Is this a beautiful holiday weekend, or what??
So much going on here, gang. Fluffy and I are celebrating our 5th anniversary!
She first wandered onto our front porch back in Easton, PA, when Mike and I were renting-to-own that crazy old house on W. Nesquehoning Street. (Who could forget a street name like that? More still -- who could spell it???)
Anyway. Truly loyal readers of this lofty blog will no doubt recall that house as the "cat house" and not b/c it was a brothel. When Mike and I took on that house, it came with an outdoor cat named Thomas, whom I loved. A gorgeous long-haired white cat. The priest who owned the house lived in NYC and brought the cat to PA as a rescue cat and let him live there outside. So I, of course, used to feed him. But instead of just feeding him canned food once a day, I would keep dry food outside for him all day long. So Thomas, in turn, brought all his friends and his many, many children over to have lunch. (It turned out the priest never had Thomas fixed so he was pro-creating kittens all over the place.) (Catholic kittens, most likely!)
Most days, I would inadvertently feed about 10 cats. Some days, it got as high as 20 cats. It was really just unreal. And my home-office in that house looked right out on the front porch so as I worked, I could see this endless parade of amazing cats stopping by for lunch.
Well, on July 4th weekend, 2006, Thomas brought by the cutest little kitten I'd ever seen. She didn't look like any of the other kittens he had brought around. This kitten had enormous eyes and was just bone-thin. Then they sat on the porch together for a little while b/c it had begun to rain. I stood at the screen door and just watched them sitting together as they looked out at the rain. They were so precious together. Then, after that first day, the kitten would come back on her own to eat the dry food. But then she began camping out on our front porch all night, sleeping in one of our porch chairs and getting canned food with Thomas in the morning.
Gradually, I became aware that she was a really sick little kitten and that she would die if she didn't get medical care. Not only was she really bad off, but she was the sweetest kitten I'd ever encountered.
Well, hundreds of dollars later and 2 solid months of being quarantined in our guest room...tah-dah!! Another permanent mouth to feed! Yay!
So, here it is, 5 years later, and Fluffy and I couldn't be happier. (Well, she could be happier but it would involve my getting rid of Buster & Bunny!!) She and I had a candle-lit dinner last night, we bought each other flowers and exchanged small tokens of our deep affection from Tiffany's; we started off the evening with champagne, followed by a lovely French red (Fluffy is not only really fond of Johnny Depp -- which is why she has several (very old) photos of him taped to her bedroom wall, she also really loves French reds. Clearly, she and I were made for each other.)
In other cat news....
Bunny has really become quite a royal being lately! Meaning, I think, that now she is officially "a princess"! She not only caught a mouse all by herself and tore it's little tummy out and left it for her pal, Marilyn, to see first thing in the morning on the family room floor 2 days ago; she also has learned how to open her pal Marilyn's bedroom door! Without even owning any opposable thumbs!
Since Marilyn would like to stay up later at night, now that it's summer, she needs to sleep later than 4:30 AM every single morning. But Buster & Bunny want to be fed at 4:30 AM, regardless. So they walk all over Marilyn while she's sleeping and they purr and meow and then they bat things off the dresser and then they attack her unprotected feet until she gets exasperated and says, "Okay, enough! Everybody out! Right now!"
And Buster & Bunny, thinking they are going to get fed, go running merrily out of the room only to discover Marilyn closing the bedroom door on them in order to sleep another hour or so.
Well, now Bunny has learned how to grab on to the door handle and pull it down (after jumping at it quite noisily once or twice, first) and then the door pops right open! And she comes scurrying back in, leaping onto the bed, all proud of herself (at 4:38 AM)!!
I have to say, it's kind of cool to see her coming into her own like this, now that she's 9 years old. B/c Buster is truly an Alpha Male and Bunny has spent much of her 9 years taking a backseat to Buster and then to Fluffy-the-Attack-Cat, as well. So I try to praise her whenever possible, even if it's for learning how to open my bedroom door.
Okay! One more day until the 4th, gang. (If you don't live State-side then that means nothing to you, sorry!) Tomorrow, we're having a cookout at my cousin's (even though I have a perfectly good picnic table over here, just going to waste!!), but I don't think I will be going to any fireworks this year. However, I have watched Damn Yankees already and intend to watch Yankee Doodle Dandy tomorrow at some point during the day! Yay!! (I defy anyone to listen to Jimmy Cagney singing "Yankee Doodle Dandy" just once in that very peculiar way he has of singing that song, and then not sing that song in that very same strange way yourself for the rest of your natural life!)
Okay! Have a star-studded weekend, gang, whether or not you are celebrating your Independence! Thanks for visiting! See ya!
