Just We Two - Journey into Madness

I’ve been playing with some new toys, and someone named Linda has been helping me to play.

Am I still alive?  Miss Patchy suggested the title for this page, but I don’t really know what it means.  She says that a journey is like a trip.  Well, what is a trip?  Anyway, we had an awful ordeal, Miss Patchy and I.  We were put into our boxes every morning and taken to the car to roll away somewhere.  It was so scary!  Sometimes I tried so hard not to get into the box, but Miss Patchy said that Mom and Dad will always win that fight, and she was absolutely right.  I hated all those little houses where we lived for the night.  They smelled funny and they were small, and I just wanted to be back home, where I felt safe.  I hated rolling in the car, too.  Mostly Miss Patchy and I slept when we were in the car, so I don’t remember a lot of it.

First, there was all the packing away of familiar things, and the loss of our furniture.  Where did it go and why?  Now I understand it a little better, since we seem to be at home in a new place.  It is much bigger than those little places where we stayed the nights.  I feel a little safer now, except for the other cats who also live here.  The one named Mr. Purr is very frightening.  He says he is the boss here and I need to just stay out of his way and do whatever he says.  Miss Patchy says that she knew him a long time ago.  She didn’t like him then and she doesn’t like him now, but she’s not really afraid of him.  She fights with him, although not so much anymore.  She is very brave.  I wish I could be like her.  One reason I don’t like him much is that he yells all the time.  Miss Patchy said that he didn’t used to yell and that maybe he can’t hear too well.  That might be right, since sometimes I come right up to him and he doesn’t notice until he actually sees me and then he is very startled.  Wow!  I would hate it if I couldn’t hear.  Maybe he’s not such a bad guy after all.

The other cat is called Millie and I like to intimidate her.  Miss Patchy said that’s what I do, but I don’t really know that word.  Anyway, when we meet, I hiss at her and she mostly runs away and I chase her, except for sometimes when she hisses back.  It is fun.  Sometimes, Millie even comes right in front of me, teasing me.  It’s a good game.

At first it was very cold in this new house, and Miss Patchy and I spent a lot of time in a wall, refusing to come out, even sometimes we didn’t eat.  That is very unusual for Miss Patchy, but not so much for me.  Finally, things are getting warmer, and the windows are open sometimes.  The windows here are much different from home, and there are a lot more of them.  They look different, and there are a lot of things to see when I look out, plus they are easier to get to.  There are lots of birds to watch.  I wish I could get to them, but again, there are screens, and I can’t get out.  I have to be satisfied just to watch and switch my tail, thinking about what I would do to them if I ever caught them.  When I look out the windows, mostly all I see are many brown stick-like things.  I’m not sure what they are.

What a terrible ordeal we have gone through.  I just can’t stop thinking about being in the box for so long and staying in those horrible little houses.  Some of them were not so terribly bad, but they just weren’t home.  Some of them smelled very bad and some were not very good.  Some were not too bad, but home is best.  Will we ever be home again?  Miss Patchy says that we probably won’t ever be in the Phoenix home again.  She has some experience, and thinks that we are probably in our new home now.

I was very frightened the other day.  Once again, we were put into the boxes, both of us.  We went to the car and rolled away.  I thought for sure we would end up in one of those awful little houses for the night, but instead, we went to see the vet.  Almost as bad, but at least we went home when we were done there.  The vet poked and prodded until I thought I would go crazy.  Then she gave me a shot.  Miss Patchy got the same.  What is happening now?  I think we have to go back again later on.  Mom and Dad are talking about flying somewhere.  Well, we don’t have wings, so I don’t think we will be flying anywhere any time soon.  I talked to Miss Patchy about this, but she says I shouldn’t be so sure about things.  She says that Mom and Dad have talked about flying here and flying there, and they don’t have wings.  Hm-m-m-m!  We will have to think about this for a while to see if we can figure it out.

Maybe if I play with some toys, I can think better.  My mind will be clearer.

Regards,

Mina

Where To, and When?

Well, I have had a good nap, so I can continue with our adventures.

