Archive for the ‘cats’ Tag
I woke up early this morning and I’m now lying in bed drinking my first cup of coffee. I’m looking out the window at all of the wonderful snow we received overnight. A few minutes ago I watched my neighbor who lives further back in the woods from us walking along his driveway dressed like an eskimo. Every morning at exactly 7:00 am he walks from his house to the road to pick up his daily newspaper. He must be strictly regimented because he varies no more than a minute or two each day. Exactly fifteen minutes later he again walks to the road with his little daughter and waits with her for her school bus.
Are you also a “creature of habit”? I think we all are in one way or another and may not even be aware of it at times. My cat just walked by the bed on his way to continue his patrol of the house. He is the poster cat for the term “creature of habit”. He in turn through his actions requires me to become part of his daily routine.
Every morning starting at 6:00 am he starts his nagging for food. He knows that after a certain period of time I’ll be forced from sheer annoyance to get my lazy ass up and feed him. This pattern started ten years ago when he and I were living the wild and crazy bachelor lifestyle in good old Sanford, Maine, a well known area for wild nightlife and many unexplained deaths from sheer boredom. Once we moved to Saco, Maine it took him more than a month to adapt to the new home and surrounding circumstances. I made the same adjustment in a matter of days.
Apparently our adaptability to change is based solely on intelligence not cuteness. If it was based on cuteness then I’d have adjusted even quicker. In case you’ve forgotten I am one cute SOB.
My better-half is the ultimate creature of habit and sometimes it’s even in a good way. She has a radio in every room of the house and cannot bear to have a moment of quiet. As she moves from room to room she turns on the radio upon her arrival. There have been times when she’s had multiple radios playing in different areas of the house. This pattern of behavior apparently started many years ago long before my arrival on the scene. My assumption is that it was her way of accomplishing three things. First she loves listening to music, second it drowned out the noise from her three children, and thirdly it blocked any unnecessary conversations with her ex-husband. Remember that is my assumption which she is certain to disagree with. Just so you know she was reading this over my shoulder and has already disagreed loudly with my assumptions.
Even the birds who visit our home three or four thousand times a day have their habits and patterns. I can set my watch by a large and annoying woodpecker who appears twice a day at the same time to eat the suet we provide. The blue jays appear as well at a different times to avoid the woodpecker. All of the smaller birds schedule themselves appropriately to avoid the woodpecker and the blue jays. Everyone and everything has patterns that coincide neatly with everyone else’s. It’s just simply the way of things and something we have little or no control over.
So, as you’re going about your daily routines, stop every so often and think about your habits and patterns and how comfortable they make you feel. We do them for a reason whether we like to admit it or not. As young people we develop habits that interlock with the habits of our family. As soon as we introduce others to our life we immediately fit them into the nitch we’ve created for them.
Is it any wonder we all seem to love jigsaw puzzles. They’re a mass of varied and odd pieces that combine into a finished and complete picture. Our lives are much the same.
So I’m being forced from my bed by both the cat and my better-half to feed one and snow blow for the other. I guess that confirms me as a true “creature of habit” with a little help from my friends.
Valentines Day is over as I write this and we’ve had a great day. My better-half had the day off so we spent the first few hours in bed this morning exchanging cards and gifts and making good use of our quality time. It’s more difficult than I ever thought it would be to have time together. Her schedule makes it somewhat difficult but we’re dealing with it.
Being the loving person that I am I then volunteered to make us a breakfast of bacon, eggs, toast, coffee, and a jar of our home made rhubarb jam. It really started the day off right and gave us a chance to catch up on a host of other matters. We’re trying to make plans for an interesting vacation this summer, where to go, for how long, and all of the other preparations that need to be discussed.
