An offer Mom can't refuse

Almost five years ago, Ponder told you about the Christmas Massacre. A very fond memory of mine and it's a shame that Mom has been so thorough about restricting my access to the Steiff woolies.
For years, she had been living in fear after that, calling me a mobster and gang member. Little did she know then what hardened criminal she would invite into her life only a few years later, being deceived by his little pot belly and his darling face.

He still has the belly and he sure can put on an innocent face while committing the most heinous crimes.
Today, for example ... wait, you need to know the whole story.
Against better knowledge, Mom had decided to put up a Christmas tree again this year. As if der Dekan had grown up during the last year. I mean, he has grown, but actually not in a way that a small Christmas tree would be able to appreciate when being tackled.
After the tree had fallen for the third time in four days and ornaments had been generously spread all over the room time and again, not to mention that Mom was afraid the brat would try to strangle himself in the string of lights that he kept pulling off the tree, Mom re-decorated. She wound the lights tightly around the trunk and she happened to find the perfect wooden box to put the tree into. It worked amazingly well. Now all she had to worry about was how many ornaments would find a gruesome death, but she had carefully chosen what not to put on the tree.
At least that's what she thought ...

Gnome girl was a favorite victim. I can't even count how many times der Dekan had snatched her off the tree before she lost a hand. I think he loved Mom putting her back because that way he could pull her off again.
And even today Mom just laughed when she saw her lying there, but at least she told her she was sorry for the brat being so mean to her.
What amazed me was that the string survived all of this.

Another ornament that couldn't get a break was the metal heart, but at least it was sturdy, other than the wooden ornament with the sleigh scene that unfortunately didn't survive (under circumstances not known yet, it is possible that der Dekan put it into Mom's way and she stepped on it with her amazingly big foot, but maybe der Dekan bit into it and broke it, it was very delicate).

You could put all of that down to a cat having just a little fun with a Christmas tree, but what happened next made me aware that somecat had decided to follow my lead from years ago.

Mom went up to the tree to check for "pineapple slices" to put back on their branches when she noticed that the wooden moose was hanging inside of the box instead outside. She pulled on him and ...

Oh yes, Mom, looks like somecat has seen The Godfather because this used to be a complete moose.
Be afraid, be very afraid.

You think that's it?
You are so wrong. Der Dekanfather gives you short breaks, but he doesn't stop.
With his latest victims still around, he went in for the next kill.

You can't see it, but it's Sleigh Ride's sibling Nativity. Mom managed just in time to save her and put her on a different branch that isn't so easy to reach from Mobster HQ.

I don't know about you, but somehow this picture doesn't exactly spell the word remorse.
If I were Mom, I would sleep with my eyes very wide open!

Oh, you want to know about me?
For now I'm just supervising. I have told the tree hello twice, but so quickly that Mom didn't get a chance to take a picture. I don't want to be seen with it and become a suspect in case of - whatever ...

The fish drama

Hello and welcome from my bed (don't believe Mom when she tells you it's hers). I have torn my cruciate ligament in one knee - after tearing the one in the other knee some months ago - and now I'm on pain medication, resting my knee, having my meals delivered, sleeping, or watching what's going on around me.
It happened when I jumped up on the wardrobe a few nights ago.

That wardrobe has seen a lot over the years, but only in the last two years it has turned into a meeting point for gang members.

There is another gang on the East Side of the wardrobe, but der Dekan had a fallout with them after he threw one of them off without so much as a warning. No one was injured, but the mood was very icy afterwards. Count Dracula and Mr. Bones never approved of him, anyway. I wouldn't either if somecat kept trying to walk all over me.

Maybe der Dekan is made for a lonely thug life because this morning something shocking happened.
If you compare this picture to the first one, can you see the difference? It's true, before Mom's and my eyes Fluffy Red took a dive without any warning at all. He didn't make a sound which made it even more gruesome to watch.
This is the face we saw .... it made us shudder.

And when Mom told him she'd call the police, this was his reaction.
Does it look to you as if he has any regrets at all??

The end is nigh?

All I wanted was a little five hour nap. We have construction going on right outside our house. It's loud, and every, now and then the house is vibrating. Mom is not happy. She said maybe it's her tinnitus that makes her extra nervous about those noises. I would have slept just fine through construction, but her being so jumpy made me jumpy, so I had to retreat to the library. It's one of my favorite spots. Fake fur, very comfy and, most important, usually rather quiet because der Dekan likes to stick to Mom like gum to a shoe.