Finally, one day, Dad was in the garage, giving stuff to people who gave him pieces of paper, when Dad brought home something behind the car that he called a trailer.  They started putting the taped up boxes in it, and when it was starting to get dark, Mom made us get into our boxes and put us in the car!  We were getting seriously frightened by then.  Some people came, gave Dad some more pieces of paper and took the rest of the stuff out of the garage.  He closed the garage door and locked up the house.  He and Mom got into the car (which was stuffed to the ceiling with things, including us), and off we rolled.  It was like being in a closet or something.  Mina and I were facing each other, but there was all kinds of stuff covering our boxes.  It had already been dark for a while, so we didn’t roll for very long.  We stopped so Mom and Dad could eat something, and then we rolled on for a little while.  Then we stopped and slept in a little house with just a bedroom and a bathroom.  It was nice to be out of the boxes, but it was a strange place that didn’t smell like home.  We snuggled with Mom and Dad.

In the morning, they put us back into our boxes and we rolled off again!  We continued to roll all day long.  I was not too scared, as I had done this before, when Cherokee and I moved with Mom from Massachusetts to Phoenix.  Mina, however, was quite concerned.  She couldn’t understand being shut up in her box for so long.  I told her to just go to sleep, and she would wake up when it was time to get out of the box.  We both slept, and went into another little house called Texas.  It was quite late in the day already.

The next day was a repeat of the previous day, but this time the house was called Austin.  Mom and Dad left us in the strange place all evening, and went to her nephew’s house, where they ate a wonderful dinner.  We just had dry food!  The house we were in was very old and not in very good condition.  Mom said that the only thing good about it was that it was cheap.  Again, we spent only one night there.

On the following day, Mom said that they had to change their plans.  They wanted to go see her sister in Florida, but she said it was way too hard on Mina and me to keep going for so many days in the car.  Yes!!!  Finally, she was thinking of us!  She said that we would turn north and head straight for Massachusetts.  Massachusetts?  Didn’t we leave that house once, a long time ago?  Anyway, we got into the car again and that night we spent in a little house called Arkansas.  Mom said there had been an accident on the freeway and the traffic was stopped.  They decided not to go on to Memphis, and stayed in the little house right by the freeway.  It was much better than the house called Austin.  I was really going stir crazy, and had to see out the window or die!  Mom helped me to get into the window, behind the curtains, and I stayed there for a long time, just dreaming of freedom and maybe being home again.  Mina was just trying to get attention all night and woke Mom up.  Dad spent some time on the computer, since the house had something called free WI FI.  Neither one of them slept very much.

They said the traffic was much better the next day, and we reluctantly got into the boxes.  Mina fought very hard against it, but I told her it was useless.  Mom and Dad are bigger than we are, and they will always win!  Mom kept saying that a storm was coming and that we needed to keep ahead of it.  She thought maybe it would not come quite as far as we were, but we kept on rolling.  We stayed in a little house in Ohio.

When we went to the car the next morning, it was pretty cold and I was shivering.  Mina complained of the cold, too.  She made a big show of not getting into the box this morning.  She hid behind a piece of furniture and Dad had to pull some drawers out so he could get to her.  She was pretty mad, but after the car warmed up and we were ready to sleep, she calmed down.  What else could she do?  Mom said it snowed a little while we were sleeping, but fortunately, I didn’t see it.  Mina wanted to know what snow is.  I tried to explain it, but she didn’t really understand.  On we rolled and rolled.  Would we never get out of that car and living in the little houses?  Mom said that we got to a house called Niagara Falls.  It was so terribly cold in the bedroom.  I shivered and shivered.  We snuggled a lot.  Mina went under the covers.

In the morning, the room was finally warm, but then we were stuffed into our boxes and taken out to the cold car.  How much longer? I have resigned myself to the morning ritual of getting into the box.  Mina, on the other hand, it getting worse and worse about it.  She hid deep under the covers, but Mom and Dad saw her easily as a big lump in the bed, and picked her up.  She fought and fought getting into the box, but, of course, they won and in she went.  The car stopped a couple of times, but eventually we got somewhere with people who hugged Mom and Dad.  We got out of the warm car into the cold, but then we went right into a house.  It was a pretty big house with just one problem – there were other cats there!  I think I know them.  They are called Mr. Purr and Millie!  I believe that I knew them in the Massachusetts house.  I thought I was rid of them forever, but here we are again.  However, if this house is called Massachusetts, what happened to the other one called Massachusetts?  I am beginning to wonder about this.

