My wife put a runner on the dining room table so naturally Frankie had to stretch out on top of it.
This morning, as I write this, the runner is gone but my wife has a document pouch, or whatever it is called, lying on the table, and since Frankie has to lie on top of something, well…
I know it is hard to see but there is a small bird on the bird feeder. I opened the door this morning to let Frankie onto the catio and the bird didn’t move. He stopped eating and watched, but he stayed put (I use “he” in a generic sense because I don’t like “it.”). Then when Frankie jumped onto the storage box, I thought surely the bird would fly away, but again he stayed put. I left to get my phone and was certain he would be gone when I came back but still, he stayed, even after I opened the door again to get the shot.
On another note, does anyone know if Pam from One Spoiled Cat is okay?
My newest book titled For the Love of Chris is out now. It is about Chris’s life but told from the perspective of Chris himself.
Technically, the book is fiction because, well, cats are not known from their ability to write non-fiction. Also, the first part of the book, which talks about his early life, is pure speculation based on hearsay and the few early documents that I have. If you are interested, the book is available on Amazon here. You will also be able to get it on other retailers soon.
Here is a snippet from the book:
A couple of days later, Rose and Chuck showed up again. This time I showered them with ear licks and nose bites. It worked. They took me to their home.
They opened my carrier in a room that seemed designed for cats. It was similar to the shelter, only smaller. I stepped out of the carrier and jumped onto the big cat tree near a window that overlooked a pond. That seemed interesting, but I had more important things to do. I needed to survey my new territory.
A big ginger cat lay on the floor, watching me. I left the room and checked out the rest of the home. There were more rooms like the one I was in, but those had big beds in them and no cat trees. I examined every room and found more cats who just watched me. None of them wanted to challenge me. This home desperately needed an alpha cat, and I was ready to fill that role.
I soon learned that Chuck and Rose were my new mom and dad. Of course, they were not cats, but they acted as if they were in charge, like my cat mom did. The major difference was that with my cat mom, I was more inclined to listen and even sometimes obey.
You can read more about the book from my personal blog here. Let me know what you think.
A few minutes ago, I heard a loud noise from outside and soon realized it was the lawn guy. He must have hit something solid with his weed whacker. I looked onto the catio to see if Frankie wanted to come inside but instead, he was more interested in watching the lawn guy. He did, of course, turn to look at me when I opened the door to take his picture.
You may notice from the photo that we added another bird feeder. That is another story. Those Nanday Conures I had mentioned in a previous post had been visiting our neighbor and Rose wanted them to visit our house but we were using the wrong bird seed because of a previous issue with a rat. Since we hadn’t seen the rat, we thought we would throw caution to the wind and try to lure the birds to our house.
I ordered seed from Amazon but the bird feeder from Home Depot. It arrived without the plexiglass sides, so it had no way to hold the seeds. To speed things along, I went to our local Home Depot, which does not sell bird feeders, and bough a sheet of plexiglass which I cut to size. I then learned that the seed I ordered had been delayed so I went to Pet Supermarket the next day and bought conure seed.
At some point in the middle of all this I ran into my neighbor who mentioned that the Nandays stopped coming to his feeder. I don’t think they are migratory birds but what are the odds they stop coming around at the very moment I am putting something together to attract them.
Anyway, the new feeder has been up since Tuesday, but no new birds have shown up yet.
Frankie has known for a long time how to get me to do what he wants me to do. He goes to Rose.
Usually, it is about food. I will look at his bowl and see there is still wet food in it. He will look at his bowl and see the same food he ate an hour ago. This time, though, it wasn’t about food.
I usually take him for a walk between 7:00 and 8:00 in the morning. Yesterday I was working on editing my latest book and let the time get away from me. At around 8:04, he went into the bedroom where Rose was getting ready. He hopped onto the bed and meowed at her several times.
She got up and said, “What? What is it?”
Frankie jumped off the bed and when he reached the door turned to see if Rose was following. She was so he led her through the house to where I was sitting.
What bothers me is he didn’t come to me first. He went right over my head to the top.
On our walk Monday, we were on the next street over when a dog came down a driveway and onto the road without a leash. His human was a few steps behind.
The dog walked right up to Frankie and the two sniffed each other’s face. The woman warned her dog, “Be careful. He’s gonna whack you.”
Surprisingly, Frankie didn’t whack the dog. He stood patiently while the dog circled him, smelling his backside. He then returned to be face to face with Franke. That’s when Frankie whacked him. It wasn’t a fighting kind of whack. it was more of a “get out of my face” kind of whack.
“I told you,” the woman said.
As Frankie and I returned from our walk this morning, we encountered a rabbit in front of our house. I was surprised how close it let Frankie get before running off.
My wife has a bag she uses for towels when we go to the pool. The other day we put our towels in the wash and Rose temporarily set the bag on the dining room table. Ten seconds later this happened.
Frankie took his time yesterday smelling this storm drain.
I assume it is because there is a feral cat that seems to regularly use the stormwater sewers as a way to get around without being seen. A larger storm drain closer to our house has a metal grate over it and I have seen the cat through the grate on our walks at least twice, maybe more.
Today is National Hug Your Cat Day so I thought I would share a picture of our most huggable cat: Chris. Here he is with Rose on October 3, 2009, six weeks before we adopted him. We were lucky someone didn’t grab him up first. Actually, someone did adopt him but returned him the next day because he was so bad.
