Month: August 2010

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Yours, Mine and…Theirs

In our house, the rule is to never leave a soft-drink cup with a straw sitting on the floor or on any low-to-the-ground surface.  Not that we drink a lot of soft-drinks in our house, but on the rare instance that we do, we make sure to put the drink high enough that Reggie cannot climb up to it.  If we don’t, we will come back five minutes later and find that our straw has mysteriously disappeared, only to find it a month later under the couch, still with little dried droplets of Dr. Pepper on it.  That’s because Reggie cannot resist any long, stick-like object, and will appropriate any such object for his own.  Lately, we’ve had to be careful coming in and out of the house, because we made the mistake a few times of letting Reggie go find his own “toys” out on the front porch.  Now he thinks that whenever the door opens, it’s time to go shopping at “Sticks R Us” outside.  

Reggie also likes playing with the commercially available feather toys that are attached to a stick.  He likes it when you play with him (making him run around in tight little circles is his favorite way to play that game), but he’s just as happy to play by himself as well.  If you leave a feather toy out, Reggie will find it, and all you will hear is the scrape, scrape, scrape, pop! sound as Reggie puts the feather part in his mouth and slides the stick across the floor until it hits a wall and bounces back.  (Hey, it’s the best you can do when you don’t have opposable thumbs!)

But Reggie’s not the only one in the house with a fetish for filching things.  Wanda absolutely adores makeup brushes.  On occasion, when I’ve lost one behind a piece of furniture, Wanda will find it, take the fluffy part in her mouth, and fling it over her head towards her back end, then turn around and chase it down before it hits the ground.  She loves those things.  

One time, I was putting on my makeup in the bathroom with my makeup case open on a lower ledge.  Otto came in to investigate, noticed the makeup brushes within easy reach, then went trotting off to another room.  I heard him vocalize to Wanda for a second, and then they both came trotting back into the room, side by side, heading straight for the brushes.  (I am not making this up.)  Otto apparently told Wanda that the brushes were sitting there, and were easy pickings.  That’s the only explanation that makes any sense.  At least in our house.

Food is fair game as well.  Reggie once helped himself to the dregs of an empty salad bowl which we had stepped away from momentarily.  This would make sense if we’d been eating the salad with bleu cheese or Ranch dressing.  We’d been eating salad with balsamic vinaigrette, but Reggie didn’t seem to mind.  Wanda goes nuts for yogurt.  If you have plain yogurt, it’s expected that you leave the container on the ground for her, so she can stick her whole head in the cup and lick up the last few smudges.  Elroy is interested in anything at all with any fat content on our plates, but usually backs off when he realizes it didn’t used to be alive.  (Let’s face it, as vegetarians, there’s not a heck of a lot our cats would find appealing on our plates.)

But, in our family, we’re all about “share and share alike.”  Wanda’s even nice enough to bring her sparkly fluffy ball toys to bed, so we can all have the joy of sleeping on top of them…thanks, Wanda!

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Where the Sidewalk Ends

Otto was lucky enough to get a big, big treat today.  He got to go outside, on the back patio, for a nice long time.  Mind you, he is only allowed to do this with supervision–both Sean and me this time.  And he understands that there are ground rules.
We were on the back, screened-in porch, enjoying a cold beverage to beat the late Summer heat, when Sean said, “Otto, want to go out on the back deck?  Back deck?”  Otto’s head whipped around, and he started trotting towards the back door.  Sean let him out, and Otto headed down the stairs of the back deck toward the patio.  I followed them out there, just to see what was up.  Otto, yowling happily, walked all along the edges of the patio, sniffing everything, chasing flies, and stopping just at the edge of the patio, where the surface changes to mulch.  Otto knows that he’s not allowed on any surface but “concrete,” or in this case, patio stones.  
Sean taught him that trick a few houses ago, where we didn’t have a screened-in front porch.  Otto would stand on the edge of the porch slab, and look over his shoulder at us, while gingerly putting one foot down towards the grass.  “Otto!” one of us would say sharply, and the foot would come immediately back up to the slab.  Otto learned quickly.  So well, in fact, that he discovered that the little slabs heading from the driveway to the front porch were also made of concrete, so he would go hopping from slab to slab, making it all the way to the gravel driveway before one of us retrieved him.  But he got it.  
So this afternoon, Otto did his usual flopping and rolling on the warm stones.  But when he’d had enough of that, up he hopped into Sean’s lap for a late-afternoon snooze.  He snuggled up in Sean’s lap like a baby, with his body curled up towards Sean and his paws on Sean’s torso.  Otto laid there happily, with the afternoon sun dappling his tawny fur and the happiest smile on his face.  (Yes, cats really do smile.  Anybody who says differently just isn’t paying attention.)  His purr was audible and visible–the skin on his throat was vibrating in rhythm with his purrs.  All was right in Otto’s world.
Things weren’t too shabby in our world, either. 
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Mister, Stop Moving Like Prey…

