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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
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It's not so tough, getting used to a cat. Mind you, there are a few idiosyncracies worth observing, doubtless familiar to any cat owner. Like being led on tours of the litter box and food dish, the mewing complaints that indicate the litter box is full, the dish is full of dry food, the water could be a bit cooler....
And there's the tribute. The other day, the front door open so the cat can let herself in and out, I step out of the office and discover a sparrow sitting quietly on the floor, without moving, the cat within a couple of feet, seemingly ignoring it while licking it's paws.
I'm a bit naive, I know that other cats bring their owners tributes of birds or mice, but I'd hoped mine would be a bit different. I sort of see it more as a partnership. So I speculate that the sparrow must have flown into the house of it's own accord and landed on the living room floor, the cat was merely taking the liberty of guarding it. I pick the sparrow up to return it to the great outdoors, cat watches me with some interest, there appears to be nothing wrong with the sparrow so I set it on a ledge, later it disappears.
Watching from the front porch I can see another sparrow bringing food to a little cleft behind a concrete block below the perch, the little sparrow comes out and allows herself to be fed, she's set up a ground level nest below my front porch.
I'm cautious about letting the cat out now. I'm pretty sure she wouldn't do anything so dastardly as hunt for her dinner, still it's better to be safe. But she slips out nonetheless, and alerted by a squawking din outside I find her slinking up the steps, the sparrow gingerly held in her mouth, and while I'd like to think she thinks it's hurt and is bringing it to me for repair there's a part of me that suspects her of ulterior motives.
I once again free the bird, who promptly flies off to find a new hiding spot, and sternly lecture the cat who pays attention with that indifferent nonchalance of which cats are the master.
Now I've had my cat, what, 2 weeks? So I'm a bit of an expert, and when my daughter goes to leave on her summer vacation with her mother I promise to look after her cat. I know her cat,"Pumpkin" it's aptly called, weighing in at slightly more than 20 lbs it's a giant, easygoing, loveable ball of fur that was neutered and declawed by it's previous owners. Very social, they're concerned that Pumpkin won't handle their absence so well, and so I take him in, and now have a pride of cats....
If that's what they're called.
Now Pumpkin is a special cat. By special I mean in the same way that some people are special. Not just because he's been neutered and declawed and he's clinically grotesquely obese, but there's something about him that suggests "simpleton". In perennially good humour, or perhaps I'm anthromorphizing, the way that we think that fat people must be jolly, but it seems Pumpkins main interests and pleasures in life are eating and being petted. He's a high maintenance cat. My cat, by which I really mean the cat that lives here, is pretty normal, only mewing when she wants me to look into things like the dry food/wet food situation. She will occasionally sit near me and allow herself to be petted, and attempt to trip me up if she thinks I've overlooked her feeding. But Pumpkin is another story, he'll mew, sprawl on the floor and roll with his legs splayed, lick you, head butt you, anything to get some attention. Pumpkin is a high maintenance cat.
And so Pumpkin and my cat (whom I call alternately "Cat" or "Bad Cat", depending on the situation. When the kids are around we call it
"Princess", but that's drab convention. She answers to cat, or as much as any cat answers to anybody...) have found themselves living together for the past few days, and are in a sort of "adjustment period". At first they hiss, spit and wail at one another, Pumpkin going into insane rages just looking at my cat, sitting there with eyes wide open and roaring. He looks insane. His short hair, perpetually matted in some places, like an orange oversized overcoat 6 sizes too big for him, small head, green eyes wide open, mouth gaping, hissing and screaming obscenities at my cat. This is a side of him I haven't seen before.
My cat, ears back, lying low, eyes narrowed, hisses and claws in return. My cat hasn't been declawed.
The first day they sit for hours watching one another, neither one of them moving, occasionally hissing, spitting, wailing....the can't seem to get closer than 10 feet. Pumpkin would have it that he's the master. If he pushes it he'll find he's in for a surprise.
It's been now 4 days. There are few signs they are getting on better together. The maximum distance they can tolerate one another is now about 4 feet. They've developed a few games they play with one another, Cat goes outside, Pumpkin guards the door so that Cat can't get back in. Cat guards food dish, Pumpkin has to wait until Cat goes outside. Pumpkin guards litter box, Cat doesn't care because she'd rather go outside. (Pumpkin, as you would imagine from his size, fills a litter box in a single squatting.) Pumpkin has staked the living room, but will explore the others when Cat is outside. Cat has staked the office and the kitchen. The kids room is so far unclaimed, my bedroom (at night) is claimed by Pumpkin (sneaking in, stealthily checking that Cat isn't around, before attempting to leap on the bed. Several attempts later he finally makes it up and tries, in true dog style, to cuddle up....).
