The day after we arrived at our new house in West Virginia, our friends, Julie and Tim, came with a dining room set that they got from us several years ago. When they moved from Florida to Virginia they no longer had room for it and had it in storage.
They arrived on a Saturday with their two dogs, Harley and Link. Harley is an older Shih Tzu and Link is a young Poodle mix that Julie found wandering on the side of the road.
For the three days they were here, the house was separated into a dog zone and a cat zone. The cat zone was upstairs and the dog zone was downstairs. The divider was the bottom of the stairs and very often there was a staredown between Frankie and Link.
The dogs were kept in the bedroom at night and several times during the day which allowed our cats to come downstairs to eat and visit with us. I’m sure after that long drive here they didn’t need the stress of dealing with dogs but cats are resilient and once the dogs were gone it was like nothing happened. They were out and running through the house without a care in the world.
We adopted Puck for my wife but he then tended to be more my cat. We then adopted Frankie for her and the same thing happened. Finally we adopted Floki for Rose and I was told not to be nice to him. Of course, I would never be mean to any cat but Floki has been Rose’s cat since he was a kitten. He comes to me for attention sometimes but he wants attention from Rose even more.
Since we moved to our new home, and I think even before that, Floki has been spending more time on my lap. This does not go over well with his mom, especially when she looks over and sees three cats on my lap.
Our cats were so happy when we got to the hotel yesterday. Well, okay, once Frankie and Floki decided to remove themselves from under the sofa, then they were happy.
We were happy too. Our trip was extremely unpleasant and way longer than Google predicted. I don’t want to do that ever again and yet, here we go for day two.
We went to bed relatively early last night, before 9:00, but because we were not able to shut the bedroom door, Chris spent the night bothering me. He bothered Rose too but his focus was on preventing me from sleeping.
I don’t know how many times I put Chris off the bed or pushed him to the foot of the bed where Frankie and Floki were quietly behaving. Each time he would stay away for some time between ten seconds and then minutes and then he would be back clawing, scratching, biting or lying on my head.
Not long after 3:00 a.m. Rose decided to get up because she couldn’t sleep. I was so tired I didn’t want to get up with her so she fed the cats hoping that would distract Chris. That worked for about two minutes and then he was back bothering me. After ten minutes I couldn’t take it any longer and put him off the bed ad tried to go back to sleep.
I then heard the sound of a cat digging in the litter box and my wife laughing. Of course I had to know what was so funny so she told me what Chris was doing so I had to turn to see for myself.
I should say that I bought a small, disposable litter box for the trip and then decided it was too small and bought a small non disposable litter box with a small bag of litter. Chris was in the bigger of the two boxes pushing all the litter out and the trying to scoop litter into the box from the smaller box.
Now that I am up Chris decided to take a nap next to me. Why couldn’t he do that last night.
We rented a moving truck yesterday and I spent about four hours loading it. When I was mostly done we went back to the U-Haul place and got the car carrier. They quasi helped us but said we had to do it so they couldn’t be sued.
This morning we got up at five but had so much to do that we were not ready to go until 7:45. We put Chris and Floki together on the bottom and Frankie by himself on the top and then strapped them in.
As soon as we started Floki started screaming and Frankie was just wide-eyed and shaking. Chris was the only calm one although he did claw at me occasionally.
It is now 8:35 and Floki just stopped crying and has settled in. Frankie turned around and has calmed down too. The only issue now is that this truck feels like a bounce house but without the fun.
Since I am taking a break from volunteering due to our pending move, I thought I would share some memories from the shelter. Here are three kittens. I do not know if they are siblings. They probably are but sometimes more than one litter is put in the same pod.
These photos were taken six weeks ago so I am sure they have homes by now. If you want to see cute cats and kittens like these on a regular basis, I would recommend volunteering at a shelter. Sometimes all they need is someone to pay attention to the animals there. Bring a coffee with you and it would be like going to a cat café for free.
We were hit by Tropical Storm Eta yesterday evening. I once heard that there is an old Indian legend that says there is something under the ground in the Pinellas County, Florida area that repels hurricanes. Indeed, we have never had a direct hit by a hurricane but maybe a tropical storm doesn’t qualify. I’m not sure where the center of the storm hit but I know it was north of us, perhaps in the next county, preserving the legend. In either case, it was pretty windy for a long time.
We have a a large oak tree next to our house and I think the wind was causing branches to fall on our roof so every couple of minutes we would hear a loud bang. Frankie and Floki were not exactly scared but the noise did seem to cause them concern.