Probably a weekly occurrence in our house is Mister, the eldest, getting chased around the house mercilessly by one of the other three boys.  Sometimes they gang up on him–usually Reggie and Elroy together.  What’s interesting about this is that we have absolutely no idea why it happens.  It’s not like Mister is doing anything to encourage this kind of behavior on the part of his brethren.  Best I can tell, he doesn’t do the kitty equivalent of “nanny nanny boo boo,” or call their mommas dirty names.  As a matter of fact, Mister pretty much keeps to himself, interacting primarily with the two humans and leaving everyone else alone.  
So what could be the cause?  It’s not like the other cats don’t have plenty of other opportunities to chase one another–Reggie and Elroy chase each another all the time, and Otto and Wanda have been known to do the same.  (Mostly they just play that game with us, though.)   How come Mister is getting the brunt of the chasing (and does not appear, by any definition of the word, to be enjoying himself when it happens)? 
After much deliberation, and after watching a few of these debacles unfold, Sean and I came up with a theory:  when Mister is stressed out, he moves like prey.  
This is how it usually goes down:  Mister will be minding his own beeswax, lying under the computer table or out on the screened-in back porch.  One of the other cats decides that he is bored.  Mister notices the other cat looking at him, and immediately shifts into slow motion.  His eyes move slower, his head moves slower, and slowly he starts slinking along the floor.  He does this nonchalantly, mind you, but tension is evident in his every fiber.  He’s a veritable ball of fluffy gray and white tension, trying to blend in with the (much less tense) furniture.  And for some reason, the other male cats find this absolutely irresistible.  So, there’s a butt-wiggle, and eventually, some pouncing and a bunch of wild scratching motions.  Most of the time, we have to go break it up, because Mister usually ends up cornered on top of the couch or in the basement or something.  And all because Mister cannot just move like a normal cat and get the heck out of Dodge.  
One time, Sean decided to be Mister’s fighting-back coach.  We figured if Mister could open a can of Whoop A** just one time, maybe the other cats would leave him alone.  (That’s the way it always works on the After-School Specials, right?)  So the next time Reggie decided to be a pill, Sean said to Mister:  “Mister, you don’t have to take that.  You stand up to him and show him who’s boss!”  There was dead silence.  Mister was completely still.  Reggie was completely still.  Sean kept encouraging Mister (or egging him on, I guess, depending on how you look at it):  “come on, Mister!  You can do it!”  And slowly, Mister put his head down and advanced a step, towards Reggie.  Reggie looked a bit taken aback, but on the whole, fairly nonplussed by this development.  Mister took another step forward, more confidently this time.  Reggie took the tiniest little step back.  Mister, advancing.  Reggie, retreating.  Finally, Mister was within striking distance, and had gotten Reggie backed up into a corner.  A couple of quick swats (neither of them connecting to Reggie, but that wasn’t important) and the confrontation was over.  Just like that.  Mister had emerged victorious!  All he needed was a little support and the knowledge that someone believed in him…And Mister never had to deal with the cats bullying him again.
Okay, that last sentence wasn’t true–that was just left-over from the After-School Specials.  Mister still gets chased and bullied all the time, I’m sad to say.  But I like to believe that maybe, in some small way, Sean did give him a little more confidence.  And now, even when he’s getting chased, he knows that he’s making a choice to be chased.  He can open that can of Whoop A** any time he needs to.   He’s just above all that, and chooses not to.
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The “Raahr” Game–Both Versions

