The other day my wife set her trash basket on the table so she could pull out the bag and replace it. Before she got a chance to put a new one in it, Frankie was already there.
I imagine a lot of you readers can relate to this.
One of our cat trees has a cubby that is too small for Chris but he doesn’t let size stop him from doing what he wants to do.
Frankie really knows how to make the most of his walks and does not seem to care that I am there waiting for him.
My father-in-law had planned to come to our house for Thanksgiving but ended up in the hospital on Wednesday. Fortunately, it wasn’t too serious and he was released on Friday. Rose thought it would be a good idea to go see him so we packed some Thanksgiving leftovers and drove to the other coast.
We stopped to see him before going to our hotel in Melbourne. While Rose was outside talking to her dad, I went inside to see the cat.
Her name is Precious and she is a very friendly ginger girl. She was happy to have me pet her while she purred and rubbed her face on my hand. I felt guilty leaving her but I didn’t want to be antisocial.
If anything happens to Rose’s Dad or if it becomes too difficult for him to take care of her, she will become our cat. Of course, we don’t need four cats but I’m happy she is a friendly girl.
We put our tree up last week and all of the cats have taken turns hanging out under the tree.
Now, if I could only get all of them under the tree at the same time I might be able to get a good photo for my Christmas post. Of course, I don’t see that happening.
Here is a photo from eleven years ago today. This is Chris and Tigger napping together. I know it is hard to get used to but Chris is actually the skinny cat in this picture.
My wife is in charge of several apartment communities in Florida, Virginia, and West Virginia. One of the closer ones to our house is about fifty miles away. The manager there told Rose about a friendly stray cat that started hanging around the office. They decided to help the cat by allowing it to come into the office. Rose ordered several supplies for him on Chewy, including a litter box, litter, food, and toys. She visited the property last Wednesday and sent me these photos.
They named the cat “Gato” which is essentially the same as naming him “Cat.” I don’t think Gato cares what he is called, he is just happy to have people to love on him.
He comes and goes during the day, taking advantage of the many people who open the door for him. At night, he stays inside and someone comes to take care of him on the weekend.
One of the maintenance guys from the property came to our house on Saturday to help install two new windows in our house and I give him one of our carriers so they could take him in to be neutered.
From what I hear, he is super friendly so he is probably not feral but was someone’s pet at one time. I have seen this several times before and wonder how they become separated from their humans. I know at apartment complexes people sometimes move out and leave their cats behind. Sometimes they leave them inside an apartment with no food and water. I would like to think humanity is better than that and most strays end up on the streets for innocent reasons.
Frankie was being quite the pest yesterday and Rose asked me to put some food down for the cats, but I knew it wasn’t food he was looking for. I put my shoes on and announced that I was going to take Frankie for a walk. As I was heading into the bedroom, Rose was hyping Frankie up by loudly saying, “Are you gonna go outside, Frankie? Are you gonna go outside?” This, of course, got Frankie all excited and he followed me into the bedroom, meowing up a storm. When I pulled the harness out of my drawer, he really got excited.
As soon as Frankie gets outside the excitement goes away and he becomes very focused. After taking time to smell the air we walked across the street and stopped to eat some grass, or whatever this is.
We then found a nice patch of ground to stretch out and get some sun.
Then a little shade was in order.
I stood there for a long time waiting for Frankie to decide what he wanted to do. To my surprise, he fell asleep.
I hated to wake him up but I couldn’t just stand there in the sun and wait for his nap to be over. I knelt down and very gently petted him. That woke him up and he hissed at me and scratched my hand, making it bleed in three places.
I then picked him up and brought him home. He had been out for about forty-five minutes and Chris was home waiting for his turn. Surprisingly, Frankie let me carry him home without giving me a hard time.
When we got home, I let Chris out and stayed with him. He decided to eat some grass as soon as he got outside.
He then spent some time in the sun.
After fifteen minutes I decided that I should go in and wash the cut on my hand. I picked Chris up and he decided to turn around as I was lifting him up. I think he planned on climbing onto my shoulders but he just ended up putting a gash in my stomach. Well, at least I was going in to clean one wound so what’s one more?
Someone bought my power tower yesterday which freed up space in our Florida room to really make it a cat room.
About the only things in the room now that is not for cats is my desk and Rose’s rocking chair, which Chris loves, so I guess it is it for cats too.
I took Frankie out for a walk on Wednesday because it was a beautiful day and because he was bothering me to go outside. It’s hard to resist Frankie when he follows me around the house meowing at me.
Shortly after we got outside the community housing salesperson stopped his golf cart to talk to me. I tried to hold Frankie back but he wanted to go, and you can’t hold a cat back like you can a dog. At least not Frankie, anyway. The harness I have has a flaw in the design that allows a cat to escape if he pulls backwards hard enough. Since the harness is so easy to put on, I don’t want to get rid of it so I just try to avoid those situations.
My plan was to pick up Frankie and hold him but that didn’t work so I thought if I put him on the golf cart seat he might stay for at least a minute or two but that made him even more nervous. It occurred to me later that maybe he thought I was giving him away. Since I couldn’t stand around and talk, I told him I would just talk to him later.
We continued on and when we got up near the pool Frankie decided to do some sunbathing. Perhaps he saw people at the pool doing this.
After a while I had to pick him up and bring him home. As usual, he was not happy about this, but it was Chris’s turn to go out.
Chris spent some time enjoying the sun and then, of course, he had to eat a little grass too. When it was time to go in, he got under my truck again but this time far enough to where I couldn’t reach him to pick him up.
This may seem like a Frankie trick but actually Chris invented this years ago.
Bad Cat Chris 