Snack time

Just now Mom came into the library and turned the light on. "Hey lady, I am trying to sleep here!" She fiddled around in her jewelry box, turned the light off and left. "Wait a moment, you woke me up, you don't think you can just leave me here like that now?"
She calls it my annoying sound. I am really proud of it, I had practised it for a month before I found the right pitch to make her cringe when hearing it. She keeps asking me if I know how annoying it is and today she even tried in a very feeble attempt to imitate it to annoy me back. How ridiculous.
Well, with a little help from Greebo and Esme who had been sleeping in Dad's office chair and under his desk we made Mom open her cabinet. She tries to pretend there are only office supplies in there, but we know there are snacks, too!!


You know how the water "boils" when sharks or piranhas are onto their prey? While watching us gobble down the snacks, Mom said she waited for the carpet to boil *eyeroll* I wonder if we'll ever get her trained to behave normally or at least as normally as a human being can behave.
I have my doubts when I hear her call us "furry sharks"!

Guilt trip

So Mom has this bunny stapler that she went so crazy about when she found it on the internet, ok? And being a stapler this bunny lives on Mom's desk. My desk actually. That bunny is taking away precious cat space. Hey, I am a long cat and when I stretch - well, I still think Mom could move over a bit. Like to the next desk maybe or the small table she used to use before she got this one.

Ok, let's make this a short story. I stretched and bunny flew right off on the desk. Bang! Uh-oh. That was not a good sound. Not a reason to most rudely push me off the desk, mind you! And the reproachful look combined with a "PONDER!!" wasn't necessary, either. I was here before that bunny. I'm not sure if I'm a Monty Python fan, anyway. They made fun of cats more than once you know.
Now bunny lost his tail. Funny, I would have thought the teeth to go first.
Anyway, Mom threatened to sell me once again, then she called her sister to tell her I would have to move in with her. Her sister didn't answer, but somehow I don't think I'm quite off the hook yet although I am sitting on the desk again now. She refused to snuggle me and she keeps giving me those looks. Ordered from the US ... blablabla ... shipping ... blablabla ... next thing she's going to get out some coconut halves to explain it.

I don't see the problem ... some of Mom's friend made some good suggestions. A wire crochet tail, cotton ball tail. I think she should put snacks into the hole for me to get back out again. Humans make things so difficult.

Da Bump

I don't understand Mom.

Yesterday she was changing the bed covers and sheet. That's big fun. While Meffi, the little diva, stays away from it as usual (or possibly away from me?), Greebo likes to sit and watch, and Esme and I love to get in on the fun. Mom says it's not fun, but what does she know? Every time she raised another blanket, pillow or whatever I jumped right into it. She said I would get hit or trodden on, but that didn't stop me.

As much as I enjoy jumping blankets however, the absolute highlight is the changing of the sheet. I like to roll around and bite and attack it. Whenever Esme got thrown off the bed, I was on there and vice versa. Only Esme is not quite as persistent. She walks around the bed and gets back on the other side. I pop back like a rubber ball. I might have been one in another life, you know.

Then came the moment when the sheet was tucked in at three of the four corners and I was still lurking underneath the sheet. That's when Mom lifts it and tries to coax me out of there. Ridiculous. She started tickling me through the sheet. Come on, ask her what that did for her, mwahahaaa. She started calling me a silly bump. Excusez moi??
Esme came back onto the bed and I followed her like a shark in the water, only I didn't have a dorsal fin to stick through the sheet and make her blood freeze. Mom later said it looked really funny how Esme started fighting with "da bump". Gee, get a life, Mom, or at least your own fights!

It got even worse. She ran to get the camera from upstairs and this here is the result - Ponder, Da Bump. I wonder if I'll ever get rid of that name again!

PIs Ponder and Greebo

"He's dead, Holmes! Can you believe they just left him here like this? In this pile of used envelopes?" "What has the world come to? And what kind of people they must be to do such a thing? Watson, what can you tell me about the time of death?"


"It can't have been more than a few minutes, Holmes, they probably ran that way. Shouldn't we follow them?" "We will, Watson. First however we need to solve another vicious crime. Do you recognize the box those envelopes are in? This is our playbox!!"

Needless to say that Ponder Holmes and Dr. Greebo Watson solved the case.
The bear is not actually dead, he was just waiting for a private photo session. The evildoers who used the holy cat playbox for organizing their envelope collection have been sentenced to eternal slavery.
Justice has been served.

Memories - Dude's story, part 2

Let's do a quick jump from how Dude came to live in Germany after being a US citizen for 10 years to his old age.

Dude had gone through one or the other storm, I've been told. There was Mim, the cat who was brought in for company, but who wasn't much interested in feline company, there was Magica, the kitty girl who fell in love with Dude when she got in heat for the first and last time and confused the heck out of him (who remembers Confuse-A-Cat by Monty Python? ;-)). There was the first big disease he had to fight after moving through which he stayed under the bed, with Mom on her belly on the side of the bed so she could feed him chicken (the first chicken she ever cooked), small piece by piece. There was the kidney diet and the night when he almost strangled himself with a computer mouse cord, but those are all different memories.