We have lots of games that we play with the buddies.  One of the Siamese’s favorites is something we call the “raahr” game, or just “raahr.”  Imagine if the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz were trying to roar at someone and chase them around–that’s kind of how “raahr” sounds.  
Wanda and Otto both play the game a little differently, but it’s always some variation of this:  1.) one of the Siamesers (“Meezers,” for short) is lying around looking bored.  2.) Sean or I look at them meaningfully and say, in a sing-songy, playful way:  “raahr,” usually with a couple of syllables added on for good measure.  3.) The cats jump into chase mode instantly and start running gleefully around the house.
But that’s where the similarity ends.  Wanda, for example, wants to be chased.  Yesterday, Sean said she came up to him while he was working at least twice with those barky meows that meant she wanted him to play “raahr” with her.  As soon as you say “raahr” to Wanda, she prances off with this kind of galloping lope, joy evident in every muscle twitch.  She’ll run a few feet, then turn around to see if you’re chasing her, usually camouflaging the move with a quick lick to her flank.  If she sees you are, off she goes again, lickety-split through the house, occasionally diving under a bed to see if she’s “thrown you off the trail.”  But she only pretends to want to throw you off the trail, because as soon as you give up and walk away, she will come looking for you, giving you a stare like you’re some kinda wimp for giving up that fast.  
The ultimate is if she keeps going and finally reaches what she has decided is “home base,” usually one of the three large kitty trees that are positioned around the house.  She’ll bound into the very top platform of the tree, immediately flip over on her back and do a cute “victory wriggle” curled up halfway on her back and side.  “Ha, ha–I win again!!”  At this point, it is absolutely imperative that you skritch her on her side, in the corner where her leg meets her belly.  She expects you to do this, and will look at you accusingly if you don’t.  This is a very satisfying game for Wanda.
Otto, on the other hand, prefers to be the chaser.  And he likes to turn the game into a group event.  For some reason, he really only likes to play this with Sean as the “chasee,” but I have a role to play, too.  In some ways, Otto’s “raahr” game is more like hide-and-seek than chase.  Otto likes you to chase him a bit, but then he wants to chase you.  Sean will run ahead of him and find some place to hide, usually behind a door or a corner or the bed.  Otto slows down and starts looking for him.  (One of the things you will learn about Otto is that he always has to make every game just a little more challenging for himself.  More on that later.)  I learned that Otto likes to make this a group game when he kept looking at me and yowling during one of the games.  I knew he was having fun, so I couldn’t figure out what he wanted at first, until I got up and joined him.  I could tell by his body language and facial expression that this was exactly what he wanted.  
My job is to add intrigue to the hunt.  I say to Otto, in a stage whisper, “Otto, where’s big buddy?”  Then I start poking around various corners and around doors, pretending I don’t know where Sean is.  (Sometimes I actually don’t.)  Otto looks up at me expectantly, whiskers forward, with this beautiful expression that is half-trustful and half-conspiratorial, and meows quietly, too.  We’re like Scooby Do and Shaggy, looking for the ghost.  Finally, when the suspense is just about to kill him, we come around a corner and find Sean.  Sean jumps out from his hiding space and yells “raahr!!”  At which point Otto drops to the ground in a crouch on all fours while Sean roughs him up playfully, pulls at his hair, and Otto purrs so loudly you could hear him a few rooms away.  Then off Sean darts to find another hiding place and the game starts all over again.  
Seriously, I think a casual observer watching these festivities would think we had all taken leave of our senses.  Maybe we have.  But if it can bring excitement and the “thrill of the hunt” to a couple of cats who are strictly indoors and never have opportunities to hunt in the wild, then so be it.  I’m okay with seeming a little crazy for da buddies. 
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Pictures of (5 of the) 6 Buddies

So, I thought it might be useful to know what the buddies look like as I’m writing about them.  The picture on top is of Mister.  (As I’m writing this, I’m having to maneuver around Mister, who’s sitting immediately between me and my mouse.  Yet another good reason to get an iPad, I suppose…)  The black cat with just a bit of white on his neck is Reggie, and the black-and-white tuxedo cat is Elroy.  Otto and Wanda are in the bottom picture (Otto is on the left and Wanda is on the right).  I just realized that apparently I don’t have a picture of Mango on this computer, so you’ll just have to use your imagination for her, until I can retrieve one from Sean’s computer or the camera.  Just imagine Garfield with really tiny feet.

