litter boxes and when Vikki refills them they literally jump in, turn somersaults, sit on their haunches and toss kitty litter into the air, batting it back and forth like basketballs. They are constantly playing ball on the office floor too, batting various little toys and cloth balls and mice around. It's the damndest thing to watch, a 3 way game with little cats whacking the ball to one another and then chasing it and whacking it back and forth, each cat sliding and spinning around on the floor, sometimes even lying on its back to reach up and catch the flying mouse or whatever in its paws.
They have also discovered every cord and string in the shop and have learned how to leap up, grab the cord with claws and in the descent manage to switch on the light or whatever the cord controls. One morning, for example. I was rudely awakened by the 300 watt globe hanging above me, the light flashing on and off several times. I looked up and there was Molly Longtail high atop a shelf pulling the light cord up and down with her paws. Since then I have been forced to cut all cords in the shop so no cat can leap up and grab it.
Vikki always rises much earlier than I and opens the storage room door and the thundering herd of little cats start their day of carnage by galloping through the shop. She has a regular routine with the Bear at the house where he snoozes nightly on the living room couch. Each morning she grooms him, takes him up to the shop where he eats and does his routine which is to run wildly amok back and forth through the building growling and snorting with an open can of dog food clenched in his teeth. When this occurs the little cats dive for cover and when the spectacle ends they all come out and roll around on the floor beneath the Bear, playing with his feet and batting at his tail. Bear really likes them, they are bewitching, something entirely new in his life and he often sits in a corner and watches as they tear around playing batting games with their toy mouse or ball. Sometimes he stretches out by the furnace and the little cats swarm over him, batting at his ears and tails. The only time he has ever growled at them is when he finds them eating out of his dogfood dish. That's a no-no!
We don't have TV in our house but do have cable TV in the shop and all three little cats spend much of the day laying on the warm cable converter box on the shelf below. When really little, all 3 could lie there in one warm little pile but now that they are growing they stretch out and drape down over the converter, making it impossible for me to switch channels with the remote. Molly is the main culprit for her long tail droops down completely covering the sensor and have to walk over and lift up her tail every time before I can switch channels. We have decided to keep our little menagerie inside the shop, not allow them outdoors like former felines who persisted in dragging in mice and shrews and frogs and squirrels, some dead, most alive who later took up housekeeping and stunk up the place when they eventually died. Also, we have lost enough animals on the road nearby so we are going to attempt to keep them simply full-time shop cats. This may work, but since the little cats line up at the windows and are only 3 feet away from our bird feeders, they may not always be content just to watch and find ways to sneak outside.
When they were around 3 months old Vikki borrowed three cat carriers from our daughter-in-law Terri, my son Tom's pretty wife, and we hauled them to the vet to be neutered. This was accomplished without a hitch but the vet surprised us by revealing that Julius was a female. So all three of our new little cats are girls which probably explains why they are so gentle and easy going. We had not been able to determine the sex of them ourselves but Vikki had promised if it turned out Julius was not a male that I could rename him, which I did and he/she became Mabel. So we have the three M's—Molly, Maggie, and Mabel and together they rule the CAC shop and keep us workers laughing and happier than we have felt in years.
I could go on but this is enough to introduce our new little family to those many readers who persist in asking for more information on what's going on around here and particularly "more stories about your animals!" I'm almost certain there will be more to tell in later reports from yours truly. So this shall do it for now.
For CAC, yours in the service, Avaton
|
|
