Here is a photo from way back on December 18, 2005. Tigger is at the top and then from left to right is Alex, Flash, and Abbey.
You can tell it’s old because we had an actual landline phone with an answering machine.
Last week we took a drive to Parkersburg. It is about 45 minutes from home but if you need to do any serious shopping at a store that is not Walmart than that is where you need to go. I think we needed to go to Home Depot and Rose wanted to do some Christmas shopping at T.J. Maxx.
I bought Rose an Advent calendar a couple of years ago and gave her a gift for each day on the calendar, 24 in all. Now it has become a tradition so I need to come up with 24 gifts for her every December plus a birthday gift four days after Christmas. So I was happy to go to T.J. Maxx to look for gifts for her.
While I was looking I saw a cat bed there that looked pretty cozy. There was only one so I couldn’t get one for each of our cats but I wasn’t even sure if anyone would like it. They did.
Chris, of course, took it over.
Frankie and Floki did, eventually, get a turn.
After we moved in we let the cats sleep with us for several nights but Chris is far too annoying at night so now we have to close our door before we go to bed. I thought it would be nice if there were three cat beds outside our door so a few days ago I picked up two more while we were in Walmart. The new ones are a little bit smaller but Chris still manages to fit and he seems happy with them.
I have not yet seen all three cats enjoying the cat beds at the same time but I like to think that is where they are at night.
My wife ordered a mattress and bed frame for one of our bedrooms. The mattress arrived in time for guests but the bed frame was delayed. It arrived last week and I was tasked with putting it together. A normal bed frame can be put together in five minutes with another five or ten minutes to attach the headboard and footboard. Of course, my wife never buys anything that is easy to put together.
I opened the box and was just overwhelmed by all the pieces. I imagined a nuclear submarine had fewer parts. Fortunately, Frankie was there to offer assistance.
Frankie must have realized that this job needed more that one snoopervisor so he called in Floki.
Eventually, both of them got bored so Chris came in to take over.
When I was close to being done Frankie and Floki came back to check my progress.
By the time I was finished more than two hours after I started, I was alone.
A day or two later, a box arrived with a desk for Rose. She bought an antique desk a couple of weeks ago and decided she didn’t like that I had nothing to do so she ordered a desk with twice and many parts as the nuclear bedframe.
Again, Frankie was first to offer help but soon Floki was there to help too.
Then Chris came to supervise the supervisors.
This project took me almost four hours to complete. The boys tried to stay focused but five minutes at a time was all they could muster. To there credit, they would each come back and check on me from time to time.
I just don’t know why these things always need to be so complicated. I think the designers forgot the K.I.S.S. principal of design (keep it simple, stupid).
To add insult to injury, the next day a big box showed up at the door. I dragged it inside and saw it was a bedframe. I thought it was a mistake. The company must have made an error. But nope, Rose ordered it for a bed that already had a bedframe. You know, one of those five minute frames. It just needed a headboard and footboard and it didn’t even need that. Who cares if one of the two guest beds doesn’t have a headboard? You just don’t want guests to get too comfortable.
I guess after I recover from the last two assembly projects, I will put it together. At least I know I will have three little helpers to make it easier . . . or harder.
Frankie found a good source of heat in our house and has been spending a lot of time there.
The day after we arrived at our new house in West Virginia, our friends, Julie and Tim, came with a dining room set that they got from us several years ago. When they moved from Florida to Virginia they no longer had room for it and had it in storage.
They arrived on a Saturday with their two dogs, Harley and Link. Harley is an older Shih Tzu and Link is a young Poodle mix that Julie found wandering on the side of the road.
For the three days they were here, the house was separated into a dog zone and a cat zone. The cat zone was upstairs and the dog zone was downstairs. The divider was the bottom of the stairs and very often there was a staredown between Frankie and Link.
The dogs were kept in the bedroom at night and several times during the day which allowed our cats to come downstairs to eat and visit with us. I’m sure after that long drive here they didn’t need the stress of dealing with dogs but cats are resilient and once the dogs were gone it was like nothing happened. They were out and running through the house without a care in the world.
We adopted Puck for my wife but he then tended to be more my cat. We then adopted Frankie for her and the same thing happened. Finally we adopted Floki for Rose and I was told not to be nice to him. Of course, I would never be mean to any cat but Floki has been Rose’s cat since he was a kitten. He comes to me for attention sometimes but he wants attention from Rose even more.
Since we moved to our new home, and I think even before that, Floki has been spending more time on my lap. This does not go over well with his mom, especially when she looks over and sees three cats on my lap.
Frankie and Chris discovered the full length windows in the laundry room in our new home.
Since I have no internet and am posting from my phone, I just wanted to let everyone know we arrived at our new home in West Virginia at around 2:00 yesterday afternoon.
We put the cats in the downstairs bedroom and two helpers and I unloaded the truck.
When we were done Rose let the cats out to explore while I was still outside doing something. When I came in I couldn’t find any of the cats. I looked around downstairs and then went upstairs and found Chris at the top of the stairs looking down. We were worried that Chris’s age and weight would keep him from going up the stairs but we were wrong.
It took a while to find Frankie and Floki who were hiding behind the mattress and box spring that was leaning against a wall. I figured Floki would be nervous but was surprised Frankie was such a baby.
After a while everyone was out exploring or relaxing.
After over four hours of unloading and unpacking, we had to go out for dinner and then the grocery store. By the time we got back we were both exhausted and went to bed. We left our door open because we were worried about the cats. Chris was a bit of a pain but not as bad as usual.
This morning everyone was very comfortable with their surroundings.
I did find poop in the tub this morning which is exactly what Chris used to do when we adopted him. It took me years to learn that two litter boxes next to each other solved the problem so I put litter in the second box and need to buy two more for upstairs.
Our cats were so happy when we got to the hotel yesterday. Well, okay, once Frankie and Floki decided to remove themselves from under the sofa, then they were happy.
We were happy too. Our trip was extremely unpleasant and way longer than Google predicted. I don’t want to do that ever again and yet, here we go for day two.
We went to bed relatively early last night, before 9:00, but because we were not able to shut the bedroom door, Chris spent the night bothering me. He bothered Rose too but his focus was on preventing me from sleeping.
I don’t know how many times I put Chris off the bed or pushed him to the foot of the bed where Frankie and Floki were quietly behaving. Each time he would stay away for some time between ten seconds and then minutes and then he would be back clawing, scratching, biting or lying on my head.
Not long after 3:00 a.m. Rose decided to get up because she couldn’t sleep. I was so tired I didn’t want to get up with her so she fed the cats hoping that would distract Chris. That worked for about two minutes and then he was back bothering me. After ten minutes I couldn’t take it any longer and put him off the bed ad tried to go back to sleep.
I then heard the sound of a cat digging in the litter box and my wife laughing. Of course I had to know what was so funny so she told me what Chris was doing so I had to turn to see for myself.
I should say that I bought a small, disposable litter box for the trip and then decided it was too small and bought a small non disposable litter box with a small bag of litter. Chris was in the bigger of the two boxes pushing all the litter out and the trying to scoop litter into the box from the smaller box.
Now that I am up Chris decided to take a nap next to me. Why couldn’t he do that last night.
We made it to our hotel in Columbia, South Carolina at around 5:30. It should have taken seven and a half hours but it actually was closer to ten.
This photo was taken right after Floki discovered he couldn’t jump through the mirror.
We need to leave very early tomorrow so we get to our new home in West Virginia in time to get help unpacking.