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The Kitty Mush Song

One of my favorite Brian Andreas quotes goes like this:  “There are things you do because they feel right & they may make no sense & they may make no money & it may be the real reason we are here:  to love each other & to eat each other’s cooking & say it was good.”  The Kitty Mush Song is kind of like that, without the part at the end about the cooking.  
We developed the Kitty Mush Song years ago as a way of getting the kitties excited about their “mush.”  Sean and I both agree that we cannot remember how it started or how it developed.  As I mentioned in a previous blog, “mush” is one of the small cans of wet cat food, split six ways so everybody can have a taste.  The cats are able to free-feed all day long on dry food, but the mush is something special.  So, we decided it needed a special song.  Often, we will tease them by saying the first word of the song in a sing-songy voice, drawing it out meaningfully, and acting all mysterious about it.  Usually, that’s all it takes to whip them all into a frenzy.  Sometimes we’ll deliberately substitute words in the song to see if they notice.  Sometimes we’ll say it with no music at all, to see if they “get it” without the tune.  So far, we haven’t been able to stump them.  As soon as we even hint at starting the song, suddenly whiskers are forward, and everyone runs willy-nilly into the kitchen.  We pull out the saucers, on which the mush is always served, and that’s all she wrote.  (They actually can tell the difference between the sound of us pulling out the saucers and pulling out the next-biggest sized plate–we’ve experimented and discovered this to be true.  No reaction at all when the slightly bigger plates are removed.  Talk about impressive hearing.)
So then we start singing the song in earnest.  It’s sung to the tune of “The Micky Mouse Club” song, and it goes like this (ahem):
“Who’s the leader of the mush
That eats the kitty mush?
K-I-T   T-Y-M   U-S-H spells mush!
(Chorus)
Kitty mush (meow, meow!)!
Kitty mush (meow, meow!)!
The kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty mush (drum roll here)
They eat the mush and poop it out
And then they want some more…
K-I-T  T-Y-M-U-S-H is on the floor.
And then there’s another chorus…you get the idea.  I know, it’s a little weird (okay, more than a little) but that’s just what we do, and the cats really love it.  Sometimes we’ll hit the saucers with the side of the fork, to the beat of the song, and that really gets them going.  They vocalize like crazy (sometimes timing it perfectly for the “meow, meow” part of the chorus), and some of them actually get a little mean with each other–particularly Otto and Wanda.  Elroy gets so excited, he just wants to share the happiness with one of his friends, so he leans into everyone lovingly, giving many head bunts.  Otto, on the other hand, would rather have his own private excitement about the feast to come.  Sometimes it gets temporarily ugly.  
But by the time the saucers are all placed (six in all–we always take one down to the basement to Mango), the cats are happily friends again, tails entwined, motors humming, enjoying the thrill of not having to hunt.  Good stuff.  Elroy and Reggie are nice enough to help the others with finishing their food.  Sometimes we have to help them to not help the others.  Mister in particular, who eats so slowly I’m convinced he must have been French in a past life.  Boy, can he ever savor a saucer of turkey and salmon meat.  
So that’s the Kitty Mush Song.  Apparently there’s some way to add a video of us “performing” it, and our adoring kitty audience, so maybe I’ll try to add that later.  In the meantime, Bon Appétit!
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Da Buddies Eclectic (being the second post in Da Buddies Eclectic blog)

“I sing da buddies eclectic,
The armies of those I love entwine my legs and snuggle up to me,
They will not let me off till I go pet them, respond to them,
And play with  them, and charge them full with the kibble of the bowl.”

(Sorry, couldn’t resist a little nod to Walt Whitman in the title of the blog, and then that just sort of developed naturally from it.)

So, it’s a rainy, dreary day in Asheville, North Carolina, and most of the buddies are asleep.  All except for Reggie, who desperately wants to go out on the uncovered front porch.  So Sean takes him out there, figuring that, like Otto, Reggie will come high-tailing it back in the house once he realizes it’s wet and cold out there.  Strangely, he doesn’t.  He’s so happy to be on the porch that he apparently couldn’t care less that he’s also getting soaked.  So, Sean had to bring him back in.  

Funny thing about our cats–they understand a lot of words, for cats.  Otto, for example, used to know the difference between the term “front porch” and “back porch,” when we lived in a house that had both.  Wanda understands the words “night-night,” as part of a bedtime ritual that Sean used to do with her, where he would say the words and then turn off the light.  Wanda would respond right back with these sharp, barking chirps–two in quick succession–that sounded exactly like she was saying “night-night” right back to him.

The other morning, Otto wandered bleary-eyed into the bathroom at 6-something in the morning to protest at me loudly for getting out of bed and disturbing his snuggle time.  I told him that I couldn’t snuggle right now (work was beckoning), but that we could snuggle again tonight.  He didn’t seem satisfied, and kept yowling at me, until I made the suggestion that maybe “Big Buddy” (Sean) would snuggle with him for a while.  At which point Otto stopped yowling, turned back to the bedroom, and jumped immediately up on the bed to snuggle with Sean.  Coincidence?  I think not…

Of course, the words with the most voice recognition for them are the ones related to food.  “Shakey treats” are a big one (the kitty treats that come in a bag or a small cylinder), as is “kitty mush” or just “mush,” which is a small taste of some kind of canned cat food–usually Wellness or Evo.  The whole “kitty mush” ritual is yet another post for another day, because that’s a whole story in and of itself.  Suffice it to say that there are expected routines (which are anything but routine) and a song that goes along with the treat, sung to the tune of “The Mickey Mouse Club” theme song, for those of you out there in the blogosphere old enough to remember how that goes.  

