I made a new Fort Box for the cats. This time I did not put a hole on the top because it just invites conflict. Instead, I put an entrance hole in the front and a smaller escape hatch on the side near the back. I also put several small peepholes around the perimeter so that the occupant could see if an enemy was approaching.
Naturally, Chris took over the fort which left Frankie on the outside planning his attack strategy.
After a successful defense of the fort, peace was restored in the kingdom . . . for now.
I worry about my cats sometimes. I worry that one cat is going to seriously injure another, or worse, in a knocked-down, dragged-out, no-holds-barred fight. In some ways though, things are getting better. The fights are less frequent and Chris seems to be making an effort to make friends with Frankie. In other ways, things seem worse. When they do fight it is intense and at least one cat ends up doing the cat equivalent of “screaming like a little girl.” That cat is usually Chris.
I heard them fighting last night after we went to bed and again very early this morning. When I got up and went into the living room I saw something that shocked me.
Let’s back up a little. The problems started when we adopted Frankie. Don’t get me wrong. Frankie is a wonderful cat and I really enjoy having him here, but we failed to consider…
When I wrote the introduction to this blog eight years ago, I hoped I would last a year. I did not imagine I would still be doing this eight years later. Blogging does take quite a commitment with few rewards other than the opportunity to meet many like-minded people and the chance to let our creativity out into the world. Those are good things but they don’t put food on the table so I can understand why people quit. I, too, have quit other blogs I started.
My wife got me started in blogging a couple of weeks before I started Bad Cat Chris. She was the property manager at a large apartment community where a rooster appeared one day and decided to stay. Rose thought it would be good PR for the community if I would write a blog about it. I knew nothing about blogging so I thought the easiest thing to do would be to start a blog at Blogger.com, so I signed up for one and called it Romeo Rooster.
I discovered I liked blogging and decided to start another blog about Chris because he is such an unusual cat, but after doing some research I decided to use WordPress.com for this blog. Around the same time, I bought a recumbent bike so that I could ride to work two or three days a week on a bike that was more comfortable than a traditional bike. I decided to write about that experience too and started a blog called Newly Bent.
Tigger and Chris on my desk with a Newly Bent blog post on the computer screen which has a photo of Chris investigating my bike.
Romeo Rooster did not last a year. By April of the following year, Romeo had disappeared and the blog was over. Newly bent lasted longer. After more than a year I moved it to a self-hosted blog and called it Bent for Life. That lasted another few months but then we moved too far away from work to ride a bike so that blog ended too. I never did move Bad Cat Chris to a self-hosted site and it is still on WordPress.com. I have three other blogs that I have been doing for several years but all of them have been sporadic and I rarely post to any of them these days, although I do want to try to be better about that.
CharlesHuss.com is my personal blog that I use for random thought but I have not posted in over two months. Another blog, JustFurLaughs.com, is a blog where I post animal memes. It’s been two and a half months since I posted there. I don’t have a lot of followers on those blogs, probably for my lack of posts, but Just Fur Laughs Facebook page is doing very well. Those two are self-hosted but I have one more WordPress.com blog at CharlesHuss.wordpress.com. It is where I post some of my photographs. Again, I haven’t kept up with it very well.
So I know first hand that keeping up with a blog is not easy and I respect those who have not only been blogging for years but who also continue to write several times a week. In eight years, I have posted on this blog 1091 times. That is an average of just over 2.6 posts per week. I could do better with more effort but considering everything else that is going on in my life I think I am doing okay. Writing more will probably take the fun out of blogging and it will start feeling like a job.
I enjoy writing and photography and I enjoy conversing with other bloggers and animal lovers so I will probably continue to do this for as long as people are willing to read what I have to say. Hopefully, that will be a long time.
Chris is a very needy cat and always has to be touching someone. He can be quite annoying, especially to Frankie, but Frankie is usually pretty good about tolerating Chris.
“Usually” means about 70% of the time. About 20% of the time Frankie just gets up and leaves. The rest of the time there is hissing and whacking going on.
As you may or may not know, Chris has taken over his Facebook, Twitter and Google+ accounts (although I think he is slacking on Google+). The problem is, he is still having trouble learning the correct way to use the keyboard and I always seem to have to come to the rescue and type for him. What is even more of a problem is that when I am typing for him he suddenly remembers how to tap on the keys. Is it too much to expect a cat to type his own posts?
It has been over two months since the local SPCA told all of us volunteers to stay home. They are still taking care of and adopting pets but they are doing it with just their paid staff. That means the cats and dogs are still finding homes but they have fewer people around to pay attention to them while they are there.
While I was volunteering, I took photos of some of the cats almost every time I was there and I thought this would be a good time to share some of the ones from this year. The last time I was there was March 19th, over two months ago, so I’m sure all of these kitties have found homes by now. At least I hope so. I also have forgotten all of their names except Grampa Hulu who was unusual because he was a male tortie.
Grandpa Hulu
Hopefully they will be letting us volunteers come back pretty soon.
Frankie and I went for a nice walk the other day. The first thing Frankie needed to do was get a good sniff on a nearby car.
The cat that he met on a previous walk may have left him a message there.
It was a warm day so we needed to stop in the shade for a while.
Then it was on to the traditional roll in the dirt.
And then more rolling in the dirt.
Finally we stopped to rest on some nice, comfortable concrete.
On a side note, I forgot to mention that Frankie’s paw improved on it’s own after he hurt it a couple of weeks ago. By the next day he was walking fine. I still see him holding it up in the air sometimes though. I don’t know if it bothers him or if that is just something he does. I will have to watch him more closely.
At eleven years old Chris is still like a little kid sometimes. He loves getting under the cover. It can be quite funny to watch, especially when Floki is around and sees movement under the cover and is compelled to attack.
After a minute or two I feel compelled to partially remove the cover because I am unsure how difficult it is for him to breath.
It just occurred to me that today is Chris’s birthday. I should have had a big, elaborate post planned for his birthday but instead all I have is a quickly thrown together post with a photo of Chris on top of our kitchen cabinets on his fourth birthday, which I have never posted before to my knowledge.
We don’t know exactly when Chris was born but since he was about six months old when we adopted him I just celebrate his birthday six months before his gotcha day. I will have to make sure he gets plenty of Stella and Chewy’s today for a treat.
