Category: Cool Cats

Now Momma, she thinks she knows plenty about plenty….maybe she does….but she is clueless about my role in the Big Bad World once I leave the security of her property behind.

It goes something like this…..I cross the street, slip under the fence in to the long grass, bushes morph in to a forest and I am, ‘Free at Last.’  Just down the hill  runs the creek, engineered to prevent flooding since a hurricane tore through so many years ago, sweeping up all the Two Footed and the Four Footed, in its path.  I mean, I wasn’t here but Baby Mama’s pass on the tales… ‘Be vigilant…be very vigilant.’ Of course, that is the rare, once in a lifetime occurrence.  It is the day in, day out hardships and treachery we face that make us living proof that things are not always the way they look…..which begs the question, why, if I could live in peace full-time, do I choose a Danger Zone?

 Like a relationship gone bad in today’s society….it’s complicated.  Is it like an addiction to wild life, or the fear of breaking the Oath and Pledge sworn in innocence long before I knew there was something like food, shelter and ♥?
Still I can’t give up my family…my Kitty Club Med, Momma and Wonder Boy. The world turns cold and bleak (and hungrier) without them.  This living a double life will be the death of me!

When I wear the Feral Cat Cap, I am on constant alert for enemies that come in many forms from insidious ticks, fleas, or animal traps set by evil Four Footed Antagonists.  Then there are the masochistic cats to Forest Freaks (aka a mixture of hungry, deadly beasts) and the hungry, fearsome  coyotes, that are always on the outlook for fast food, (served without cutlery).  Trust me, that is not the part of the job I miss when I am sitting in the sun on Momma’s deck.

No, it is like in the Game of Thrones, the Oath I have taken, the Pledge I have vowed, ‘I am the shield that guards the realms of the Feral. I pledge my life and honor to the Day’s and Night’s Watch, for this time and all the time to come.’ And so, although I am not a large Tom Cat, I am ferocious enough to win against roving males, which endears me to the Mama Cats and kittens.

Night after lonely night, I guard the entrance to our Cat Colony which consists of several female felines and the kittens they bring forth.

My most important job happens when a Mama Cats goes hunting and I am left in charge of my own sweet little kittens.  I have been known to join in the play, quell the unruly and break up the fights after which we all fall asleep in a tumble, waiting for Mama Cat to return.  And if a Tom Cat can not uphold his Oath and Pledge , what use is he to this mixed up, muddled up, shook up world… (like my Lola)?

So. I am looking for some answers here.  Should I forget the Kitty Club Med, Momma and Wonder Boy, the easy life for the Danger Zone?  Or can I justify breaking the Oath and Pledge to have food, shelter and love?

Or you think I should continue my Secret Agent Cat Man existence? A cat who leads a life of danger…To everyone he meets he stays a stranger….Thanks Johnny River…..you  SO understood!!

Something has got to give…pray it’s not me!

I am a Play–Girl–Kitty.  No one is Game-On like I am Game-On.

Take Bad Boy Andy.  He is like a Right Wing Conservative Neo-Con. He is much too mature to play, but  still dive bombs defenceless mice to their early grave.  They are not for consumption.  Who knows what you could catch from a field mice? No, the dry and soft label name diet Momma provides, will do just fine, thank you very much (my thoughts exactly). Sometimes I think Andy’s Plan Check Do List includes lofty spreadsheets and Graphs, wherein he sets Goals and constantly manipulates the data so that his Graphs are always on an upward growth pattern.  Truth be told, Bad Boy Andy is all about Mind Games not Play Games.

I try to inspire poor, sweet Charlie to play, but she is hopeless.  When I get my gallop on, racing around my kitty made coral, she takes off just as fast, seeking cover under Momma’s bed, peeking out to see the calamity headed her way.  So I slow it down, join her under the bed, peering out alongside her, our hearts racing in sync, tails twitching, waiting to see our imminent destruction.

