I am beginning to feel a little more
like playing lately. It has been hard to
know exactly how I feel. One day, Dad is
here, the next day he’s not. He has now
been gone for quite a while, so we are pretty sure he is dead. Mom keeps saying he will be gone longer, but
will be back, and will bring some treats for us. Ha! I
hardly remember treats. Mom says they
are too expensive here, wherever here is.
Miss Patchy says that we are in a turkey. Ha! I
think we ate a turkey once!
Speaking of Miss Patchy, Mom is an
apologist for her. She sleeps most of
the time and often gets very cross when I want to play with her. Sometimes I attack her just to make her show
a reaction. Well, of course she growls
and hisses; that’s natural. But Mom gets
upset about it and tells me to stop.
Anyway, Miss Patchy plays with the toys every now and then, which is
what she is doing today. She’s been
playing with the green mouse that has a little bell on it. Mom loves it when Miss Patchy plays with the
toys. All the time, when Miss Patchy is
sleeping, or being cross with me, Mom keeps telling me that Miss Patchy is old
and we need to be nice to her. Ha! She is old, all right! Sometimes she almost falls over when she is
on the bed, and she even needs to have a box by the bed in order to get on it,
because she can no longer jump. A lot of
times, Miss Patchy goes into a room or gets up on the bed and just stands there
for a minute, looking around, trying to figure out where she is and why she is
there. That’s old!
I, on the other hand, am young and
healthy. I’m a pretty girl and a good
girl, also a smart girl. Mom tells me
this all the time. Of course, she tells
the same things to Miss Patchy, too, but I know it’s true for me. I always try to do the right things. However, when I occasionally forget myself, I
feel so terrible when Mom tells me that I was wrong. She never hits me or even calls me a “bad
girl,” so it’s not real bad, but maybe I feel even worse because of it. I want to be good and I want her to love me
all the time. It’s so nice when she lets
me come up on her lap and I reach up and hug her around the neck and
knead. Sometimes I kiss her, too. Mom says she loves it.
This morning, Mom and I were on the
chair in front of the computer. We were
hugging. Suddenly that skinny little box
that Mom talks to sometimes, began to call out.
Mom immediately dumped me on the floor and ran into the kitchen to the
box. She talked to the box and then she
held it out to me, saying that it was Daddy.
Right! Daddy is not a box, and he
is much too big to fit inside the box.
The box sounded like Daddy, but you can’t fool me. It wasn’t him. It would be nice to see him again and hear
his voice for real, but as Mom says: “I’m
not going to hold my breath.” That seems
like a funny thing to say. How can you
hold your breath? You can’t even see it,
let alone get hold of it. Mom has very
funny ideas sometimes.
Today, as soon as she fed Miss
Patchy and me, Mom took the bed apart and put the sheets in that funny,
spinning thing in the kitchen. I hate it
when she does that, because the blankets are all lumped up and it’s not easy to
find a comfortable spot. Miss Patchy
doesn’t like it, either. Of course, she
mostly lies on the suitcase by the radiator in Mom’s office, unless Mom is in
the bed. Sometimes I will lie on the
suitcase with her, because it is nice and warm there. When Mom watches TV, which she does almost
every night, Miss Patchy hogs the place by Mom on the couch. I just lie on the other couch and glare at
Mom. She tries to get me to come over to
her and share the couch with her and Miss Patchy, but I don’t want to
share. I want Mom to come over to my
couch! I am very disappointed when she
doesn’t come. Once in a while she will
come to sit with me, but she tells me that the other couch is better for her
because it is easier for her to see the TV from it. Sometimes I think she just loves Miss Patchy
more than she loves me.
Both Miss Patchy and I keep begging
for treats. Sometimes Mom will cook
chicken or a hamburger and will offer us pieces of it. Miss Patchy loves it all, but I just won’t
eat it. I did eat a piece of raw
hamburger once, but I don’t like them cooked.
Miss Patchy will eat just about anything, except yesterday Mom cooked
what she calls a “weiner.” She put a
small piece of it on the floor for Miss Patchy, but she wouldn’t eat it. That was a surprise. It surprised Mom, too.
Almost every morning I have been
asking to go outside on the balcony.
Every morning, it seems colder and colder out there. Mom always shuts the door when I go out, so I
have to call her or scratch on the door to get her attention when I want to
come in. I didn’t bother this
morning. It’s just too cold. Why does that happen? Before, it was very warm, and sometimes quite
hot, on the balcony. Now my feet freeze
when I go out there on the tiles. Mom
always tries to be close when I go out, because she doesn’t want me to get too
cold. Sometimes she will pick me up and
cuddle me tightly, trying to warm up my cold fur. She really is a good Mom.
This morning the doorbell rang. I hate when that happens. Miss Patchy is lucky, because there is a lot
that she no longer can hear, but I think her hearing is better now than it was
for a while. I always hide when I hear it,
and Miss Patchy hides, too, when she realizes that it has rung. Anyway, Mom answered the door and someone
handed her one of those things she calls a bucket. She went into the bathroom and filled it with
water and handed it back out the door.
Then the doorbell rang again, and it was the same person. This time, Mom gave her a small piece of
paper. I’m hoping that they are done
ringing the doorbell!
Well, I don’t feel so much like
playing right now, so I think I will take a nap in the wardrobe. It’s a nice quiet spot, with no breezes.
Regards,
Mina
