Why am I always a sucker for another pretty face?

I've had them a few times...just one cat in my home...I think twice in my life.  I always called it a dream come true.  My feline companion would bond 100%, and I relished the idea of a cat focusing totally on me.  I always said one cat was better than two.  With two cats you're ignored at least 50% of the time, but with one you're ignored 0% of any one day.

Lopsided relationships don't turn me on anymore.  My furry soul mate lived in loneliness when I wasn't about, and with time this isolated fuzz ball began to remind me of a little human instead of the individual cat it was suppose to be.  Domestic cats really are all for themselves and themselves for themselves, if that bit of craziness makes any kind of sense to you.  They don't form packs.

Maybe communes of free sex, but never a pack with a leader.  They don't form complete families either...as a male will practice euthanasia.  They will form a bond with another feline, a friendship so to speak; if their sun, moon, and planets are all aligned in the celestial sphere of the vernal equinox with the constellation of Pisces.  Otherwise, forget it.

Michael

My Michael was an only cat.  Renting in an old apartment building with steam heat, you know...radiators...I occasionally would catch a glimpse of this half grown grayish kitten in the boiler room in the basement when the water would quit heating and making steam, and I had to reset the equipment or suffer freezing my fanny off.  His owners band him from their apartment, and relegated him and his litter pan to a life in that noisy boiler room.

Several months later, just after the loneliest Christmas I ever spent in my entire young life, he came calling at my window sill and found himself a toasty warm apartment that was refreshingly quiet.  I swear...after a few months he was beginning to develop into a little human being.  All that was needed to complete the fantasy was to one midnight, after finishing shift work, open that front door and be greeted with a slight English accent rolling of his purring lips as he rubbed against my legs, and lovingly whispered "I've missed you tremendously, my sweet".  He was my little man...so perfect.

Bryon

Over a year later, when Bryon kitty quietly wiggled himself into my life...Michael had a tizzy fit and poor non-neutered Bryon was getting his balls battered left and right, until many weeks later Michael's sun, moon, and planets aligned themselves perfectly and saved poor Bryon's young life.  True buddies until Michael's passing, then Bryon, one month later...they were always best friends to each other.

Jesse happened onto the scene while Michael was in his old age, so Jesse never was an only kitty, although by the way he eventually treated all his roommates, he wasn't too keen on the buddy system except with me.  The short end of this extremely long point I'm making is both Michael and Jesse always spent much time with me, even though they had a houseful of too many other companions...they just weren't little humans any more...they were totally cats.  With luck, Andee may have his playmate at last, if Lacey has her way, and Andee can survive her wild kittenhood.

Zoe and Lacey

Oh...right...you don't know.  Zoe was becoming quite frazzled with Chloe always answering when Zoe was called.  She told me that if I didn't change that #$%*!# pipsqueak's name pronto, I was going to wake up in the morning with a face full of fang marks.  When Zoe speaks, one listens if they know what is good for themselves, so that little limping spitfire that has unabashedly taken over the whole household is now sporting the sweet name Lacey.  Zoe coughed up a fur ball in her honor, and puked in my shoe to show her approval.

Miss Lacey

 

Sweet, sweet, sweet Lacey...I figure if I say it a hundred times she will become sweet, sweet, sweet Lacey.  Actually she already is quite sugary sweet in her all-about-what-I-want ways.  Had completely forgotten how kittens sometimes love to use shoes for a scratching post, so my not so cheap sandals have chicken scratches all over the foot beds.  Finally found the hidden squirt bottle to curtail that death defying chewing of plugged in electrical cords.

Zoe's becoming a phantom of the night again, only seen when in a hissing frenzy with a kitten that doesn't know when to make a detour.  Zoe retreats to the spare bathroom to be fed, as Lacey thinks she's starving no matter how much she guzzles down multiple times a day.  Open three cans of food and she would pig out until she poofed out and exploded.  I can't even munch in peace without a barrage of complaints about me not sharing my eats.

Andee and Lacey

Andee was fairly used to her by the time she demanded to be set free to explore, so his hissing "back off" kept her out of his face; but she's diligently working on wearing him down into the perfect playmate.  Dustin?  Well, he's having to learn that Lacey's just like Zoe and Andee...she's NOT a dog toy.  And me...last night I had a little kitten sleeping by my head until morning light, and I'm loving every second of it.

My little sweetheart...

My heart's broken...

His seventeenth birthday was coming up;

but his frail little body was worn out,

and my Jesse died this afternoon.

