Writer's Workshop: There's a Cat on My Head (and Other Stories)

When I started blogging, about a dozen years ago (on my old blog), I had the great good fortune to stumble across one of the best, funniest bloggers with one of the best, funniest blogs around... Mama's Losin' It. Every Tuesday, Mama Kat would publish a list of writing prompts and bloggers from far and wide would pick one, write a post, and then link it on her site on Thursday.

It was cool. 

And in the heyday of blogging, back before everything was about advertising and selling stuff - when Blogland was a real community - we'd all read each other's posts and comment on them and just generally be nice and encouraging. I made loads of friends that way (friends, I might add, with whom I've stayed in contact and even visited in person [even crossed the Atlantic to meet!]).

It was way cool. 

And I wrote many, many posts from Kat's weekly prompts. Alas, things changed. Blogging changed. Facebook took over and Blogland became a place that I only dropped in on every now and then.

Sigh.

But then I decided it was time to pick up my pen again... erm... put my fingers to keys. So I peeked in on Kat's blog and found that she's still doing the prompts! Squeee! So I've decided to pop in every Tuesday and see what I might want to write about.

This week there were six prompts and I decided on the last one:

Introduce us to your pets. Where did they come from? How long have you had them? When will you get another? Etc..

What? You know I rarely pass up an opportunity to talk about my critters!

As many of you know, I share my home with three beasts... 

It's not the best photo, I know, but you try getting all three of them to sit still and look at the camera!

They are, from back to front, Finn, Cricket, and Pip. My babies. My monsters. The bane of my existence. The reason I get up every day. They make me crazy. And I love them like mad.

If we go in order of when they arrived, I have to start with Pip. Pips. Pippers. Pipsqueak. Pippy. Piggy. Pippy Longstocking. Chunk. Chunky Monkey. Chubs. Chubby Checker. Little Fucker. (Note that the last one is reserved for when he goes into Wolverine-mode and tries to rip some part of me to shreds. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, it smarts and it warrants the F-word.)

Pip came along during the summer of 2015, to ruin the life of the sweet little girl cat we had at the time - Rue. Rue died a little over a year ago, after a battle with diabetes that we fought hard but simply could not win. She died almost exactly two years after we lost the best big white dog in the world - Sundance.

Our story really does start with them. They loved each other so and were perfect in every way. At least that's how I remember it. And just look at them! Perfection.

Anyway, back to Pippy. He was a tiny thing when we got him. He'd been abandoned by his mama at just a day or two old and raised by a foster family - bottle fed, like a human baby... which is what he thought he was. When I met him in the shelter he'd been brought to when he was old enough to eat on his own, I was cradling him in my arms; he grabbed my hand with both front paws and pulled it to him... then he sucked on my finger like a binky until he fell asleep, purring and drooling. Oh, my heart. How could I leave him after that?

I couldn't. 

Here's the thing, though. I'm not a cat person. I never have been. I didn't want two cats. I didn't really even want one cat. But my daughter did and you know how that goes. So there we were. Sunny, Rue, and Pip. We settled into our routine. Pip tormented Rue. Rue chased Pip. Sunny tried to keep order. I cleaned up all the things they broke.

They broke a lot of things. 

And Pip grew. And grew. And grew. Mostly because he ate a lot. Of pasta. And green beans. And baked potatoes. And fries. And basically anything we ate. He literally dove into bowls of spaghetti and, once, into a baking dish of chicken parm I was preparing. I should note that he dove into the dish from the top of the kitchen cabinets, where he'd been perched like a chubby orange gargoyle. I cleaned tomato sauce out of the nooks and crannies of my kitchen for weeks. He still eats whatever he can steal when I'm not looking. I routinely construct walls around my plate to keep him away. I eat like a convict, with my arm wrapped around my dinner and my head down, over my food. I hardly need a fork. Lord knows he doesn't need one. He reaches around whatever obstacle I've put in his way and, with one tiny claw, spears whatever he can reach, dragging it back around to inspect and, if he likes it, consume.

He's partial to asparagus. 

He's a monster, is our Pippers. He has RBF (resting bitch face) and always looks like he's judging you. Actually, I'm reasonably certain he is always judging you. Well, me. He talks a lot and I'm pretty sure everything out of his mouth is a swear word. He wakes me up at 3am, every morning, just to remind me I have to pee, usually by sitting on my head and smacking my face. Then he wakes me again at 5am to feed him (and his brother and sister).

He's not all bad, though. 

When he wakes me at 3am, he runs to the bathroom before I do, and when I'm, you know, sitting there, he climbs up into my lap, wraps his chubby orange paws around my neck, and lets me rock him. I call it toilet time. And if I'm honest, I kind of love it (though I'd really rather he picked a less ungodly hour). And every evening, when I get home from work, you can rest assured he's the first one on my lap for snuggles.

I love him. I love him more than I ever imagined it was possible to love a cat. 

Finn is next. Finn. Finny. Finneas. Finnster. Finnegan Begin-again. Big Fella. Sweet Boy. Hairy Beast. Turd. Fun Police. The happiest, sweetest, dumbest dog I have ever owned.

But Finn's story really starts with Sundance. In October of 2016, my beautiful boy died. He was almost 13 and he rescued me when he was only a few months old, during one of the darkest periods of my life. I loved him desperately and losing him was beyond painful. It created a hole in my heart and my gut that I was pretty sure I would never fill.

