Tag Archives: cat

Early Morning Walk

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Our neighborhood is having a community yard sale today. We wanted to get rid of stuff and planned to participate but after a long, hard day of work yesterday I told Rose I just wanted to relax and skip the yard sale. I said we could just donate everything and Rose agreed.

Early this morning I was awakened by a loud noise. It sounded like someone was dragging something heavy across the floor. A few minutes later Rose woke me up and said, “I changed my mind, we have too much (stuff) that we need to get rid of. We need to move our cars before all the spots are gone.” I looked at the clock. It was 5 a.m. Ugh!

I hurt my back a few days ago so moving everything outside was a bit of a struggle. Once everything was outside and my chores were done I decided to take Frankie for a walk. We left the house at 6:40, which is probably the earliest we ever went for a walk.

We were out for almost a half hour and ended up about a block from home. I didn’t want to go further because I almost always have to carry him home. So I picked him up and headed home. It was a struggle because not only was my back hurting, I developed a pain in my leg because of the way I was walking with my back pain. It was a struggle getting home and it didn’t help that Frankie was struggling and hissing for half the walk.

We are now sitting outside and Frankie is keeping watch at the window.

I Forgot Frankie’s Gotcha Day

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We adopted Frankie on February 15, 2014. I realized I forgot last week but I was busy and distracted. Pretty much normal for me.

I don’t think I ever published the first photo I ever took of Frankie. We saw him at a Petsmart in Clearwater, Florida. Rose was actually looking for a female cat but couldn’t resist Frankie’s charm.

Rose calls him a liar now because he put on the charm for her in the shelter and soon after we got home, when this photo was taken, but now he is my cat.

We don’t know much about Frankie’s history. He only had a number, no name. His chart said he was three years old, which means he is twelve now but he still acts like a kitten sometimes.

Frankie Learns From Chris . . . Again

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I have known for a while that cats learn behaviors from other cats. In our house, Chris is always the teacher. Puck and Frankie learned about getting on my shoulders from Chris. Puck learned how to get on top of cabinets from Chris. Frankie learned from Chris that hiding under cars prevents capture. This morning, Frankie learned the lazy way to eat breakfast from Chris.

An Unexpected Walk

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Sunday afternoon I was bringing a handful of laundry outside to the washing machine in our shed. I had just fed the cats and saw Frankie in the kitchen with his head in the food bowl. I figured it was safe to open the door, which I did quickly, and turned around to walk out backward so I could catch Frankie if he tried to get out. I obviously did it wrong because there was a second between when I cracked the door open and when I was turned around enough to see Frankie’s tail wiz past me.

He immediately went under a vehicle so I couldn’t catch him.

I talked to him nicely and managed to coax him out a bit.

I should have tried to grab him then but I worried if I missed I would never catch him. Instead, I had an idea. I went back into the house and grabbed his harness. When I got close, I pulled it apart. He knows that the sound of the velcro means he is going for a walk so he came out and let me put it on. Unfortunately, I was rushed and put it on upside down. In the process of trying to reverse it, I nearly freaked him out a little. Before he got too nervous I turned it around and soon we were walking.

We did some sitting too.

We made our way to the clubhouse where I think a bingo game just ended. There was an old lady in a car with the window down marveling at a cat on a leash. I talked to her for a minute but Frankie was interested in the door that was propped open. He stuck his head inside to the delight of another two older ladies.

Eventually, we made it back relatively close to home, perhaps half a block. Frankie decided to take a rest in someone’s yard.

I let him stay for a short time but since he was literally against someone’s house I decided to pick him up and bring him home before we got yelled at.

There is No Safe Place for Catnip Here

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In my last post, I reported that I started an indoor herb garden but had to put the catnip plant outside because it wasn’t safe inside with three cats. Well, it turns out that outside is no better. This is what I saw when I got in my car to go to work yesterday morning.

I was concerned that the feral cat might get it but I was not sure if the cat was even still around, as I hadn’t seen her, or him, in quite a while. I guess now I know.

Tolerating the Child

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Happy New Year everyone. We hope you all enjoyed your holidays and wish you the best for 2023.

I hurt my back the day after Christmas and am still in pain six days later, although, I am getting better. Before I hurt my back, on Christmas Day, we enjoyed a visit from my son, his girlfriend, and the always entertaining grandson. Apparently, a few days earlier, his mother trusted someone to cut his hair that obviously didn’t know what she was doing.

Brayden is an active young man who turned three in October. Floki does not like the disturbance caused by the presence of a child and spent most of the time hiding. Frankie kept his distance and hung out on the bed. He gave Brayden a hiss or two when he got too close. Chris, on the other hand, gracefully put up with him.

I removed the audio but he was being instructed to stop almost the entire time. You can see where he was made to turn over his instrument of torment, only to go find another one.

Later, my wife showed him our slot machine, probably to distract him. I spent time with him while he fed quarters into the machine.

He would put two or three-quarters in before pulling the handle. I tried to explain that he was wasting his money to no avail. He did win the second-highest jackpot twice so I probably should have just shut my mouth. At one point, he had a hand full of quarters that he dropped into the machine, one at a time. While he was feeding them into the machine, he was counting. He made it all the way to fifteen before running out of quarters.

It has been a while since I raised a child but is it normal for a kid that age to be able to count to fifteen? I assume he could have gone higher if he had more quarters.