I think I have cried all I can cry,

then I cry some more.

He was my little sweetheart.

Daffy-down-Dilly Days

Adieu...Sweet Winter of Contentment

Gentle tranquility

quietly waiting...

until day and night are equal

in all nooks and crannies of this old world -

when the sun speeds ahead of the moon

to warm the earth

and shake her from deep slumber.

Just Stuff That Pleases Me

Shiny Glass

Crazy Art

Love Stories that Last

One's Love Affair -
Another's Nightmare 

Size 40 Shoes!

Passage of Time

"It was one of those March days

when the sun shines hot

and the wind blows cold:

when it is summer in the light,

and winter in the shade."

- Charles Dickens

A violet by a mossy stone

half hidden from the eye!

Fair as a star

when only one

is shining in the sky.

- William Wordsworth

Singed with amber hue

tilting his head ever so slowly

those eyes burn deep into my heart

the ups and downs he's living through...

My sweet sweet sweet 

will you drift into the deep

as we fall asleep this night,

or will morning break

finding you triumphant

still close to me with gentle voice 

for one more precious day.

Remind me again why I can't live without cats...

Still feeling young...when husband would cringe every time I announced we were going on a rock expedition; him wondering out loud with a disposition soured in two seconds flat...who is this creature he's living with that plucks rocks and boulders along with their children and relatives from where they are happiest, forcing them to set up housekeeping in our gardens; while the neighbors are plucking rocks and boulders out of their gardens and chucking them back into the countryside.  Days when a thirty pound rock was still a possibility for me to cart out of the wilds, and a sixty pound rock we both could moan and groan our way back to the tailgate of our vehicle with it.

Surveying construction site for the cream of the crop of unusual appearing chunks of sand not yet eroded; chunks caressed, abused, and bashed by wind and water into misshapen goodies...a yowl of significant magnitude pierced the air and yanked our heads in its direction.  It popped out of the jungle of weeds, this handful of white fluff with a mouth attached to its face that opened from ear to ear and barraged us with cries of neediness.  Two more fur balls stayed in the safety of weeds, one orange-striped, one siamese-like...only the runt of the lot took a chance and allowed me to scoop it up into the safety of my arms and rush it home to the dungeon, a room full of manly man crap, husband's crammed full of junk workroom...to a life of solitary confinement.  (Next morning the other two fur balls were bribed with tuna, grabbed leaving gouges, scratches and a bite to their rescuer, stuffed into carriers, and sent to live with a friend for the remainder of their happy-ever-after lives.)

Cutie remained in the dungeon until he was declared healthy by vet, and the other felines had finished their phases of sniffing, hissing, growling, stalking and batting the closed door and waiting and waiting and waiting for that monster that was hidden from sight.  Visitations with Cutie to feed, pet, and play...to socialize him to me...all this lasted about two months, until I felt reasonably certain the others would not freak out when this little squirt was let loose in their midst.

Jesse......he seemed like a Jesse, so Jesse it was...his name from that day forward...Jesse actually picked his very own hour of release.  His frenzied pleadings of let-me-out-of-here! cries, caused me to fling open that door, to find him hanging onto the door jamb looking straight into my eyes.  Holding my breath, I pried him loose, and let him face his fate with the resident feline gang of four.  He survived...maturing into a handsome blue eyed devil, slim with orange points and stripped tail, he favored the siamese in him; becoming an excessive talker to humans and a climber to perches in high places...just like any bloody pain in the butt sweet looking siamese.

Jesse's one and only connection in his youth was Michael, but Michael was already old at that point of time, and Jesse was soon left to himself and me.

Andee joined the group as a pudgy wild little kitten, latching onto Jesse and always with Jesse, much to Jesse's dismay.  Jesse's not a tabby cat's cat, he wants nothing to do with an Andee type buddy, he tolerates, only tolerates.  Andee's a Jesse cuddlier, a Jesse buddy, he tries and tries and tries, but is often abandoned by Jesse.  Andee snuggles up to Jesse in his cat bed...Jesse pins his ears back with that look of annoyance plastered across his face.  Andee lays on human bed with Jesse...Jesse up and leaves, and Andee is quite alone.  What could be a match made in heaven, has become a mismatch of personalities.

The battle would begin...good versus evil, sweetness verses mischievousness, top cat versus bottom cat...it became Jesse's obsession to topple Miss Molly from her lofty throne of the feline kingdom.  He was the light of my heart, but plummeted to the depths of darkness, becoming a gigantic thorn in my side.