Today is about how a blind cat reminded Mom of Dude.
Dude was a gentleman and it was never clearer than when he got older, a little slower, rolled his eyes at the little ones' behavior. He was about 17 when Mom started going nuts, well, even more. She told me when Dude slept she regularly checked on him and once she almost gave him an heart attack when she woke him up because she couldn't see him breathing.
When she noticed he was getting even slower than usual, she really got worried.
The revelation however came when she saw him go behind a door. He stopped for a second, looked confused and came back out. "He can't see anymore!" Yes, Dude had become blind, but you could hardly tell from his eyes and don't forget, he was the first old cat they had to care for. Now what?
There was no "now what". After so many years Dude exactly knew his way around the house. He had his special spot at the dining room heater, he still played, he still jumped up on the bed. Most amazing were the younger cats, though. As if they knew (much earlier than the humans, I'm sure), they changed their behavior towards him. They got out of his way and they treated him gently. Mom says she was so proud of them. Pfff, as if cats are not civilized.

Dude lived to be 18 1/2 years and left us almost exactly 12 years ago. He is still being missed.

P.S. And for all those who wonder about the book Mom read ... why don't you have a look at Homer's story? It's very special.

Memories - Dude's story, part 1

If you have ever read Mom's own blog, you'll know she's fond of memories and if you don't stop her, she'll share them with you. To be fair she usually warns people she's hard to stop once she starts.

I'm a great jumper, I'm a cautious walker and I can lie down very properly - all of that if I want to, that is. Just as easily I can knock over everything on Mom's desk with my tail or I tear down garments that have been left hanging over a door. I really have to be in a mischievous mood to throw down the wire spools on her nightstand, though. Whenever Meffi does that, she goes nuts. Mom going nuts is unnerving, she gets that whiny sound in her voice calling out "Oh Meeeeeeff!"
What I am trying to say, is that these are the moments she starts telling stories from a long time ago (sounds as if this could become a regular category on his blog, too ...). Just yesterday she started reading a book about a blind cat and when I knocked over Lady Agnew of Lochnaw (it's not as if it's the original, it's just a notebook!), she heaved one of her "memory sighs" and started telling me about Dude, the guy who prepared our humans for all other cats in this house.

The story started in October 1992 when our humans visited a friend in Northern California for the very first time. Mom had been told the story about the white cat with the blue and the yellow eye on the phone already, the cat that had been left behind by the former inhabitants of the friend's house. Jenn had two cats of her own, small Chocolate and her big tabby son Reggie, both very territorial. They wouldn't let him into the house. Every, now and then White Dude, usually called Dude, sneaked in to sleep on the couch. Several possibilities were discussed, but in the end Dude lived in an abandoned car in the neighborhood, but got his food and snuggle time.
How much he needed it showed when Mom arrived at Jenn's house a week before Dad who still had some business to take care of. Mom more or less got out of the car and into a chair in the little back yard underneath a lemon tree. There she sat for hours, her new love in her arms. Dude had come, seen and won her heart within one second and all she could think of was how to take him home. A week later Dad arrived and although he played the tough guy, he lost his heart just as quickly.
That's how Dude finally became a foreign exchange kitty and the first cat ever in this crazy household.

To be continued - part 2 will tell you why a blind cat reminded Mom of Dude.

Test

I don't trust Mom when she's telling me she needs me for a little test. Five minutes tops and it won't hurt, promise. What does this woman know about what hurts me? Does she even care about my hurt feelings when she is trying to put a Santa hat on me or when she wants to take a video of me to show the world how wonderfully I can fetch? It doesn't matter that she tells me she wants to make me rich and famous, I don't believe a word she says.

This test was about brushing, though. I never liked much to be brushed. It means I'm supposed to sit still and patience is not of my strong traits.
Lately however it has been growing on me. Of course I still roll and bounce around a lot, but only because I enjoy it so much.
Now Mom got a new brush, one with a blade to better get rid of the undercoat. It made me wonder if she is trying to sell our fur as catshmere or something. I am NOT a goat.

Greebo's fur is all over the house. If you visit, don't wear black if you want to hold him. He has enough white hair for ten black shirts and it clings, too. Mom mainly got the brush for him. She read all of the 200+ feedbacks and it convinced her to give it a try.

So today was testing day. Like so often the girls got out of it. Meffi hid in one of her favorite spots, Esme played her eel number. The approximately ten hairs which came out of her test have not been entered into the end result.
Here is a picture of what Greebo (left) and I (right) "donated" in the same amount of brushing time of 5 minutes. Both balls have been rolled as tightly as possible for better comparison. Can you believe that?? I think he won this one, don't you think?