Here is a picture I have posted before, but I think it is worth sharing again. This is Chris on November 5, 2014, after he caught a lizard. In his prime, Chris was the best lizard catcher we ever had.
He was usually gentle with them, and most survived after I got him to let go and then kept him from chasing it down.
This post was from November 2014. It has been a while since I thought of Chris’s old shelter. If I were a cat in need of a home, that is one shelter I would want to stay at.
I threw out my back on Saturday and by this morning it was almost better until I bent to put my pants on. Now it’s worse than ever so I decided to sit on the sofa with my feet up and an ice pack behind my back.
After a little while my wife came into the room with a shocked look on her face. “I don’t believe it,” she said.
“What? What is it?”
“Look,” she said, pointing to the cats on the sofa to my left.
“Oh, wow! I don’t believe it.”
Seeing Floki and Frankie that close can only be compared to Iran inviting Israel over for a cup of tea. Okay, so that might be an extreme example, since they are not exactly enemies, but they haven’t been that close since the days of Chris.
As I write this, Frankie has left Floki and is demanding I take him for a walk. He can’t understand I am temporarily disabled.
Since Chris died, we don’t see the cat piles like we used to, but sometimes we take what we can get. If Chris were here, he would be in the gap, touching both of them.
This post is from November 7, 2016. Back then, it was like living with the U.S. Wrestling Team while they trained for the Olympics. Floki is still like that and will fight with Frankie unprovoked.
When planting cats, make sure it is in an area with plenty of sunshine and lots of other plants.
This post is from November 1, 2016. Those were happy times.
The last time we were in West Virginia in 2021, or possibly the time before in 2020, we got a rocking chair at a place called Tamarack. It is a place that sells artisan goods that are made in West Virginia. If memory serves, Rose’s son bought it for her, perhaps as a birthday gift. At $400 it was an expensive rocking chair.
The chair returned with us to Florida at the end of our visit in 2021, when we decided to rent out the house there. We had the movers bring it back when we returned to West Virginia this spring, not expecting to sell the house three months later.
Since the chair was important to Rose, she left it with her manager there with the intention of picking it up during her next business trip. However, she decided she couldn’t wait that long, so she asked her manager to ship the $400 chair back to us for around $650.
It arrived here about eight days ago.
It came with so much cardboard and bubble wrap that I have been putting it in our trash and recycling a little at a time as space allows. I still have bubble wrap to dispose of.
The year I started this blog, I wrote about Four O’clock Chris. Now it’s Frankie’s Turn.
Every morning at around 4:00, give or take fifteen minutes, Frankie starts bothering me. It’s subtle at first, maybe he’ll walk across me or bite my cheek. sometimes he will bite me just over the eyes, which hurts. That’s when I will turn around and try to go back to sleep. Frankie will counter by either digging at the sheets or stepping over me so he can get at my face again.
The next phase is the sneezing. You haven’t lived until a cat sneezes on you in the middle of the night. It is almost like he is sneezing on purpose.
Often, he will settle down for a short time if I ignore him, but almost always, between 4:30 and 4:45, the meowing starts. He has had enough, and I must get up or else. So, I get up and feed him.
Later, when 9:00 p.m. rolls around and I’m tired and ready for bed, my wife calls me an old man.
Rose and I spent a long weekend on Anna Maria Island for our 26th anniversary, which is in two days. We hired a cat sitter to come in three times a day. I know, two times is sufficient, but we have spoiled cats. Here is one of the photos she sent us.
The fact that both of our cats were hanging out together was surprising. Perhaps they behave differently when nobody is home.
As we always learn too late but never remember, going away is not as good as staying home. We woke up early Sunday morning and decided to pack up and go home. When I say early, I mean around 4:00 a.m.
Rose didn’t want to get home while the cat sitter was there, so we stopped at Publix to do our shopping. We still arrived too early, so we parked at the library, which is at the end of our street, and waited ten minutes. We left as we saw her car drive by. It felt like we were spies, waiting for our mark to leave so we could bug his house.
As I was bringing our luggage in, Frankie escaped. He first crawled under our car so I couldn’t get him but then came out and raced across the street.
The road that runs along the side of our house is fairly busy, perhaps because many of the amenities, like the library, are located near the end of the street. I try to keep Frankie on our side of the road when we walk so that crossing it doesn’t become a habit. Maybe that’s a bad strategy because that’s the first thing he wants to do when he’s free.
I followed Frankie across the street. I don’t like trespassing on people’s property, but since Frankie isn’t very familiar with the area, I wanted to make sure he didn’t get lost. He went behind the homes and came out on the next street. I managed to herd him back toward our house. It’s amazing how fast an almost fifteen-year-old cat can run.
From the photo above, our house is the first house on the right across the street. When I caught up to Frankie, he took off running. When he reached the street, I saw two cars coming. I waved my arms and yelled, “Stop! Stop! Stop!”
Fortunately, the woman in the lead car had her window open and heard me. She stopped her car as Frankie raced in front of her. I waved and said thank you to the woman. It was quite embarrassing.
Frankie then hid under our car again. Fortunately, he was close enough to the edge that I could grab him and pull him out. Returning home was more of an adventure than going away.
Bad Cat Chris 