Miss Molly would sleep in the bedroom, on the bed, tucked under the blankets, all cozy and comfy.  Bedtime found her buried under covers curled up against my body, and I would leave a little air hole for her as the covers were quite heavy in winter.  

Jesse sought her out like a heat seeking missile when I wasn't in site of the room.  Spying the lump of Miss Molly under covers, he pounced on it, kicking the hell out of her with his hind feet.  A discombobulated feline, Molly would be screeching and trying with all her might to crawl out to save her own life.  He eventually evicted her from the bedroom, and she resigned to sleeping in the living room.  She got even by beating him to my lap every time I sat down in the living room for the evening...she could make her way onto my lap in 2 seconds flat.  Jesse retaliated by trying to lay on top of her on top of my lap.

Anytime Molly changed her sleeping location, Jesse was there to sharpen his claws and shred her furniture.  Her furniture was my furniture, so a battle ensued between him and me also, his term of endearment quickly becoming little shithead.  Jesse marked her cat pan and stunk up the room; Molly marked his cat pan and everything else her petite rump could reach.  Jesse perched on counter top, leaping and landing on her with a thud when she passed by, freaking the bejeezees right out of her.  Molly snuck onto the same counter top when alone, and pissed on his bed with all her might.  Jesse cornered and bullied her when she tried to eat her meals, Molly later one evening left a double dose pile of shit on his bed.  Anytime I heard her screech, the first word out of my mouth was always JEEESSEE!!!

Sweet, lovable, endearing, petite and polite Miss Molly became bad ass bad attitude Miss Molly, the cat the vet clinic soon came to fear with a passion.  I told them it was Jesse's doing, and they declared...No Way!...that adorable affectionate sweetheart of a cat...you lie!  Fearlessness came with Miss Molly's old age...something snapped...she began to attack Jesse in her dementia state of mind...and Jesse became the underdog in Miss Molly's remaining years.  Molly paid him back big time by living out 20 lives instead of the common 9, and spent the remaining of her many years tormenting Jesse whenever he was in range of her paws and claws.

A rogue with style, charisma, and charm; he's king of the feline trio, eating whenever he pleases, and where ever he chooses.  If I disagree, I'm pestered to the edge of sanity until I relent; as he's cunningly manipulated me into being his #1 can opener operator slave maid.  He's been known to claim Zoe's food as his own, whether it reeks of multiple fishy and powdery additives or is a flavor he utterly detests...if it's Zoe's, it's his 100%.

Drifting in and out of his foggy madness - he's chasing the dickens out of Andee one minute, then vegetating in couch potato mode the next.  He's my computer geek buddy, forcing me to align my arms and legs in fifty different work obstructive and comfort destructive positions; allowing my body the pleasure of suffering fifty different focal points of fatiguing pain as he serenely tucks himself onto my lap for the long haul.

His eyes spy my every move as he tries to outguess my next destination, until I ultimately land at his most favorite location at beddie bye time.  Curling up tight within the curve of my arm, kneading those tootsies ever so lightly, face emitting a glow of ecstasy in pure contentment, he loves and is loved...my devilish, little sweetheart of a guy.

Jesse's Other Stories...

Dinner in Bed

I'm Old, Crotchety, Stubborn, and Cantankerous...

Dinner in Bed

On my lap, off my lap 5 seconds later;

he's telling me he wants to eat.

Sniff food on plate in kitchen,

turn and walk towards bedroom;

he's telling me he wants room service.

Sniff at plate of food on floor in bedroom,

look up at me and just sit there;

he's telling me he wants dinner in bed.

What a life!!!

I should be so lucky.

I'm gettin' nuttin' for Christmas 'cause I ain't been nuttin' but bad!

Vic always ends his phone conversations with "be good", and I always tell him "no way, I want to have fun".  I do have oodles of fun "being good", but my home is seldom on Santa's list of deliveries.  Christmas isn't about presents (am I crazy!!!), although most children and a bunch of adults would beg to differ, but I comfortably live with this exclusion.

Gifts aren't my main form of feeling loved anyway, but I do have a little dark cloud forming over me, growing bigger each day a Christmas card fails to appear in my mail box; and each year fewer and fewer cards make their way into my greedy little clutches, as I thumb through all my mail around Christmas time and usually come up with zilch... :(  I know, I know...you think because of my age...my friends are dying off around me like flies, but I'm not THAT old.  People just don't keep in touch with paper you can hold in you hands...saddens me.