The next morning, we did not get up and go into the boxes.  We did not get into the car and roll.  We ate breakfast and hid.  We found a nice, quiet place in the wall in a bedroom where Richie (Mom’s grandson) lived.  I remember him from when he stayed with us in the house called Phoenix.  We were so scared that we would have to move on again, that we hardly ever came out of the wall for days.  Sometimes we didn’t even eat.  Did I say that?

Well remembering all of this stuff has made me very tired.  Nighty night!

Yours,

Apache

Chaos

I’m just up from my nap, and feel the need to get on with this blog.  As I’m sure you’ve noticed, neither of us has written anything for a very long time.  All has been chaos in our house, at least as I understand that word.

Neither Mina nor I have been able to understand much of what has been going on.  Shortly after Mom had her second hip replacement, Mom and Dad decided that we would have to move – again!    Where to this time, I wondered.  In order to move, they decided that they must sell everything, except us and their clothes.  So, once Mom was feeling okay, she began to sort things out.  This was all interrupted by Mom and Dad going away – again!  They left the house one morning and didn’t come back for nearly a week.  The neighbor came in to feed us again, and to clean our litter box.  Did they think of us while they were gone?  Did they go somewhere, or just stay out of the house for that week?

When they got back, they talked about something called a reunion, a cemetery, old friends, old houses, and other things, including a beach, whatever those things are.  They talked about eating some places and driving around.  I’m glad I didn’t go, since I would much rather take a nap.

Of course, the sorting began again, and Mom began to set things up in the garage.  She set up the folding tables and put a lot of stuff on them.  She kept finding more and more stuff to put in the garage, until you could hardly move in the garage.  She got really tired do all of that, but she kept on going, until there was no longer any room for anything.  Finally, the day came when the door to the garage was constantly open, our litter box and food and water dishes were upstairs, and a lot of people came into the house and were looking around.  This went on for two days!  When it was over, things apparently went back to normal.  But not quite!  A lot of things were gone that had been in the house before.  Even some of the furniture was missing.  The curio cabinet and the entertainment center had disappeared some time before, when someone came to take them away.

There were a few more days of that type of activity over the while, but things remained pretty much the same, until one day some people came and took away the couch, the liquor cabinet, the bedroom set, and the wonderful computer desk and one of the office chairs.  That was a shock!  Mom went out one day and came back with a tiny little thing to put the computer on and things were a little difficult for a while.  A while after that, the garage was open most of the time, and people came and took stuff away.  Mom packed away the china and a lot of other things, and taped up the boxes.  It was getting really scary.  Mina and I had no idea what was happening.  We just stayed close to Mom and Dad and tried to keep warm and comfortable on what was left of the furniture.  They moved the mattress and springs from the bed down into the living room so they would have something to sit on, so we often cuddle there.

One day, when it was pretty cold, Mom went away.  She was gone for a few days and then came back.  She said that her sister-in-law had died and she had to go to the funeral.  I’m not sure what that is, but she was sad for a while.  She said it was an expense she hadn’t needed, but she had needed to go; it was important.  She said it was very cold where she had been, but it hadn’t bothered her too much.  She said that was a good thing, considering what they were going to do.

Oh, I’m getting so tired!  I think I need a nap.

Yours,

Apache

Just We Two - Butter Fingers?

I just woke up – a nap not nearly long enough!  Oh well, to work!

I think that Mom’s last hospital stay must have done something to her mind.  She says that she had another hip replacement.  I think I mentioned that before, and wasn’t sure if I have a hip.  I guess Mom has two of them, since she has had two replaced.  I wonder if there are more.  I mean, she has ten fingers and ten toes, why not more than two hips?

Anyway, since Mom came home from the hospital all smelly again, she’s been eating very strange things.  She had a bag with, of all things, buttered fingers in it.  I have never heard of anyone eating fingers before, but I suppose it wouldn’t be all that bad, except that I smelled these so-called “Butter Fingers,” and they don’t smell at all edible.  Something is not quite right here, I think.  I would never think of eating fingers belonging to Mom or Dad, but probably if a human were lying dead on the floor and there was nothing else to eat, I might try to eat the fingers.  However, on examining fingers closely, I have found that there does not appear to be much meat on them – they’re kind of skinny and bony.  Mom claims to love them, though.  The smell they give off is sort of like that chocolate stuff that both Mom and Dad eat.  Would someone cook fingers in butter and cover them with chocolate?  How odd!  They are crunchy, though, so perhaps the bones are cooked to a very tender state.  Hm-m-m-m!  I’ll have to think about this for a while.  I don’t think I would be eating them anytime soon.