Then I heard Mom in the kitchen and now she really didn't sound happy.
Next thing I know is a furry lightning disappearing under my TV chair.
"Is she coming?"

"Oh Dekan, what did you do now?"
"I threw the peeler off the counter."
"And?"
"And it broke."
"You broke Mom's bunny peeler??"
"It wasn't on purpose. How was I supposed to know it would break?"
"As if you even cared."
"You are right, I don't. For me everything is a toy. Nothing wrong about that, is there?"
"Mom loved that peeler. She got it as an extra with a cat food order and she absolutely loved how it felt in her hand and how well it peeled. That was 13 years ago or maybe even longer. She had hated all peelers before that. You are in trouble, dude."
Could this be the straw that broke the camel's back? Would she finally make good on all her threats and evict the little punk?
"I'm already in trouble and don't know why. Did you see what she bought 'especially for you, my little Dekan'? Low-fat food!!"
"But the good one. Maybe you shouldn't steal my food all the time."
"I'm from a farm. I was a tiny baby and very hungry."
"Not a tiny baby anymore. I came from the streets and was really skinny, but I know how to leave kibbles in the bowl for later. No one's going to take them away. No one except you!"
"I leave some of the new food in the bowl."
"For a while, yes. And then you eat them AND steal my leftovers. Another thing, maybe you should calm down about that kitchen kickboard. You know Mom hates having to get down and up and down and up."
"It's art."

Wanna see art?
One broken peeler (sorry about the bad picture, it was an emotional moment).

And here's the artist posing with his other work (yes, those are door stoppers, no, they don't help, but at least they keep the board from crashing loudly, another thing Mom's tinnitus can't stand ;-))

You can still bet on Mom throwing him out or not, by the way. What do you say?

Turf wars

If you think we have been very quiet, then you are half right. The blog half.
I have of course been a distinguished lady as always. I still like to hang out with my friend Leonie, I play very decently with the rainbow wand thingy (ignore Mom if she says that I too know how to use my claws), I sleep on my pillow or in my cat bed, and only on very rare occasions I have to pull Mom's hair in the morning if I am absolutely starving.

And I observe. I see. I know everything.
Lately Bruce, the shark, and der Dekan have been squabbling. Little things. Who gets the last kibble, who gets to tackle Mom on the way to the kitchen, who gets to jump on her belly when she is least expecting it, these kind of things.
Given that Bruce has no feet or paws, he usually doesn't have a chance and I could tell he was not happy about that.
Tension increased and it ended as it had to eventually, in the Shark Cat Turf Wars of 2023.
Of course I stayed out of it. If two young lads want to fight out, let them, I am too grown up and much too wise to get drawn into this.

This was one of the times when Mom thought it might actually have been nice to have a smartphone. Why on earth she didn't just turn the video on her camera on, no one knows, but I have to admit that the pictures tell the story quite nicely as well.
Mom couldn't even decide which ones to pick, so you'll just get all of them. Have fun!

Now you probably want to know who the winner was, don't you?
Believe it or not, those silly boys fell asleep from one second to the other. Literally.
Boom. Best friends again? What do you think? I have a faint feeling the peace won't be lasting for long ...

Plotting for world domination

We shall fight on the beaches ... since der Dekan seems to have the goal to eat until he looks like Churchill, it seems rather appropriate to borrow from his famous speech.
In fact, however, we shall not only fight on the beaches, but on land and water which is the reason for us inviting my friend, the shark, to this little meeting.

We tried to make it look harmless, but something in Mom's eyes told me she didn't trust the peace. Der Dekan, who for good reason is the muscle (and belly!) of the operation while I am obviously the brain, came a little too close. He sat on me!
I could either get up right away and hiss at him or look extremely cute to make Mom think I have finally learned to tolerate the little creep. I opted for a mix of the two. For ten, fifteen minutes, I was cute while cursing den Dekan on the inside. I do have to admit, however, that he didn't play his part too badly. There were no stupid attempts to bite my neck or lick my ears, and no slap attacks.
Well, and Bruce - all sharks in this house are called Bruce - has been a cool dude from the very start.

When I finally decided we had had a good first meeting and needed to split to keep it believable, I gave him one short hiss and he got up and walked away, just like that.
Now if Mom weren't such an extremely suspicious woman! I guess it has to do with all those years of cats around here.

No worries, though. We can lurk for a very long time until we finally pounce.
We've got this!

P.S. I don't care much for Mom calling us The Gang now, though ...