Sending Christmas cards is always a big fanfare with me.  It is usually the closest resemblance to a gift anyone outside of immediate family will ever receive of me, so it is a definite must that I send out WOW!!! cards with all the jingles and jangles attached.  This Christmas post is my "card" to you...a little of the past...a whole lot of the now, with all the jingles and jangles attached.   

Michael's Story

Loneliest Christmas I remember was the Christmas just after my divorce, when I was living in Reno in a six apartment building near downtown. Telephoning anyone, meant I had to walk across the street to the pay phone. I had no Christmas tree, no presents, no Christmas cards, no money, no nothing. It was like, to everyone else, I had fallen off the face of the earth and had been forgotten. I remember feeling more alone at that moment, than any other time in my life before or since.

One of the December days those big fat fluffy snowflakes were sifting down from the sky, and all I could see out my apartment window was a cool white that amazingly stayed bright even after dark.  It all looked so wonderfully inviting that I pulled on my boots, buttoned my coat up tight, circled scarf around neck and face, tugged hat snugly over head and ears; and ventured out into that wonderland of softness from the heavens.  Looking up through the street lamp light all I saw was white with all those amazing flakes radiating out of the center and descending upon my face ever so lightly.  I walked for blocks, alone in all that quiet beauty.  Magic...pure magic.   

One late evening that winter after Christmas, I barely heard a cat's low meow at my front window.  Opening the window, a gray and white cat jumped onto my living room floor from the window ledge. He became the most special cat I have ever lived with. Alone in the apartment, he would seem overjoyed every time I came home from work.  I soon discovered that his favorite people foods were baby peas, scrambled eggs, Cheez Its, cake and icing.

He always slept by my face, and would purr himself to sleep with a purr that sounded like the roar of an airplane engine.  He loved to play hide and seek...hiding in the bathtub at the end of the hallway, meowing until I peeked around the shower curtain and spied him, then sailing over the edge of tub, flying down the hallway, and around the corner to the living room and safety.  He would start meowing again until I peeked around the corner and spied him, then he went flying back to the bathtub to start the game all over again.  He was wonderful.

He would follow me around, but if I was in a room and needed to leave that room for just a short time, I would tell him to stay there as I would be right back.  He would stay there and wait for me.  Totally amazing.  At night, when he was older, and the purr was a little softer, and he was lying by my face, I would tell him that he was my sweetheart and that I loved him so much and he would always give me a little kiss with his nose.

He was just the sweetest cat ever.  I always felt that as long as he was with me everything would be alright.  When he passed away, it was as if my heart died a thousand deaths.  For all those years that he was in my life, I never felt alone.  He was the best present I ever had.

Our Feline Trio

Christmas Card News Letter

Not to fret...

only do short ones.

*HOLIDAZE GREETINGS*

from all at our cozy abode

Yummy yum yucko cough syrup...like drinking the whole bottle of this traumatizing elixir cranking out this year's holiday news letter.  Memory eludes me, but I'm thinking 2009 flew into the stratosphere without nary a comment from me. The lows were on high that year, husband unemployed, Molly leaving us after 20 1/2 years...Christmas came and went quietly.

Molly Molly Molly...so much sweetness and feistiness all wrapped up in such a petite package. Panamanian and surprisingly healthy for a feline in the tropics, confiscated from the laundry room by our landlord, no clue what to do with her, we with two cats already...well - people just assume that feline people always have room for an infinite number of little furry feet - so, we then had three meowy mouths to feed.

Being such a small kitty, Molly practically lived on my lap most of her life whether I liked it or not, protesting loudly and clinging onto me for dear life anytime I had to get up. Such a character, so loved, and extremely missed.

Vic's lodgings now-a-days is Afghanistan, so eleven months of the year he is missed dearly, and one month of the year is party time! Thanksgiving vacation we spent a fabulous two weeks going to every concert available no matter what the venue, and three days at a fantastically ritzy bed and breakfast in Atlanta.

Our feline trio is doing well at the moment, with Jesse requiring more of my care these days to keep his life in quality mode. Bummer growing old, even for a cat.

Dustin dog found his way into our household a year ago, rat terrier and jack russell mix, lovable one minute, stinker the next.

A pinch of stardust has been added to this news letter to fill your hearts and noggins with the radiance and glow of the Christmas time spirit and all of its magical powers. Much love...

Yvonne and Vic...Jesse, Andee, Zoe...purr purr purrrrr...Dustin...arf barf!

Best Wishes

For the merriest of Christmases

And the happiest of New Years