Humans do eat a lot of strange things, though.  Mom sometimes makes something called “sloppy joes.”  What?  Just because someone named Joe is not very neat, we are supposed to eat him?  I don’t think it smells like human meat, but rather beef perhaps, but there are so many other smells mixed in that I’m really not sure.  I think Mom said that there are tomatoes or something in it, along with relish and maybe some other yucky things.  It’s something I would never eat, that’s for sure.  Anything that smells that bad will never pass my lips.

Mom also told me that in some places they eat something called “Toad in the Hole.”  I’m not exactly sure what a toad is, but I think I remember something from when I was very small.  It was an ugly little thing that smelled bad, and peed on everything.  Some of our people did eat them when there was nothing else, but I don’t think I ever tasted it.  Some humans seem to have very bad taste in food.  A toad?  In a hole?  What is the hole made of?  Can a hole actually be made of anything?  Doesn’t a hole have to be in something else, and not a thing on its own?  Sometimes I think I will never understand humans.

Mom has also been eating celery with cream cheese.  The cream cheese is okay, but celery?  How many inedible things can humans think of to eat?  Celery is green – I never eat green food.  Celery is full of stringy stuff – I never eat stringy stuff.  As I said, the cream cheese is okay.  I would eat that, and Mom could have the celery.

Another thing humans eat is potatoes.  What’s with potatoes, anyway?  I’ve smelled them and they smell like dirt most of the time.  Humans take off the outsides of the potatoes most of the time, but not always.  They are kind of white inside and they are very crispy sometimes.  I have seen Mom fry them, boil them, bake them, add them to other things, and eat all of them.  Dad likes them, too.  What’s to like?  They don’t have much taste, unlike fish or chicken or beef or turkey or so many other fine foods.  I guess I’ll just stick with meat, since it’s so tasty and makes my tummy happy.

Well, I think it’s nap time again, unless it’s time to eat.  I’ll have to check my system clock and get back to myself on that.

Yours,

Apache

Just We Two - Does Mom Love Miss Patchy More?

Whew!  It’s time to rest a little after jumping for birds and bugs out on the patio.  I love it out there and ask Mom every day to let me go out.  Most of the time it’s either too cold or too hot and she doesn’t want to keep the door open.  Sometimes early in the morning she will let us out, before it gets really hot.  She won’t open the door at all once it gets hot.

Mom loves Miss Patchy more than me.  I know this.  I can hear.  She calls Miss Patchy Pretty Girl or Beautiful Girl.  She calls me Cute Girl or Cutie Girl.  Why does she call me something different?  I want to be Pretty Girl or Beautiful Girl, like Miss Patchy!  Mom knows how I feel, because she says that I lie on the back of the comfy chair and glare at her and Miss Patchy when she is using those names.  What is cute or cutie?  She never uses those names for Miss Patchy, which must mean that she thinks I am not as good or nice.  I know this!

Also, she always calls Miss Patchy Good Girl.  So often, she calls me Bad Girl.  I can tell by her tone of voice that Bad Girl is not a good thing, but Good Girl is.  I laughed last week, when the perfect Miss Patchy was lying on the eating room table.  Mom saw her and called her Bad Girl and told her to get down.  Ha!  Evidently Mom noticed how I felt about these names, and she is actually calling me Good Girl a lot.  It makes me feel so good and makes me want to do the right things.  Now if I could just keep myself from jumping up on the food-room counter.  Mom and Dad hate when I do that, but who can resist?  It smells so good up there and sometimes I find food there.  Most of the time, it’s human food, and nothing that I like at all, but I usually taste it and sometimes I push it over the edge to the floor so I can play with it.  Some human food makes great toys!  Of course, almost anything can be a toy, especially if it is round.