But a very short (too short) time after he left us, I found myself looking at the SPCA website. At my niece's urging, I zeroed in on a sweet looking lab mix - 1 1/2 years old, 40 lbs, neutered, house-trained. He sounded good, though younger than I was thinking of. But after hearing how black dogs have a hard time getting adopted, I went to meet him. He was sweet and calm, smaller than Sunny by about 30lbs, young-looking, but not a puppy. Good stuff.

Or so I thought. 

Long story short, it turned out that the SPCA was his third shelter, and they had been less-than-correct (I don't want to believe they deliberately misled me) in their description of him... he was only 8-months old, he was calm because he was sedated from just being neutered the evening before, he wasn't house-trained, or, as it turned out, small. He literally doubled in size within just a few months and he holds steady now, 3+ years later, at a pretty significant 80lbs. 

I knew right away that I'd gotten him too soon; that I hadn't given myself time to grieve for Sunny. But I'd brought Finn home... and as far as I'm concerned, that's for life. And truly, he was the sweetest, happiest dog I'd ever met. He was also not the brightest (he's still not). But he was desperate to please us. He loved everyone and every thing. And eventually, we fell in love with him. And patience won out... he has become the most wonderful dog. 

He loves his four-legged siblings, and he adores his two-legged sister. He's a mama's boy, though, through and through. He's crazy for water (but not the bath), he sheds like a fiend, he smells bad most of the time, he goes to the dog park to see the dogs' owners (all of whom he greets with full-body enthusiasm), he doesn't let any other dogs at the dog park have fun without trying to break it up, and he'll eat anything you might even consider giving him. He has no idea how big he is and thinks he should be able to join the cats on my lap. He's a bed hog and will unmake it to sleep under the covers. He goes to bed at 8:00 every night, but wakes up to go out promptly at 10:00. On the weekends, when I get to sleep late, he wakes me up at exactly 9am, just to see if it's time to go to the park. And when I make him wait until 10am, he sits and watches me. Intently. Very intently. 

He is my dog. I am his person. And I love him like mad. 

And last, we have Cricket. Cricky. Little One. My sweet, sweet baby girl. 

I never imagined that Cricket - or any other cat - would join our family. Devastated by sweet Rue's death, when I was away at a conference (a dear friend had to take her to the vet to be put to sleep), I was sure Pippy would be an only-cat for the rest of his days. But he'd never been alone for even a moment in his whole life until the day Rue died and when I got home, he tackled me, frightened and lonely, desperate for contact. It broke my heart. He and Rue were rarely cuddly with each other (I think that was mostly because Rue never quite got over being offended by Pip's very existence), but they were siblings - they tolerated each other quite comfortably. Pippy and Finn did well, keeping each other company, but it was obvious they missed their girl. 

The vet's office sent us a sweet sympathy card and I was stunned at how appropriate it was... 

For months we went on, missing our Rue, but doing fine. Until... 

A dear friend (the same one who had been taking care of Pip and Rue when Rue got so sick) has a habit of rescuing animals. He and his wife have hearts of gold and can't turn away a critter in need. They had trapped a family of feral felines in the woods behind their house - Mama, Daddy, and four kittens - taken them to the vet to be spayed and neutered, and when they were ready, they were going to release them. And they did. Or they tried. One of the kittens wouldn't leave. She had decided she was having nothing more of the wild life she'd been living and had every intention of staying in the warm, dry place where humans fed her regularly. Only my friends, who have a rather full house, couldn't keep her. So, back in the fall, they posted a picture of her on Facebook. 

And I was smitten. 

I didn't want another cat. I didn't. But something told me that this kitten was meant to be mine. To be ours. And the next night, she came home with me. 

It wasn't love at first sight for Pip. But it didn't take long. Within a couple of days, Cricket wriggled her way into his heart. Finn was happy about her from the start. A little too happy for her taste, given that he weighed 10 times more than she did, but it didn't take long for them either. 

The idea that Cricket was feral just a few months ago is astonishing to me, because if ever a cat was meant to be loved by a human, it's this one. She is the sweetest, most loving kitten, rolling over for belly rubs as often as she can get them (which is often because when she asks, I oblige). She rarely meows but she does meep, which might be the cutest thing ever, and she purrs like a little engine when she's in your lap, which is most of the time. She's a little comedian and she keeps her chubby orange brother on his toes - quite literally, as she chases him around the house regularly. It's OK, he needs the exercise. She's gotten a bit chubby herself, though, as she does love to eat (really, she comes by that honestly in this house). And it's become clear that she's a mouser. I'm torn about this... I don't want mice but good lord, I'm not a fan of the Tom and Jerry-like antics that go on when she finds one (and I usually run screaming from the room and hide in my bedroom until it's all over). It's all a game to her... until it's not. I found a mouse head in the hall the other morning. I'm just thankful it wasn't on my pillow. 

Regardless of her Dexter-like penchant for dismemberment of the mouse population, she has completely and utterly made herself part of the family. We love her. I love her. So very much. I think Rue would be happy. 

So there you have it. My pets. The critters who own me... how long I've had them, where they came from, and what they're like. As for when I'll get another... 

I'm not. Nope. No more. I'm done. They're enough. Seriously. 

They. Are. Enough. 

I do love them, though. Look at them. How could I not?! 

XO,