Just We Two - Life Goes On

Well, I took a nice, long nap on Mom and Dad’s bed and am feeling ready to go.  Where?  Where can one go except downstairs or upstairs?

Mr. Purr and I have a truce.  I wouldn’t say we actually get along, but we don’t get in big fights anymore.  We hiss and growl at each other sometimes, but no “knock down drag out fights,” as Mom would put it.  A sort of peace has descended upon this house.  There is just one wrong note here.  Dad disappeared.  He and Mom got in the car and rolled away.  Dad had some suitcases, so I suspect that he will be back some time before too long.  Mom came back by herself and seemed sad, but I’m not sure why.  I do miss Dad though.  Mom says that we will go to see Dad soon and be with him.  That does not sound like a good idea, because going somewhere means going into the box again.

It is a lot warmer than it was when we came to this house.  It’s great having the windows open so that we can smell the outdoors and hear the birds.  Linda says that one window is called “Cat TV,” because we can see where the birds come to eat and drink.  What fun!  Also, we can get on the table in the front room and look out another window to see pretty much the same things.  This is not a bad house!  Mina likes it here, because Linda plays with her a lot.  Mr. Purr and Millie are pretty old, and they don’t play too much anymore, so Linda likes to watch the little fool, I mean Mina, jump in the air trying to catch ribbon.

Mom is busy doing something on the dining room table.  There are her computer, a funny kind of box and lots of what she calls records or albums.  Quite often, she sits at the table and puts one of the records in the box, turns it on and has headphones on.  I don’t hear anything or see anything.  Why does she waste her time with a box that doesn’t do anything?  Oh well, who ever said that humans could be understood?  They do strange things all the time.  I mean, really, why would anyone want to stand in a little room and get wet?  Ugh!  It makes me shudder just to think about it.  Mom took me in with her once, because I had some pee on me in places I couldn’t reach.  Suffice it to say that a trip to the vet caused it to be on me.  She made me come out of the box and then she turned on the water.  Oh, how awful it was!  At least she was also getting wet, even though she didn’t seem to mind at all.  Once we were thoroughly wet, she shut off the water and tried to wrap me in a towel.  I didn’t like that very much, and escaped from the bathroom as soon as I could.  She does that every morning, no matter what house we are living in!

Mina says she wants to go outside and get a bird.  I told her that she can only think about it, because they will never let us go outside.  Mr. Purr and Millie are sometimes allowed to go out, but they are old and slow and usually come in when Linda tells them to.  One time, though, Millie hid, and Linda was a little upset with her.  Finally, she came in and all was peaceful again.

Mom has been taking things out of boxes and putting them in different boxes and putting them in the back room.  When Mom and Dad went away one day, with two cars, a lot of boxes disappeared from the house.  I don’t know what they did with them, but they are completely gone and, I think, not coming back.  One of the cars did not come back, either.  We used to look out the window and see the big white car sitting in the driveway, but it is no longer there.  Mom is very busy, though.  She goes places and comes back, sometimes with stuff, sometimes not.  Sometimes she says she has been “downtown,” wherever that is.  She says it costs her a lot of money to go there, so I don’t know why she goes.  There is something called an “apple still” that she has to see and then she goes to a Turkish thing.  I don’t know what it is, but it starts with “con.”

Besides being busy, Mom is a little stressed – actually a lot stressed.  Sometimes she goes places with Linda and/or Richie, but so far she always comes back.  I’m afraid that one day she won’t come back.  What will we do then?  We can’t stay here.  Millie is so upset about our being here, that she sometimes leaves puddles and little presents for Linda.  She says she doesn’t like our being here, and she is protesting.  Of course, with Mina being here and trying to boss her around, she feels that she has no status, because she says we all pick on her.  I don’t think that’s true.  We don’t pick on her all the time, just a lot of the time.  She’s easy to pick on, except sometimes she does growl and hiss back at us.  I think that if we stay here much longer, she will try to get back at us.

Mom keeps saying that soon we will fly away to be with Dad.  With what wings?  Are we birds?  I must take a nap and keep on thinking about this.  It’s very puzzling.

Yours,

Apache

Just We Two - What Next?

I have been sleeping and napping a lot.  Both Mina and I now spend a lot of time on Mom and Dad’s bed.  Mr. Purr and Millie almost never come into that room, so we are pretty safe there.

Mr. Purr keeps playing boss, and he and I get into some big fights.  Mina is terrified of him, so tries to stay out of his way.  She tries to boss Millie around, and so do I.  Things are beginning to calm down a little now, and sometimes Millie even teases us somewhat, so that we will come after her.  Toys are appearing for Mina to play with, and that makes her happy.  She also watches the birds from the windows.  There are a lot of windows here, and they are easy to get to.  Lots of birds and other things to see and hear.

Sometimes I sleep in the tower that we brought from home.  It makes me feel a little safe.  In the evening, sometimes I will lie on the couch beside Mom or Dad.  The others will never bother me there.  Ha!  Both Mom and Dad are bigger than Mr. Purr, so he won’t try to fight with them.  I miss home.

Will we ever see home again?  I am beginning to think that we will never be there again, but maybe we will have a new home.  Are we there now?  Probably not.  Dad keeps talking about going to live in a turkey.  What?  Why does turkey play such a large part in our lives?  We eat turkey at Thanksgiving, and I suspect that humans come from turkeys, as I have mentioned previously, but now we are all going to live in one?  This is very puzzling to me.  I have talked to Mina about it, and she is even more confused than I am.  Dad talks about flying into the turkey, but none of us has wings.  Also, are there different sized turkeys?  The one we eat at Thanksgiving isn’t big enough for even just me to get into.  Now we are all going to live in one?  This is going to take a lot of thought on my part.  Mina, too.  Will it be cold in this turkey?  Will it be hot in this turkey?  Can we eat it if we get hungry?  Very strange!  Life appears to be full of surprises and little lessons to be learned.

In the meantime, we need to survive living with these other cats.  Millie is pretty docile and tries to stay out of our way.  Mina insists on going after Millie, and then Mom has to yell at her.  I guess Mina just wants to be the boss of somebody.  I keep telling her to just forget about it and get along, but she doesn’t listen very well.  Breakfast and supper are getting easier.  They give Mr. Purr some of the wet food and move his dish a little way from ours, and Mina’s is moved away, too.  Millie usually doesn’t partake of meals with the rest of us, preferring to just snack throughout the day, or when no one else is there.  She misses out on the wet food most of the time, but I don’t think she really minds very much.  If she is there when it is served, then she gets some.  If not, she doesn’t get any.

Mom has not been making food for us for a long time.  That’s another thing that makes me think we are not yet in our new home.  I miss that food.  It was very delicious!  Maybe someday she will make it again, and we will all be happy together again.  In a turkey???  Lots to think about!

I guess I will take a nap now so that I can think.  I do my best thinking while I am napping.

Yours,

Apache

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