Tag Archives: cat

Chris’s Real Eleventh Gotcha Day

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Ten days ago I posted about Chris’s eleventh Gotha Day but it seems I was having a senior moment and didn’t know what day it was. Chris’s real Gotcha Day is today, November fourteenth, not November fourth. It’s amazing what a difference adding a one can make.

What made me realize my mistake was the photo below that came up on my Facebook app on Thursday and said “Eleven Years Ago.”

Chris meets Rose, October 3, 2009

This is a photo of Chris when he first met Rose at the shelter. You can see he was never shy. I looked at the date which was November 12th and thought two things. First I thought that Chris’s Gotcha Day was two days away so why did I write a post about it last week? I then thought it was weird that that photo was from November 12th and not November 14th.

After thinking about it I realized Rose met Chris much earlier. I looked it up and saw this photo was taken October 3rd, six weeks before we adopted Chris. Back then we didn’t post to Facebook from our phones and I probably posted that photo when we decided to adopt him.

In case you are wondering why it took so long it was because we had a cruise planned in October which took us back to Florida for more than a week. We couldn’t adopt a new cat and then leave. After we returned, Rose had to go to Alabama on a business trip. I think we brought Chris home the day after Rose returned from Alabama.

It is amazing that Chris was available for such a long time considering how loveable and affectionate he has always been. One reason, I think, is because he was adopted and then returned because he was too annoying for the couple who adopted him. That probably put a stain on his record. I know that happened but I don’t remember if that happened before I met him or in between this photo and the day we took him home.

In either case, I consider ourselves lucky to have found such a unique and special cat. In spite of his behavior, or perhaps because of it, he has been a real blessing in our lives.

Chris’s Eleventh Gotcha Day

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Eleven years ago today we brought Chris home from the shelter. He took over our home from the day we opened his carrier. Here is what that looked like.

He has slowed down since then but he may actually be more annoying now then ever. His annoying behavior though is endearing, just like his naughty behavior was when we adopted him.

We Almost Lost Frankie . . . Again

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My wife had an appointment to get her nails done yesterday but I was parked behind her so I had to leave with her to move my car. I went out the door first and then Rose followed right behind me. As she was walking out the door Frankie slipped past her and ran outside. I tried to catch him but he ran under a nearby van where he knows I can’t reach him.

Knowing Rose was waiting for me I walked back to my car so I could get it out of her way. As I go close Rose said to me, “You need to be more careful when you walk out the door.” I guess that officially made it my fault.

After I moved my car I went to check on Frankie.

He was rolling around under that van as if to say, “Na na na na na, you can’t catch me!”

I walked back to the house and sat on the steps in the hot sun waiting for him to make his next move. After about ten minutes he walked toward our neighbor’s house and I quietly followed him. I saw him poke his head into a small opening leading under the house and I didn’t want him to go there so I backed off. But then I thought the hole was too small to fit through so I advanced again. I was wrong and under the house he went.

There was nothing I could do so I went home and set a ten-minute timer. I have ADD and its hard for me to stay focused on a task if I have distractions so I worried that I would forget about him. It happened a week ago when Chris ran out the door as I was bringing laundry out. I decided to let him eat grass while I put the clothes in the washing machine. Unfortunately, my thoughts went from Chris to the laundry and never returned to Chris like they would for a person with a normal brain. I think it was a half-hour later, or more, when I went out to check the laundry and saw Chris lying there. That was scarry thinking about what might have happened because of my irresponsibility.

After ten minutes I looked for Frankie with no luck. I continued to look for him every ten or fifteen minutes for about an hour and then drove around the neighborhood looking for him but saw no sign of him. We got our other two boys microchipped recently and we were planning on having Frankie microchipped next but I cursed myself for not having him done first.

Rose returned about an hour and a half after she left and she drove around looking too before coming home. After a little while I decided to drive around again. It was around 6:45 and the sun was getting low. I didn’t want to be out looking for him at night.

Before getting in the car I stepped out onto the front sidewalk to scan the area. There was a woman to the left walking her dog and beyond the woman coming towards us on the sidewalk was a small gold figure. I focused my eyes and saw it was Frankie. What a relief.

I walked that way and stopped to pay attention to the small dog that was interested in me and told the lady about my bad cat. She turned to see him coming and I walked a few more paces and then scooped him up. She was happy, I was happy, and I think Frankie was happy to be home.

Once inside Chris and Floki had a smell fest and conducted a debriefing.

Photo Friday: Cool Cat

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I have been very busy lately and have not photographed our cats too much so I thought I would go to the archives again. This was taken exactly ten years ago on October 2, 2010. I was volunteering for a shelter called Sav-R-Cats and was there photographing cats for Petfinder. While I was doing that, the shelter manager opened the refrigerator and this fellow climbed inside.

Photo Friday: Young Floki

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Here is a picture of Floki taken four years ago today in 2016. You can see his brown coloring hasn’t fully come in yet. One of the things I love about my wife is that she is silly, like a young child. When Floki started getting darker she would say to him something like, “Oh Floki, you’re so handsome. I love all your brown spots.”

As a bonus, here is a video of Chris taken on this day in 2010.

I stupidly turned the camera off just before he fell over.

Caption This: Kitten with Coffee

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I thought this photo would be a good one to caption.

I did not include this one in my recent post about Frisky Cat Café in St. Augustine because I thought it was good enough to stand on its own. I came up with several ideas for a caption but settled on the simplest one. Just for fun, write a caption for this photo and then look here to see what I came up with.