The point being that our cats really do seem to understand us, and we can mostly understand them.  That’s how it usually goes with a relationship among equals.  Which is exactly what we feel like we have with our buddies, and best I can tell, the way they feel about us as well.

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First Things First

Da= də = the. 
Buddies= ˈbə-dēz = companions, partners, friends.
Eclectic= e-ˈklek-tik, i- = composed of elements drawn from various sources.
My husband Sean and I first realized that our relationship with our cats was a bit…unusual…the first time we had a discussion about why we call our cats our “buddies” rather than our “babies.”  By and large, most people who really love their animal companions will refer to them as their “children,” and to themselves as their “mommy” or “daddy.”  Even though I will occasionally lapse into that kind of language with them, most of the time I don’t see them that way.  Most of the time, I see them the way Sri Aurobindo did, as evidenced by his quote:  
“Life is life – whether in a cat, or dog or man. There is no difference there between a cat or a man. The idea of difference is a human conception for man’s own advantage.”
If you are looking to follow a blog with cute stories about animal antics, this might not be the blog for you.  I have no doubt that this blog will have antics and cute stories aplenty.  But that’s really not what it’s going to be about.  It’s going to be about eight creatures, all living under one roof, and trying to do that as gracefully as possible given the disparate personalities and differing needs of each individual member of the “pride.”  The cast of characters will include:
Sean:  Alpha cat extraordinaire, and my wonderful husband.  Vegetarian, loosely practicing Buddhist, and generally nice guy.  Knows how to make cat games fun better than anybody I’ve ever seen.
Me:  Your humble narrator.  Giver of pills, cuddles, and copious kitty kisses.
Mister:  Beautiful gray-and-white “cow print” domestic short hair.  Oldest of the feline crew; just a little on the neurotic side.  Enjoys playing with toys that move and attacking water as it drips from a faucet.  Has recurring issues with nervous denuding that we call giving himself a Brazilian bikini wax.
Mango:  Orange tabby with ridiculously tiny feet.  Way more neurotic than Mister.  Lives in the basement, of her own choice (the door to the basement is always open, so she could come upstairs whenever she wants, but she chooses not to).  Stubborn, asocial, and as prickly as a porcupine wearing a cactus cummerbund. 
Otto:  Large male lilac-point Siamese.  Joined at the hip with Sean, to the point of exhibiting depressive behavior if Sean ever has to go out of town for any reason.  Smart, insistent, and playful, Otto comes across as though he’s the alpha of the group.  Except that would be wrong, because there’s…
Wanda:  His tiny lilac-point sister.  Who, in spite of her diminutive size, is the uncontested leader of this little group.  We’ve seen Wanda take on not just one of the boys, but two of them at a time.  Wanda takes no prisoners, but she’s also an unrepentant snuggle-bug and makes straight for the bed when it’s time to cuddle.
Reggie:  Black domestic short hair who really looks more like he could be some kind of Oriental cat.  A refugee from a badly-run no-kill shelter (I’m a big fan of them in general–not so much this one in particular), Reggie came to us with numerous physical challenges.  He makes up for it by being the most socially outgoing of the bunch.  We affectionately call him “Eddie Haskell,” after the Leave it to Beaver character who could schmooze the adults (humans, in Reggie’s case), but was an absolute pill to the kids (or the cats, in this analogy).
Elroy:  Black and white tuxedo cat with a black nose and half-black chin.  Elroy was formerly a feral cat in our neighborhood in North Charleston, SC.  It’s a long story how he got to be part of our household (but a good one for a future post), but suffice it to say that I have never seen a happier cat in my life.  Ever.  Absolutely everything makes Elroy happy.  Getting to go out on the porch, then getting to come in.  Eating his treats and his “mush” and his regular food.  Head bunting us and the other cats–especially his bestest buddy in the world:  Otto.  (Otto still hasn’t received the memo yet that he’s supposed to be Elroy’s bestest buddy, but again, that’s another story for another post.)
So that’s us.  Weird, wacky, wonderful us.  I got so used to hearing people tell me that I needed to write a book about all our cats and their crazy adventures (mostly indoors, with a couple of exceptions) that I finally decided maybe it was time to just do it.  It’s not a book exactly, but it’s a start.

I hope you’ll enjoy reading them as much as I’ll enjoy writing them.