[A link to Jimmy Cagney singing "Yankee Doodle Dandy" -- they won't let me embed it!]
She first wandered onto our front porch back in Easton, PA, when Mike and I were renting-to-own that crazy old house on W. Nesquehoning Street. (Who could forget a street name like that? More still -- who could spell it???)
Anyway. Truly loyal readers of this lofty blog will no doubt recall that house as the "cat house" and not b/c it was a brothel. When Mike and I took on that house, it came with an outdoor cat named Thomas, whom I loved. A gorgeous long-haired white cat. The priest who owned the house lived in NYC and brought the cat to PA as a rescue cat and let him live there outside. So I, of course, used to feed him. But instead of just feeding him canned food once a day, I would keep dry food outside for him all day long. So Thomas, in turn, brought all his friends and his many, many children over to have lunch. (It turned out the priest never had Thomas fixed so he was pro-creating kittens all over the place.) (Catholic kittens, most likely!)
Most days, I would inadvertently feed about 10 cats. Some days, it got as high as 20 cats. It was really just unreal. And my home-office in that house looked right out on the front porch so as I worked, I could see this endless parade of amazing cats stopping by for lunch.
Well, on July 4th weekend, 2006, Thomas brought by the cutest little kitten I'd ever seen. She didn't look like any of the other kittens he had brought around. This kitten had enormous eyes and was just bone-thin. Then they sat on the porch together for a little while b/c it had begun to rain. I stood at the screen door and just watched them sitting together as they looked out at the rain. They were so precious together. Then, after that first day, the kitten would come back on her own to eat the dry food. But then she began camping out on our front porch all night, sleeping in one of our porch chairs and getting canned food with Thomas in the morning.
Gradually, I became aware that she was a really sick little kitten and that she would die if she didn't get medical care. Not only was she really bad off, but she was the sweetest kitten I'd ever encountered.
Well, hundreds of dollars later and 2 solid months of being quarantined in our guest room...tah-dah!! Another permanent mouth to feed! Yay!
So, here it is, 5 years later, and Fluffy and I couldn't be happier. (Well, she could be happier but it would involve my getting rid of Buster & Bunny!!) She and I had a candle-lit dinner last night, we bought each other flowers and exchanged small tokens of our deep affection from Tiffany's; we started off the evening with champagne, followed by a lovely French red (Fluffy is not only really fond of Johnny Depp -- which is why she has several (very old) photos of him taped to her bedroom wall, she also really loves French reds. Clearly, she and I were made for each other.)
In other cat news....
Bunny has really become quite a royal being lately! Meaning, I think, that now she is officially "a princess"! She not only caught a mouse all by herself and tore it's little tummy out and left it for her pal, Marilyn, to see first thing in the morning on the family room floor 2 days ago; she also has learned how to open her pal Marilyn's bedroom door! Without even owning any opposable thumbs!
Since Marilyn would like to stay up later at night, now that it's summer, she needs to sleep later than 4:30 AM every single morning. But Buster & Bunny want to be fed at 4:30 AM, regardless. So they walk all over Marilyn while she's sleeping and they purr and meow and then they bat things off the dresser and then they attack her unprotected feet until she gets exasperated and says, "Okay, enough! Everybody out! Right now!"
And Buster & Bunny, thinking they are going to get fed, go running merrily out of the room only to discover Marilyn closing the bedroom door on them in order to sleep another hour or so.
Well, now Bunny has learned how to grab on to the door handle and pull it down (after jumping at it quite noisily once or twice, first) and then the door pops right open! And she comes scurrying back in, leaping onto the bed, all proud of herself (at 4:38 AM)!!
I have to say, it's kind of cool to see her coming into her own like this, now that she's 9 years old. B/c Buster is truly an Alpha Male and Bunny has spent much of her 9 years taking a backseat to Buster and then to Fluffy-the-Attack-Cat, as well. So I try to praise her whenever possible, even if it's for learning how to open my bedroom door.
Okay! One more day until the 4th, gang. (If you don't live State-side then that means nothing to you, sorry!) Tomorrow, we're having a cookout at my cousin's (even though I have a perfectly good picnic table over here, just going to waste!!), but I don't think I will be going to any fireworks this year. However, I have watched Damn Yankees already and intend to watch Yankee Doodle Dandy tomorrow at some point during the day! Yay!! (I defy anyone to listen to Jimmy Cagney singing "Yankee Doodle Dandy" just once in that very peculiar way he has of singing that song, and then not sing that song in that very same strange way yourself for the rest of your natural life!)
Okay! Have a star-studded weekend, gang, whether or not you are celebrating your Independence! Thanks for visiting! See ya!
[A link to Jimmy Cagney singing "Yankee Doodle Dandy" -- they won't let me embed it!]
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