I am writing this post from a cruise ship. My wife and I started our vacation yesterday.
Before we drove to the cruise terminal yesterday, I took Frankie for a walk. During the walk Frankie took me to the far side of our community’s laundry room. He walked between a fence and a bush, where I couldn’t follow, so I let go of his leash and went around to collect him on the other side.
Just then he heard or saw something that scared him and he took off running, dragging his leash behind him. I ran after him. He stopped momentarily but heard me running. That must have scared him more so he ran up a palm tree.
He then had to figure out how to get down so he turned around and came down like a squirrel.
On a recent walk, Frankie decided to climb not one but two trees.
Taking the second photo was not very smart on my part because Frankie was getting ready to ascend this tree. I stopped him just in time but if I had not I might have needed to call the fire department to get him down.
You may remember another tree climber in the family.
That was Chris during his tree-climbing days. Who else has climbers in their house?
Sometimes when I take Frankie for a walk he finds a tree to use as a scratching post.
I think it’s great when he does that because a real tree is what nature intended cats to scratch on. I wish I could put a real tree inside our house. Then, maybe, the cats would actually scratch where they are supposed to.
We put our tree up last week and all of the cats have taken turns hanging out under the tree.
Now, if I could only get all of them under the tree at the same time I might be able to get a good photo for my Christmas post. Of course, I don’t see that happening.
Frankie escaped again early yesterday morning and did what he always does to keep from getting caught. He headed toward a car,
He knows that if he is near a car, he can duck under it if I come too close.
If there are other cars nearby he can go from car to car with little risk of getting caught.
I decided to just wait him out at home so I let Chris out to wait with me.
I still have to watch Chris but I don’t worry about him because he mostly likes to hang out near the house and eat grass or just chill.
That wasn’t always the case. Chris, after all, invented the hide-under-the-car-technique. Some of you may remember his younger days.
After a short time Frankie returned.
Unfortunately, as soon as I took this photo and put my phone away to catch him, he bolted and hid under a car again.
I put Chris in the house and went inside to wait for him. After a little while. while I was cleaning the litter boxes, I looked out the window and saw him out from under the car and very interested in a nearby tree. Then he jumped into the tree.
I hurried outside hoping I could catch him before he went too hign in the tree.
I couldn’t reach him good enough and forced him higher into the tree.
I went to my shed and found a grabber tool which was the longest thing I could find quickly and returned to the tree. I was barely able to reach Frankie with it and managed to turn him around and forced him out of the tree but he ran several houses away and under another car so I gave up, went home and waited.
He finally came home after being outside for over an hour and then settled into a nice morning nap with Chris and Floki.
It used to be that the holiday season started with Thanksgiving but everyone knows that retailers have pushed it back to about mid-July. In my house, it starts when the Hallmark Channel starts showing Christmas movies. You know the ones. Girl has good job in New York, travels to small town, meets man, falls in love, quits job, stays in small town. Anyway, that is when my wife starts to get excited about the season.
This year there is even more of an urgency to prepare for the holidays. Rose’s son and his girlfriend, who is not his girlfriend (it’s complicated), are flying in tomorrow. They will stay for his birthday on the 18th and for Thanksgiving before leaving the following Friday. So, obviously, it is important to have things ready.
The first thing to prepare for was the annual cookie bake extravaganza which includes pumpkin rolls and Chex mix. Before that could be started, Rose had to set the oven to “clean.” That caused our house to be a bit stinky so I opened some windows to air it out a little. Of course, that did not go unnoticed by our cats.
Next was our Christmas tree, which I kept stored in a large zippered bag. before I could even finish unpacking it, Chris managed to crawl inside. Naturally, that got the attention of Floki and Frankie.
Then we had to get out the decorations which meant plenty of opportunities to investigate or just lay in a box.
Finally, because of or in spite of all the help, we finished our Christmas tree.
Next, I have to put lights outside. I must admit I am a bit of a Scrooge when it comes to decorating but I especially don’t like stringing lights outside the house. It is something that mostly only gets seen by the neighbors so it seems like it is done solely to impress the neighbors and I don’t care about impressing the neighbors. I do want to make my wife happy so I string lights.
What are your thoughts on decorating for the holidays? Am I wrong about the outside lights?
This photo shows Frankie sizing up the tree he plans to use to get over the tall fence. I had to drop my phone and grab him as he reached the top of the fence, and then pull him back to my side.
Bad Cat Chris 