Chris, on the other hand, was sleeping in the Florida room, totally oblivious to the noise. I wanted to get a photo of him napping but I made the mistake of turning the light on and woke him up
We decided to go to bed at around 10 p.m. That is when our power went out. Rose insisted we leave the bedroom door open for air circulation even though Chris is a pain in the butt.
He was actually not too bad at first but then fighting off his attacks became too much and I had to put him down off the bed. He, of course, didn’t stay down and by 1 a.m. I couldn’t take it anymore.
I got up and got the power inverter that I bought for last year’s hurricane season and plugged in one of my Ryobi 40 volt batteries. I then plugged in a fan and brought it into the bedroom and closed the cats out.
That worked good but by 4 a.m. the battery had died and we were both uncomfortably hot so I plugged in my other battery but by then we couldn’t go back to sleep.
We got up and I tried making coffee but it was too much for the battery so I ended up going to Dunkin Donuts for coffee after they opened.
We are now in the car heading to Lakeland where Rose has a property that she oversees. I assume our power will be back by the time we return but just in case I brought my batteries with to charge.
Update: I was wrong and the storm did not make landfall near me. It looks like it moved north along the coast and then made landfall 100 miles away as the state curves to the west.
Everything is progressing in the process of us purchasing a home in West Virginia although I won’t say it’s going smoothly. It seems every other day they want a new piece of paperwork that proves one thing or disproves something else. The most recent request is something we gave them weeks ago but they are too lazy or incompetent to look through what they have. Because of that, they delayed the closing by five days but we are still on schedule to head up there as planned on the first Saturday of November.
As mentioned in a previous post, I bought two cat crates, put the big crate together, and several days later I assembled the smaller crate. I left them in the house with the hopes that the cats would get used to them. It worked. I put the small crate on top of the big crate and I have seen Chris napping in both.
He especially likes the smaller one for some reason.
Frankie and Floki are more likely to be seen near or on top of the crates.
We also wanted them to have water during the trip but a water bowl is not possible so I bought a couple of water bottles like you would have for a gerbil. I have read that cats will drink from a water bottle but, of course, they probably have to learn what a water bottle is first. I put water in one of them and put it in the smaller crate. I turned the nozzle forward so that nobody will lose an eye during a hard brake. I don’t think anyone has noticed it is there yet.
We have been packing for the move but are only taking some things because we plan on coming back to Florida. Even so, it seems like a full move. Wednesday I took the bed apart in our spare bedroom because we are taking that bed and because we needed room for boxes. When I did, Frankie jumped on top of the mattress and Chris was clawing at it like he wanted to get up there with Frankie but couldn’t.
I felt bad because when Chris was young and slim he could get onto places that our other cats wouldn’t attempt (I will post some examples at the end of this post). Rose suggested I build him “stairs” and I thought that was a great idea so I did.
Once Chris realized he had a way up he wasted no time getting on top of the mattress. I think he even took a nap up there.
Of course, Floki also discovered that laying on a flipped up mattress was pretty cool.
I am not looking forward to a two-day drive in a moving truck with cats between us while towing a car. We then have to inspect the house when we get there before letting the cats out because we have never seen it in person and need to make sure there isn’t anywhere a cat might get stuck or get out. I think we could use all the luck we can get.
Here are some posts from Chris’s prime when he could jump.
I took Frankie for a walk Thursday but this time he took me on a different route. He doesn’t always go the same way but he usually heads out away from the front of the house. This time we walked around the corner and went behind the house.
By the time we reached the second street I noticed a cat just past the house on the corner. He was looking at Frankie and Frankie, I thought, was looking at him. I was expecting trouble but nothing happened. Frankie just continued on. Perhaps Frankie’s eyesight isn’t so good. I don’t know.
So we continued another block or so and when it became clear that Frankie was just going to continue to walk in a straight line away from home I decided to turn him around. I have tested him in the past to see how far he will go and it never ends well. I always end up carrying him home way farther than I want to.
I picked Frankie up and started walking back toward home. I knew he would struggle but that was okay because I just wanted to turn him around, not end his time outside. By the time we got back to the street that the cat was on Frankie started struggling so I put him down. That is when he really noticed the cat and started walking toward him. There was no growling or hissing so I thought maybe It would be a friendly encounter but that was like thinking I might win the lottery without buying a ticket.
When Frankie got closer both cats started making a loud yowling sound. This cat had a collar so he wasn’t a stray. I quickly snapped a photo and then picked Frankie up and carried him home.
He fought me all the way but I thought he was too agitated to continue a walk so I held on until we got home. I will have to see on our next walk if he remembers and heads that way again.
Bad Cat Chris 