Anyway, Mom has sometimes recently called me Pretty Girl.  I’m really excited that maybe she really means it.  She has noticed that I don’t glare at her and Miss Patchy so much any more.  She has also noticed that I purr again.  She has told me how much she loved it when I was little and would hug her, knead her neck, and purr a lot.  When she started calling me Bad Girl when I did stuff, I stopped doing that to her.  I was angry!  Now that she is treating me a little better, I am purring for her again.  Will I ever hug her again?  I don’t know.  My feelings were very hurt.  Miss Patchy says that I am taking things all wrong.  She says that Mom loves me just as much, just in a different way.  Why should she love me differently from Miss Patchy?  She says that it’s because we are different, but so what!  I love Mom and Dad so much, and I want them to love me just as much as they love Miss Patchy.  Will that ever happen?  Why do I have to work so hard for it?  Miss Patchy says it’s because I am so young and have so much to learn.  She says that being cute is wonderful and that I should be proud of it.  She says that she will never be called cute, because she sleeps most of the time and doesn’t do much playing at all.  She’s just old!  She’s pretty cranky sometimes, too.

These days, any time I do something right (the way Mom wants it done), she (and Dad, too) calls me Good Girl.  It sounds so good to my little ears.  All I want is to hear those names, not Cute Girl or Cutie Girl, or Bad Girl.  Miss Patchy says that Mom and Dad think I look so cute when I play and jump around and that’s why they call me that.  Well, I don’t care!  I don’t want to hear it!  Let Miss Patchy hear it if she will ever get up off her lazy butt and play.  Playing is life!  What else can there possibly be?  Well, there is Pretty Girl and Beautiful Girl, isn’t there.  And Good Girl!  The more I hear those words, the happier I feel and the more love I feel for Mom and Dad.

Well, now that I have ranted about this, I feel a little better.  I guess I should go play some more before I take a nap.  I will play a lot, as long as Mom and Dad don’t call me Cute Girl!

Regards,

Mina

Just We Two - Doors

Wow!  What a great time playing!  I have a rattley ball, and it is just so much fun!  I need to calm down a little now and try to work some things out.

I’ve been pretty busy studying things lately, so I really haven’t had time to put my thoughts onto this blog.  I am very, very curious about doors.  Doors are what let people into and out of rooms.  Rooms are big empty spaces, surrounded by walls, where humans put tables and chairs and other things.  Doorways are empty places in the walls so that people can go in and out of the rooms.  Most doorways have doors that cover them so that, when they are closed, people cannot go in or out.  So far, so good!  I’ve had quite a bit of experience with doors, not all of it good.  I think I mentioned the time when Mom and Dad went away all day, and I was shut in the closet.  I always try to be sure that Mom sees me go into the closet now so that she will leave the door open a little for me, so I can get out when I am ready.  She doesn’t understand why I love to go into the closet, but to me it is a dark and mysterious place, with lots of boxes and nice-smelling things.

There is also the door into the garage.  It is different from the other doors.  It is a little bit ugly and it makes a different sound when it shuts.  It sounds heavy.  It is always exciting to go into the garage to check out all the things that are kept in there.  Mom and Dad used to keep the car in the garage, but the big door that slides up to the ceiling no longer works, so they can’t get the car in or out.  That makes it much better for me, since the car is just a little bit scary.  I don’t mind it at first when the door is closed after I go into the garage, but they always turn out the light, too, and then I get a little afraid and want to go back into the house.  If Mom and Dad are watching TV, they sometimes don’t hear me calling them to come let me back into the house.  Now I always try to let them know that I have gone out into the garage so they know where I am.

There are also the glass doors in the couch room that let me out onto the patio.  They are like windows.  I can see outside, but I can’t get there unless Mom or Dad slides open one of the glass doors and that thing they call a screen.  There are more glass doors in the guest room, but they are almost never open.  It’s funny to be looking out the guest room doors and see Mom or Miss Patchy in the living room, through those glass doors.

Here is what I don’t understand about doors.  When I want to go into the bedroom or the guest room, maybe the bathroom, if the door is just open a little bit, I can lift up my front legs, push on the door, and it opens up and I go into the room.  Sometimes, I find something interesting behind the door, and it closes a little bit, with not quite enough room for me to get out.  So, I lift my front legs, push on the door, and instead of opening, it closes and latches so that I can’t get out.  Why doesn’t pushing on the door work all the time?  Both Mom and Miss Patchy tell me that I’m doing it wrong, that I can’t push the door open from the inside.  But what else can I do?  This will take a lot more study on my part.  I can see that I have a lot to learn yet.  Will I ever be as wise as Miss Patchy?  She sleeps a lot and eats a lot, and I don’t think she can see really well anymore, but she is still smart and wise, but most of the time she won’t share that wisdom with me.