We spent the remainder of the day running errands and just having fun together. We picked up groceries for our evening meal and returned home late in the afternoon. Our late dinner consisted of two excellent steaks, a pile of fried onions, a huge salad, and a bottle of pretty decent wine. We then retired to the living room to watch a new movie I just received as a Valentines Day gift. I laughed until I cried as "Ted" took over our reality for a couple of hours. For me there is nothing better than lot of laughter and we enjoyed the hell out of that movie. She had to be at work at 5:30 am so she was off to bed soon after the movie ended.
I planned to remain awake for just another hour or so to give her a chance to get to sleep and was able to read five or six chapters of a new book I just started. The cat arrived in the living room at his regularly scheduled time, climbed up on the chair, and wished me a Happy Valentines Day in his own weird feline way. He also let me know in no uncertain terms that it was time for bed. I opened the bedroom door and he immediately joined her there.
I ended up reading for quite a while and before I knew it it was 2:00 am. I completed a quick check of the house. picked up a glass of wine, and walked out onto the front deck for a few minutes. It was really cold but the night was crystal clear. I sat for a while on a small bench we left out for these occasions and enjoyed the cold air and the absolute quiet. One of the joys of living in a rural area is the total lack of human background noise which we can only hear if the wind shifts in just the right direction. The cat stuck his nose out the door but refused to join me. I thought someone with a nice thick fur coat like his wouldn’t be put off by the cold all that much but he was. He casually returned to the bedroom to enjoy his most favorite thing, the electric blanket. He was down for the night finally.
All things considered it was a really wonderful Valentines Day. I hope we have many more just like it.
Another month has screamed by at warp speed and winter has arrived here in Maine. We haven’t received much snow yet but the temps are in the mid twenties at night and low forties during the day. It always takes me a few weeks to adjust my body to the winter temperatures but once that’s over it’s smooth sailing for the next five months.
I’d like to thank those of you who persuaded me into sticking with my goal of reading all of the Harry Potter books. As I thought, the books tell a better story than the films but the films special effects really do bring the stories to life in a different way. It’s hard to deny how important special effects can be when making movies about witches and wizards and a host of really strange creatures. If I were to make a recommendation I’d still suggest reading the books before seeing the movies. That’s almost impossible I know but it’s what I think. Since the films have been released to TV I’m sure just about everyone on the planet has seen most of them. That’s OK but if you’re a real fan then sit down and read them, you’ll love it.
I finished book three a few days ago, took a breath and immediately started on book four. I’m only a few chapters into it but can already see the changeover to a more adult approach to the story. A couple of early murders and a little sexual innuendo go a long way to making that point. I’m actually looking forward to finishing the remainder of the books which shouldn’t take more than a few more weeks after my return from Maryland.
I’m sitting here this morning trying to solve a problem I’ve seen having recently. We live in a very rural area filled with forests, farm fields, a few neighbors, and a plethora of animals roaming in and around the property. I need to preface this with a tidbit of information to help you understand. A number of months ago we had an unknown number of fucking thieves enter our home while we were out and they stole everything that wasn’t nailed down. The details are unimportant but the effect it had on us was profound. I’ve since turned my home into a fortress with lock replacements, industrial strength deadbolts, a top of the line alarm system, and sensor controlled lights surrounding the house. If you even fart within two hundred feet of my house the place will light up like Rockefeller Center and you’ll likely get to meet me and my Smith & Wesson. The police should arrive just in time to save you.
Your asking I know, “What’s the big problem then?”. Sounds great right? Not so much. The problem began shortly after the lights were installed when I was in a much more paranoid place than I am now. I was lying in bed at two in the morning and all of a sudden the entire rear of the house lit up. I grabbed my gun and headed down stairs to investigate. I looked out the windows and could see nothing so I opened the back door to look around and almost stepped on one of the largest skunks I’ve ever seen. He was sitting almost against the door and I was one step away from a smelling and disgusting disaster. Of course, I retreated immediately but that SOB hung around for another half hour keeping all of the lights lit. A few times every week now I’m awakened not just by roaming wild animals but also my neighbors cat. He loves patrolling around my house in the wee hours and might even get some kind of a feline related thrill by turning on all my lights every so often.
