Living at the Zoo......

My house has turned into a zoo. A zoo that I have little control over. I don't know how it happened. I was quite IN control for the longest time but, without my conscious awareness that it was happening, I lost control. I'm pretty sure that the control of the house now lays in the paws of Pete the bitch-from-hell cat (formerly known as Pete the crippled cat - I stopped calling him that because I thought it unfair to label him in such a way that his infirmity defined him and also because his infirmity doesn't seem to slow him down in the least. It certainly hasn't lessened his bitching). Now I've had cats since I left home and dropped out of college at 19. When I moved into my first house (an old mountain house that cost $125 a month to rent), I got my first cat. My dad and my brothers are allergic to cats, so I never had cats when I was growing up. But now I've had quite a few over the past 30 years: Roosevelt, the mighty hunter and master at the art of drooling - pure white, long-haired, green-eyed and very very loving; Frank, Mr. Lazy himself, who spent most of his time hanging out in my potted plants or attempting to turn over the trash can; Earl, the deaf, white cat, very sweet but very stupid (or mildly retarded, we were never quite sure); Moses, an orange and white tabby cat, sweet, calm, lazy, and prone to being attacked by my neighbors' Chow (which is what finally got him in the end); Dixie, a calico who lived in a tree most of the time, she was a tiny little cat and terrified of my dog, who couldn't stand cats and couldn't be bothered with them; Burl, another white cat, he was not hearing impaired and he was a vicious fighter with other cats on the mountain where we lived; Harris and Simko, two brother cats, both kind of weird; Chuckie, another pure white cat and short-haired, Chuckie mysteriously disappeared when my kids went to the beach for a week with their dad (Chuckie was spending the summer with the kids at their dad's house), Chuckie was a riot, loved to play, loved to cuddle, loved to imagine himself in all sorts of attack scenarios (I know this because he attacked most anything, even things that nobody else could see except Chuckie); Pearl, another long-haired white cat, (yes, there was a theme there for awhile with the white cats - I love white cats - Earl, Burl, Pearl, and Chuckie would have been Merle except my kids would not allow it) Pearl was cross-eyed and had nystagmus and was very very strange (she kind of creeped me out), she went to visit with my neighbors one sunny day and moved in; and the old cat...... I can't believe I can't remember his name........ NOPE! I can't remember his name, but he was an old old old cat, nineteen or something, that one of my patients talked me into adopting, he was the first cat I ever had that drove me crazy (Pete being the second), I'd had cats for twenty-five years by then and had never had one destroy my furniture before! he destroyed my couch (it was an expensive couch and I hate that couch because it dumps me out into the floor when I sit on it but still!! I didn't want it ruined!!?), so I gave him to my friend Bobbi and she kept him until he disappeared up the mountain one day, the way old cats and dogs will do sometimes.

Jericho the old cat, a calico, and I have shared our living space together now for 15 years. She has moved with me many times in that fifteen years: from Raleigh location #1 to Raleigh location #2 to Morganton location #1 to Morganton location #2 to Morganton location #3 to the Eastern Shore of Virginia. I worried about this last move and about how she might fair. She actually did quite well, and I can see a spring in her step again. I think she likes living at the farm. She seems to be in good health and she's gotten a helluvalot nicer in the past year (she's been known to bite or claw suddenly and without provacation - I haven't seen her do that in more than a year). She's not all that friendly with her housemates (meaning Pete the bitch-from-hell cat or Baby the low-man-on-the-totem-pole/black lab. ) She gets along alright with Buster the cat-who-lives-in-the-tree, if and when Buster comes down out of the tree. Jericho and Buster both know the secret entrance into the root cellar through the maze of pipes under the house. Pete hasn't figured it out yet or maybe he just can't jump from where the pipes come through the wall down to the floor of the root cellar so therefore doesn't utilize that route into the root cellar which then leads up to the back porch. I looked out the window on the kitchen door the other evening and Buster the cat-who-lives-in-the-tree and Jericho the old cat were curled up together on the dog bed on the back porch. It was a sweet site. I guess they've decided to team up in defense of Pete the bitch-from-hell-cat.