Windows still confuse me, too.  I have been investigating and studying, but I’m still not sure I have all the answers.  Sometimes, when Mom comes home, I will be in the eating room window and I see her on the walkway.  She wiggles her fingers at me and puts her finger to my nose, but I can’t feel it or smell it.  All I can do is see it.  I already learned that a window cannot be used like a door.  I tried, but I can’t get through it, even though I can see stuff on the other side.  Sort of like the glass doors, I guess.

Well, there are some toys waiting for my attention.  I wouldn’t want them to be lonely, so I must go play with them.  I will continue to think about doors and windows, to see if I can figure them out.

Regards,

Mina

Just We Two - More Worries About Mom

Well, neither Mina nor I have written for some time, as you can tell.  I have been incredibly worried about Mom.  For a long time, she had trouble walking, and it hurt her a lot.  She used a stick (she called it a cane) to help her get around.  Sometimes she would cry because it hurt so much.

Well, one morning, before it even got light, she and Dad left the house.  They fed us first, of course.  Dad came back later that night to feed us, but then he went away again and we didn’t see him until morning.  This went on for a few days, just seeing him in the morning and at night, when he came to feed us.  He didn’t even sleep here.  We didn’t see Mom at all.  I was very scared, and so was Mina.  We just couldn’t understand where she was.

Finally, a few days later, Dad brought Mom home.  She had to push a thing called a walker around, but she smiled a lot and said that her hip didn’t hurt any more.  I was glad to hear that, but why did she have to push that thing around?  One day a woman called a nurse (whatever that is) came to the house, and another day, a man that Mom called a Physical Therapist came to the house.  Mom slept on the couch a lot and didn’t get up much, and she kept on pushing that walker thing around.  How weird!  Sometimes she stuck herself in the stomach with a metal claw, and she took some pills.

The next week, the Physical Therapist man came again, twice.  He made Mom do some exercise things, and she started walking with her stick again, and she started going upstairs, too.  We were so glad to have her back home, but she smelled real funny.  Even she noticed it.  One day she said she wasn’t going to take any more pills, because they made her sick.  Another day, she said she wasn’t going to stick herself in the stomach any more, either, because it made her heart pound at night.

On Monday of the next week, Dad took Mom to work.  She took just her cane.  Boy!  Was she tired when she came home!  She slept for a long time after that.  She worked again on Tuesday, but then not again until Thursday.  Actually, that’s her regular schedule.  She was happy to be back at work, but it still made her very tired.  One day, Dad took her to the store.  That made her tired, too.  Well, I guess I can sympathize with that!  Most things make me tired; that’s why I take naps all the time.  Eating is tiring, running up and down the steps is tiring, sometimes even sleeping is tiring.  Mina doesn’t get nearly as tired as I do, but she is so young yet.

But I digress.  Mom started going somewhere else to see the Physical Therapist man, although I guess it was a woman where she went.  Sometimes she was a little sore the next day, but almost every day she did more and more stuff.  Driving herself around was the next step, and then walking to the store.  That really tired her out!

Anyway, Mom says she got a total hip replacement on her left side.  I’m not sure what a hip is, and I’m not sure I have any, but Mom does.  Her hip doesn’t hurt any more, she smiles a lot, and now she walks most of the time without her cane.  She says she is going to sell it when she is sure she no longer needs it.  I will be glad to see it gone, and Mina will, too.  One day in the kitchen, Mina got in the way and the cane accidentally hit her on the head.  Mom felt just terrible and tried to comfort Mina, but she can’t bend over yet, so she couldn’t really reach Mina.  I know that she wouldn’t hurt anyone, especially one of us or Dad.

We are all so happy to have Mom home.  She has started cooking and baking again, although not nearly as much as before, at least not yet.  She says that she will have to make us some more food soon, and maybe it will be fish this time.  There is a sale on whole, frozen fish somewhere, and she says she wants to buy it and cook it with some other stuff for us.  I hope it will be as good as the chicken food she cooks.  Yum!!!

Well, just thinking about eating has made me very tired.  I guess it is time to take a nap.

Yours,

Apache