“It’s a pickle I tell ya!”, to quote Frank Barone. How do I take steps to deal with that cat? Maybe I shoot him in the ass with a BB gun? I really don’t want to harm the little bastard because he’s been keeping the chipmunk population under control for a few years now. I’m afraid there’s just no solution. I’ll have to get darker curtains on my bedroom windows and just let it go. My other problem is that I’m not very good at letting things go.
Time to go and enjoy the day.
I’m a cat person as are millions of others in this country and I’ve been told there are currently more cats than dogs being kept as pets. You’d think that cat’s would now be considered “mans best friend”, but they’re not. I’ve written before about how I believe cats think we humans are their pets and we’re actually “a cats best friend”. That being said, it appears that I am owned by an exceptionally inscrutable and sly cat. In general cats are pretty laid back and appear to the uninitiated that they are aloof and uncaring. I agree to a point on aloof but cats really do have personalities that are as different from each other as human beings.
I’ve been acquainted with five cats in my life and each one has had it’s own peculiarities and personality quirks. After years of observing them closely I’ve determined that one characteristic is common to them all. It’s called the Twenty Second Delay Response Syndrome (TSDRS). With dogs you shout a command and they spring to their feet wagging their tails and just begging to do your bidding. I think that cats get the same rush from your attention but choose not to show it quite so openly. They sit and wait for approximately twenty seconds then nonchalantly stroll over to see what’s going on. Try it out yourself if your owned by a cat, it’s amazing.
You’ll also note that I continually say “owned by a cat” and I’m not kidding in the least. Let me explain further. My better-half was for years a dog person. When we finally decided to live together I was more than a little concerned about her relationship with “Stormy”, my feline friend. He and I have been together for almost twelve years and we lived the swinging bachelor lifestyle for almost eight years. It was a “Mexican Standoff” with my better-half and her son Chris for the first month or so after we moved in. Slowly but surely Stormy began to reel them in until my better-half was finally converted. Chris was more fortunate when he moved to California and broke free of the cats hypnotic effects.
We buy Stormy the best food, we give him fresh water every day, and we shovel and clean his disgusting litter box. He also has access to an outside deck where he can lounge all day in the sun and chase a bird or two. My better-half and I once had a double bed to share our nights together. It has now become a triple bed with Stormy deciding who sleeps where and how much room is allowed for each of us. In the morning God forbid we don’t immediately run to the kitchen to get his breakfast ready or he will bother, harass, and annoy us until we do. He’s a twelve pound, hairy alarm clock with a huge chip on his shoulder.
He loves to play but he can be more than a little rough. I have years of scars on my hands, arms, and feet to prove it. Recently during a play session I really pissed him off and he latched onto my foot. I screamed an obscenity which quickly ended the play time with him scurrying away and me limping to the bathroom for hydrogen peroxide and a band-aid. We didn’t speak for a week and every time we were in the same room he would sit with his back to me and begin the “Big Ignore”. After a week of his shunning I began to feel bad so I made sure his water was fresh, I changed his litter box early, and fed him a treat or two which he refused to eat until I left the room. Finally last night as I was just dozing off he jumped up on the bed and allowed me to move the hell over and make room for him. What a guy. He nudged me a few times expecting to be petted and loved-on a little and of course I complied.
Now I hope you understand if you’re an actual cat person just exactly who owns who. I’d like to continue this little story but the sun’s out and Stormy has been bugging me for the last twenty minutes to open the door to the deck. He’s getting as much deck time as possible while the Fall sunshine lasts and before the snow begins to fly. He gets a bit grumpy if he doesn’t get his deck time because he’s concerned about losing his summer tan.
A lot of people use the term “a dogs life” to define the perfect way to live. I’d much rather have “a cat’s life”.
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