Tag Archives: cat

Our Charming Feline Family

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Originally posted on A Way with Words blog

Our life is ruled by our three fur babies. As all animal lovers know, every animal has a soul and personality unique to themselves. It is said, dogs have masters, but cats have servants. We happily serve Nunny Catch (named after a street and café south of Bath England), big brother Oliver, and Sadie, the baby.

Nunny taking a snooze

Nunny is a rescue special-needs cat. We acquired her when she was three (although our vet says she was more likely five or six and had given birth to many litters). She is now eleven or twelve and shakes off her old lady ways occasionally to chase Oliver and Sadie around the house. She has arthritis and breathing issues that are controlled by a small amount of medication given every other day. Nunny is very small. She still has her cat skills and can jump to the top of the cat tree in the family room. Nunny is a love sponge. She likes to lay on the top back of chairs and sofas, so she is at the right height to be petted when someone passes by. She never gets enough. She sits on our lap whenever a lap appears. She taps me on the shoulder if I’m sitting to let me know it’s mealtime, sometime between three and four o’clock in the afternoon; or walks around and around the kitchen island meowing that it is dinnertime. She purrs so loudly she can be heard over the TV. In her mom role, she grooms the other two cats if they hold still long enough. She is rarely out of sight. She curls up in whichever room we are in so she can keep an eye on us. Nunny insists on going into the library/office at night. She taps me on the shoulder if I’m sitting, just as she does at mealtime, to remind me it is eight o’clock. Her internal clock is infallible. If I don’t take her in there she meows loudly and walks back and forth until she gets me to put her to bed and close the door. Occasionally one of the other cats joins her, but not often. She likes her quiet nights alone. 

Oliver on vanity

Oliver, also a rescue, was three when we brought him home a year or so after Nunny. He is now seven. It took him three years to let Ken touch him. He tolerated me but wouldn’t come on my lap or allow me to pet him for months after we got him. He is very suspicious and stays far away from company. If someone stays with us for a few days, he may make an appearance just to see what’s going on but disappears quickly. There are times we look high and low and cannot find him. He has a peculiar habit around mealtime. He comes to the kitchen when he knows I’m fixing their food. He’ll even stretch up at the cabinet like he’s reaching for his dish but when it is put down, he smells it, possibly tastes a bite, then shakes his right paw as if to say “this is not to my liking”, tosses his head and leaves the room. Oliver will eat his food only when no other cat is around late at night. Sometimes I feed him in another room by himself if I want to make sure he gets his food early.  Oliver is also the only cat I’ve met who doesn’t like treats. We’ve tempted him with all kinds but he will not eat them. They will lay where we give them to him until one of the other cats eats them. He will lay on my lap late at night when Nunny is not around. He now loves to be petted – on his terms. He hates being picked up, makes his body rigid, and fights. Needless to say, he doesn’t get picked up very often. He usually responds when he is called so we don’t have to corral him. He loves to be admired and photographed. He poses like a prince.

Sadie’s work rearranging dining room picture
Sadie on the file cabinet at age one

Sadie is the charmer, the clown, the scamp. She was a kitten of a few months when we brought her home. Tiny and cute then, she is now, at the age of three, the biggest of them all. She loves people and is immediately everyone’s best friend when they come to visit. We have to close her in the library when guests come who don’t appreciate feline company. Sadie is everywhere all the time. Unlike the other two cats who do the cat thing and sleep most of the day, Sadie is busy, busy, busy all day long. She rarely stops. If you find her sleeping, it is a fluke. She climbs to the top of everything. She flies from chair to chair to table to piano to bookcase to sofa, never touching the ground. She plays with toys, bottle caps, coins, whatever she can find, shooting goals under the refrigerator, sofa and closet doors. She has broken lamps, pulled pictures askew on the walls and pulled books and bric-a-brac off shelves. I don’t know how she gets books off library shelves when they are wedged in but I know she works at it. Sometimes books are pulled into the middle of the room. She is also a thief. Well, that is harsh. She is a trader. Once when Sally was visiting, she took Sally’s keys from her purse, but she put a cloth toy mouse in its place. The keys she took back to the closet and put in my shoe. We had quite a time finding keys so Sally could go home. Another time I found a lipstick that was not mine on the floor in the bedroom. I called a friend who had visited earlier in the day to ask if she was missing a lipstick. Sure enough when she looked in her purse she found a cat toy and was missing a lipstick. I do not know how Sadie came by the idea of trading but now I caution women to close purses tightly. It is impossible to put purses where Sadie cannot reach them because she can get anywhere. She is also extremely good at disappearing. We have searched and searched at times and she stays well hidden until a treat is offered.

Our three darlings are our companions and entertainment. We love them because of their quirks not in spite of them. This is a short essay about the unique personalities of our cats. I can spend hours writing all kinds of stories about their antics. I’m sure you have stories about your loved pets also. Take some moments to write them down.