So about this Pete the bitch-from-hell cat? I've never had a cat that bitches at me as much as Pete does. He actually SCREAMS at me. I've had demanding cats before, that pester you and whine whine whine when they don't get their way. But I've never had one that SCREAMED at me before. Example - Pete'll be outside, where he has been remanded much of the time these days because he's such a pain in the ass and he's as bad as Jericho about NOT using the litter box but using the area AROUND the litter box instead. Pete recently ruined one of my good suitcases (one from the set of luggage that I saved an entire summer to buy). So he'll be outside and not too happy about being outside. And he'll whine whine whine at the back door. Sometimes he'll come all the way around the house, crying this mournful pitiful, "nobody-knows-the-troubles-I've-seen" kind of cry - a cross between a Siamese and a Malamute in heat (I know I'm mixing my metaphors here, but - you get the picture, right?). So he'll be crying and crying ..... But when I finally feel sorry for him and go to open the door and let him in - he SCREAMS at me. And he continues to scream at me for the next "however long you want to drag this out" length of time until he seemingly gets everything he wants: fresh food in the bowl (EVEN IF he just ate outside), fresh water in the bowl (even if there's already fresh water in the bowl - "snap to, you worthless human, I want my own fresh water"), the chance to harrass Jericho the old cat by obnoxiously ramming his nose up her backside repeatedly until she rises to the challenge and hisses at him so that he can swat her a couple of times and show her he IS, in fact, bigger even if he does have a non-functioning back leg, useless and unworkable back claws, and, in reality, fear of the old cat herself. He STILL has to try to make some point. Then he screams some more until I pick him up, put him down, pick him up and scratch his neck, put him down, and pick him up again. Then he'll generally bitch some more until I either sling him out the front door or inadvertently turn my back on his bitching long enough that he can sneak up behind me and sink his front claws into my calf at least halfway to the bone if not all the way! He is, by far, the single-most bitching-est cat I've ever met - bar none, not even a Siamese!!

We have a whole complex system for feeding everybody so that everybody gets something to eat but that fighting and arguing are limited and so the dog actually eats the dog food and not the cat food (because if she eats the cat food - her favorite - then the whole crazy process has to start over again!). I have to feed Jericho on the back porch, Pete in the kitchen, and Buster on the front porch. Baby has to stay in my presence the entire time until all cat food has been consumed by cats, then Pete has to go out the back door, Jericho has to come in but be out of the kitchen, Buster is left to fend for himself and generally ends up back in the tree as Pete will make a beeline for the front yard as soon as suppertime is over. Then Baby gets to eat. Then I get to eat. And nothing that I am eating is sacred! Oh, no!! That would be asking too much. I had a bowl of homemade chicken noodle soup on the kitchen table the other day, still steaming, and went upstairs to answer the phone. When I ventured back in the kitchen, I found Baby with her front paws up on the table and half of my soup already down her gullet!! (Her gullet was blistered, I'm sure! And it served her right! She got kicked out of the house for the rest of the evening!).

Then we have the whole bedtime ritual........!! I'll save that for another time. Trust me that it is a fiasco as well!

It's a zoo at my house! It's crazy! It's a full time job. It's the nuttiest way to live ever. And it's making me crazy. This cute sweet fiesty little orange and white tabby cat, who survived being run over by a truck, who came back from near death and learned to walk again - that sweet cat that I fell in love with - he has disappeared into the world of testosterone and aggression, and has changed the whole peaceful nature of our home. He's turned into an obnoxious, mouthy, pain in the ass, sorry excuse for a house pet. I KNOW I KNOW!! OFF WITH HIS BULLOCKS - THAT'LL FIX HIM!! We'll see. I'm not convinced that is the entire solution but I'm trying to save up the money to have it done. His original owner (servant) (adopted as he was by the cat not the other way around) was supposed to have had this done before the cat ever ventured into my house. But then the truck accident happened and then the rest of the stuff happened and so I'm stuck with a cat who seriously needs his bullocks removed and a vet that charges more than I can afford just now.

But it won't be LONG!! I keep telling Pete that! "If you don't stop bitching at me like this and if you continue to refuse to let Buster come down out of the tree (I have literally watched Pete lay at the foot of the tree ALL DAY just to keep Buster up there), if you keep molesting the old lady cat (spayed since kittenhood), and eating the dog's food (when she is forbidden to eat yours!!) then I'm gonna have to take you in and OFF THEY GO!! Snip, snip!! I mean it, Pete!!" He generally responds by cussing me out with cat curse words. If you've ever been cussed out by someone in a foreign language - where you don't know the exact words by the general meaning is clear - then you know what it's like to be cussed out by Pete!

It's a zoo. Come watch sometime. I'm sure you'll be quite entertained!
Peace.