By the time my daughter finishes her vacation they just might be getting along...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
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It's been a long week. The rent, overdue, still not in the bank. The vanished neighbors with their outstanding utilities bill of almost $1000 have not been returning calls. And I ran out of coffee on Monday.
"It's a good thing..." I tell myself, but I'm not convinced. In the mornings I drink green tea, but it's not the same. A headache develops, small but there, in the back of my head. It's there every day, getting worse as the day wears on. I'm without energy, the myths of caffeine in green tea have been grossly overstated.
"Still, it's a good thing", I tell myself. "Break the addiction...".
This morning some pocket change from a bill, not my bill, not my change, but the temptation is irresistable, only enough for a single cup, I break down and take the daughter on a walk to StarBucks.
And sipping it, bitter, the headache vanishing as it goes down, it's amazing, really, the difference a cup of coffee makes...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
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The past few days have been fraught with minor annoyances. The house is being sold, I can stay here until it's sold and then have to negotiate a new deal with the new landlord. The realtor has been about, showing the house, he calls and gives 3 or 4 hours notice to announce he's got a showing, then calls back later in the afternoon to announce another. "Enough is Enough" I say, I want to be helpful, I have the best landlord in the world, but I'll be damned if I'm going to arrange to be out of the house for 18 hours a day while he leads through tour groups....I explain it to him, he's apologetic, I suspect he's new to this and so try to be a bit understanding but really now....
And then there's the neighbors. They showed up on Monday, the whole posse, friends, relatives, I was alerted by the startled cat who ran into the house to hide. They're moving out. They tried the city, didn't like it, they're going to move back to the reserve. Judging by the hickies on his neck there's been some sort of reconciliation. It took them 4 hours but then they were done and gone.
I give them the utilities bill, roughly calculate the gas, they promise to pay, send me a cheque by the weekend, it's almost a thousand dollars and so I hope, but I know my priorities aren't their priorities...
They want the cat. I offer to buy it off of them, "No, we can't sell our cat", no mention of the fact that they were happy starving it, leaving it for 3 weeks without food or water locked in the cellar hall, they want their cat. It wouldn't be a family without the cat.
The cat is of a different mind. It's cautious as they're moving, won't go outside, hiding in the living room. Finally when they've finished packing they come for it, I offer to but it one more time but they wouldn't consider it, it's their cat, and he calls and beckons it while it hides in my room, reluctantly I pick it up and hand it to him. It's not so excited.
Carrying it to the truck the cat claws him and escapes. They look for it for about half an hour, wherever it's hiding it's not coming out, finally he approaches me and says that apparently the cat wants to stay with me.....and they leave.
I find the cat in the alley, my new roomate, have to find a name for her but I think I have one already, "Cat" I'll call it.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
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And I returned from Banff last week, the family vacation, to discover that the neighbors had gone away. There were clues, the piles of mail in their inbox, the strange but welcome quiet, and a mewing at the cellar door.
They had left their cat with a small dish of food and cup of water in downstairs hallway, the laundry room...they wouldn't be gone long.
Which is good, as I have to collect on July and Junes utility bills, read the water meter to correct an error on the last billing.....
But they didn't return, the cat has moved upstairs, the stack of mail has grown, the litterbox overflows, the food is refilled by me every other day, there was no note to look after the cat, perhaps they counted on me to return and find it, or perhaps the thought of returning to a mummified cat wasn't so disturbing for them, I send them an email, but there's no response, the landlord isn't aware they've left, I've a phone number I can call, will call later this morning, but somehow I suspect that they've just disappeared, leaving behind unpaid bills of over $500.00....
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
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I work through the emails, but still they come in. It's always been this way, ever since the internet and hotmail, your inbox a storage place for unanswered, unaddressed items, things to do, follow ups. It's never been empty.
But yesterday it was close. By the end of the day only 2 emails left, one from google analytics, another from an old friend that had sat there for several months. I have great excuses, I work on the computer, it's a poor tool for pleasure (for me), I'm a luddite, I've phobia about email.....
SO I answered, I had been postponing, waiting for some great news or the right time to respond, but the longer you leave certain things the harder they are to address, finally, though, the thought that I was only 1 email away from an empty inbox, it was a sign, and so I responded, apologized, and now I have an empty inbox.
There's a sort of Zen Tranquility to this, knowing that there are no unaddressed items on this list, that in some small way, in one small aspect of my life, I'm caught up....