Sadie attacking Oliver and Nunny

Phoebe – Colossus in a Tom Thumb Body

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Originally posted on A Way with Words Blog

She was a rescue. She took her second chance very seriously. She grabbed ahold of life and shook everything she could from it. She was determined to make the most of her escape from premature death. Phoebe had been found in the desert by hikers. Only a few days old, she was bare without fur in the hot sun, covered in ringworm, and abandoned. Someone had decided she was a lost cause and not worthy of care. The hikers covered her gently and took her to a no-kill shelter where loving hands restored her. Within a few weeks, a thick luxurious coat of black and white revealed her tuxedo style. She became the rabble-rouser of the cat shelter with energy that rivaled a free proton released in a small nucleus. She could not remain in the “kitten room” having terrorized the kittens with her high-octane behavior, so she resided with the adult cat population; free to roam through the big old house that was dedicated to the comfort and safety of all felines, large and small, old or young. They had special rooms and accommodations for sick cats.

When my husband and I went to the shelter to find a cat companion, I was intent on an older adult feline who needed a forever home, preferably male; someone calm, content and grateful to be loved.  A tiny black and white energy ball flew from room to room, bouncing off walls and scattering sedentary cats that tried to avoid her relentless path of destruction. Knocking into and overturning toys and small cat furniture, she was a blur of activity.

“What is that? I asked.

“Oh, that is Phoebe. She’s not what you’re looking for at all. She is a kitten and very unmanageable,” the shelter volunteer sighed. “We don’t think we’ll ever find a home for her. She is a lot to handle.”

“But she is so small,” I said.

“Yes, only about five pounds but she thinks she’s a tiger. She never stops and we are always on alert because she can be under your feet in seconds even when you just saw her in another room.”

The volunteer filled us in on her history saying it was a miracle she survived and was cured so quickly from ringworm. They guessed her age at four or five months.

“I’d like to see her closer,” said I, always up for a challenge. The volunteer corralled Phoebe and handed her to me. Phoebe squirmed then looked me directly in the eye as if to say, you can’t hold me for long.

I released her and off she zoomed. We continued looking through the rooms at adult cats, petting, holding, and trying to find a connection with one. Then it was dinner time and the attendants set out large dishes of food. Cats scurried in from all over to find a dish they preferred. In the kitchen, an extra-large pizza pan filled with kibble was set in the center of the floor. Cats of all sizes and colors arranged themselves around the perimeter of the pan and began eating in orderly fashion. In came the little black and white demon. She muscled between two larger cats and started eating. The cat to her left was the biggest cat in the house. His name was Liberty, he was pure white, close to twenty pounds, and definitely a dominant male. He looked down at the brash intruder and took a swipe at her with his large paw. She looked up, giving him an insulant stare then continued to eat. Again, he knocked her sending her back from the dish. She retreated, walked to the opposite side of the dish, and pushed between two other cats. But she did not stop. She walked into the center of the pizza pan, directly in front of Liberty, and started eating. Liberty’s head jerked up. In complete disgust, he turned and walked away from the pan and stood by the doorway. His annoyance was evident and every cat that passed by him as they left the kitchen was given a swipe of his paw.

My husband looked at me and in a sorrowful tone said, “You’ve found your cat, haven’t you?”

“Are you sure? queried the volunteer in charge of adoptions. “She is really wild. We’ve had an awful time with her in the few weeks she’s been out of quarantine. “

“Yes,” I said, “she is my soul sister. I understand her and we will be just fine.”

“If you change your mind, we’ll understand, and please bring her back. We don’t want any other abandoned cats, even Phoebe.”

We had Phoebe for thirteen years, an indoor/outdoor cat; something that is discouraged in the predator-filled southern Arizona environment. Her character was too big to be contained in the house. She was very desert-wise. She was unpredictable. She had confrontations with rattlers, bigger cats, and assorted potential destroyers that she bested and lived to brag about.  She provided a plethora of mice, geckos, and birds as gifts to us. She would bring them through the cat window and release them into the house fully alive for our enjoyment.

I have so many Phoebe tales, they could fill volumes. She once called 911 on our landline. I answered a ring at the door to find two handsome policemen asking if I was all right.  It took some time before I pieced together what she did – a phone receiver off the hook upstairs told the story.

She hosted a mouse for weeks, catching and releasing it in our house until we finally caught and freed it to its desert home. She would race through the upstairs and people downstairs would say, “Do you have an elephant up there?” “No,” we replied, “just Phoebe.”  Although she never grew to be more than seven pounds, her thudding footfalls as she raced around sounded like something much much larger was roaming the hallways. She bullied and intimidated human guests, fiercely defending her territory. My friends named her the cat from hell, but she was always the sweetest, most cuddly little girl to us. Her antics made us laugh.

After a mighty struggle with an incurable blood illness, Phoebe finally gave up. She is buried in our backyard and visited daily. After more than a decade I still miss her giant presence. Several treasured cats later (we now have three), none have filled that space.