I'm still afraid of no shark

Shortly after I moved in here, Ponder had a talk with Mom about me "being dangerous" and producing this photo of me and one of my shark friends for proof.

I wish I could show him in person that I'm still befriending sharks like this one that swam into the house today, on a wave of humidity, no doubt (seriously, it's hot!).
Look, Ponder! Mom says hi. We miss you.

Happy Gotcha Day!

Two years. Can you believe it has been two full years since my life has changed because THIS had been brought to our door??

Oh yeah, he was so small and he was so cute and he was such a **** from the start. Well, I only really met him after about ten days, but then I knew my quiet days were over. Mom said she wanted me to have a feline companion, but honestly, I think I could well have done without a fuzzy whirlwind trying to take all my spots and eat all my food.
Der Dekan was a bit like a shark caught in an eternal feeding frenzy. Thinking about it, he still is a lot of times, but for me that means I get breakfast earlier than I used to, so I won't complain. Also what he has actually learned is that he won't steal my food while I am eating which is a source of neverending surprise for Mom as he's not that well behaved when she is eating.

We have learned to get along. Every, now and then he chases me, sometimes it's like a ritual which is about the running and not the catching.
There are those rare times when he jumps me full force and I have to screech like a banshee (do they screech or is that owls?) and some fur is flying and Mom keeps yelling "Dekan! Leave her alone!", but it really doesn't happen often.

Mom thinks it would be nice if we slept all cuddled up, but I am an independent woman and also I got Mr. Radish.
I let den Dekan groom me sometimes which I couldn't stand at all in the beginning, so who knows, maybe once Mr. Radish has been slobbered on one time too much and leaves, things will change.

What I like best about the brat, however, is the way he has with Mom. He can turn from cute into a killer in a second and the other way round (Mom still can't believe how humming the Skye Boat song calms him down right away every time he's in biting mode, in her version of the song she has been humming to all her animal companions for decades), from really smart to incredibly dumb.
He certainly keeps her on her toes, makes her despair, but also makes her laugh, and I sit and watch from the sidelines thinking it serves her right ;-)

Well, Dekan. Happy Gotcha Day. I know you'll get a good treat (which isn't difficult to do because almost everything is a good treat to him). You are okay. Never forget, though, who's the boss here.
And for Bast's sake, stop sleeping on the job!

A new gal in town

I still remember when I was the new gal in town, a little more than six years ago. Can you believe it has already been that long?
Now it was time for another lady to move in. She's just a tad bigger than I, has a piercing look, and is very soft. Her name is Leonie.
Of course der Dekan had to try and suck up to her right away, playing the big tough guy card first and then trying to win her over by getting all cutesy with her.

The real reason Leonie came here, however, even if the egocentric little brat refuses to acknowledge that, is so we could become best friends. I can tell her everything and she can tell me, well, not much really, but she's a great listener, I can tell you (Mom says all Steiffs are great listeners, except for Jocko who's monkeying around too much ... which is actually a bad pun on Jocko being a Steiff chimpanzee *eyeroll*).
Leonie makes you feel very safe and relaxed.

The only thing we hate is if Mom is intruding on our feline girl time!!

I am grateful to her, though, for bringing Leonie here (initially as a birthday gift to herself) and then giving her this spot on the bed which she did just for us, by the way.

Love me tender

Thought we had disappeared? No way. Things haven't changed at all. Mom is still telling everyone that she lives with a sweet cat and a crazy cat and it is so true. How can a cat be so smart and so not smart, so cute and so unnerving, so relaxed and so wild, all at the same time? Der Dekan can make me tired just by looking at him.
While I don't mind a little harmless slapping and hissing duel every, now and then, not even a little chase, sometimes it's just better to stay out of the way during his crazy runs.

I have learned to appreciate soft blankets and beds, quiet hours, long naps, and cuddling with a friend. I am talking about Mr. Radish of course.
As you can see, Mr. Radish is no spring chicken. To be honest, he's not even the first Mr. Radish, but shhh, don't tell him that.
We have an on and off relationship. Sometimes we won't see one another in weeks or we just exchange a short hello, but when we spend time together, it's as it has just been a few hours. I tell him about what I have been up to, what has happened in the house since we last met, we talk about catnip (he's full of catnip stories, I swear), about den Dekan, and Mom's attempts to keep him in check, we laugh, and we cuddle.

I hadn't even noticed that Mom took some pictures of our last encounter.

Mr. Radish telling me a fascinating story about catnip.

Just dreaming together.

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