Then there is Jakita.  She tries, as long as we play by her rules – the ‘my way or the highway.’  I effortlessly hop on the table, bat a pen to the floor (Blame Momma – she so carelessly left it in my path).  Before I can hop back down, Jakita grabs it and heads straight to her Doggie Pillow.  No, no, Jakita, it’s suppose to be a good old-fashioned hockey game.  The pen is the puck.  We got to shoot and score Jakita.  That is when the growling starts…..it’s mine, mine, mine and since I know where this ends every time, I  move back, sit down, watching her chew through the plastic, then blue ink spurts, on her little pink tongue, her whiskers, her chinnie, chin chin. Momma hears her little yip and comes running (of course) and sees Little Jakita has done it again.   I cover my Cheshire smirk behind my Calico and White Paw as Momma starts the clean up process with Baby wipes, no less, chiding her a little too gently, for my liking.  But hey, that is a Game in itself!

That is why I have come to cherish our Stray, Feral Papa Was A Rolling Stone Clem-Kadiddle-Hopper.  When I run, he will chase me.  When I leap to catch flies, he soars higher.  Sometimes we collide, fall to the ground, shake ourselves off and start all over again. When I go on the prowl, crouch behind bushes, he tags along in tandem.  When I tire and go find a seat on the bench to cat nap outside the door, he follows and sleeps under the bench. I mean, that is a partner.  Just too bad Clem-Kadiddle-Hopper is so independent because he is a bit unreliable.  Days can go by and just when I think I will never so him again, he pops out of the peony bushes, ready for Game On.

Now maybe you know of a solution, a way that I could entice Papa Was A Rolling Stone Clem-Kadiddle-Hopper to grow roots, to unpack his bag, give up his globe-trotting ways.

Momma tried, Momma tried to Raise Him Better – That Leaves No One Left to Blame…. because Momma tried…. (oh, and Wonder Boy too).

Like the first night at an AA Meeting, I must confess.  Hi, I’m Clem-Ka-Diddle-Hopper and I am Feral, by choice, not design.

Oh, I am so torn.  It would be so easy, joining the Kitty Club Med, just being an Indoor / Outdoor Cat,  eat a few kibbles, go outside, lay in the sun, hop on the bench, wait for Momma to open the door and leave me back in like dozens of times a day.

What is stopping me, you may ask?  Momma and Wonder Boy fuss over you, every time they see you, feed you, stroke you, brush you.  I have Diva Calico Gen wrapped around my grey and white Tabby paw-paw.  Even Bad Boy Andy gives me the respect I deserve.  He air kisses me when we meet up, either in or out doors.  When I come in and he is at his food station, he saunters off, as if to say, ‘Hey Clem, help yourself.’  But the big one, really big one, is if I am asleep on a dining room chair, he will hop up on the chair beside me, and fall asleep which tells me an Ally Cat like Bad Boy Andy, trusts me.

Jakita, well she always respected me.  I won’t go within a country mile of other dogs, but Jakita is Special.  That leaves Charlie Cat, who skulks around, ready to hiss at the drop of a hat…well not at Jakita or Diva Calico Gen, although, she will extend her white-tipped calico paw and smack them across the face if she feels injured at something she perceives they did to her…Yet, she will let them be on Momma’s bed, on one condition…If Momma is there, Charlie is the only one allowed to be wedged against her. Law abiding as they are,  Jakita and Diva Calico Gen put up no fight because they know, well Charlie is Charlie.

Who could walk away, tail in the air, when offered such cool accommodations? A wild cat, with responsibilities at the Cat Colony, that is who. Say what?? You must be having us on.  You are feral, stray, homeless and you are worrying about your cat community.  The world needs to know about you. Even the Two Footed are dismal at giving a hand up or a hand out to their own kind.  Where did a Pussy Cat with a Conscious come from?  You have got our attention. Tell us more.

Okay, I will…but ssshhh…keep it a secret…no broadcasting it because I don’t want Momma’s family thinking I don’t appreciate them.  You want a Job Description, I will provide it.  It’s not pretty, but it’s what I do, but never to Momma, Wonder Boy, our Special Jakita or the Kitty Club Med Gang.  Trust me, there is more to tell.  Like Arnold Schwarzenegger, ‘I’ll be back.’

I will let you decide if I should turn left or I should veer right or just follow the same path to gain Pet Paradise at the end of my days.

Yes, I, Bad Boy Andy, am an Indoor/Outdoor cat but I am not stupid.  When Jack Frost comes calling, it is time to find a cozy corner and hunker down.  I mean you don’t have to be a rocket scientist, just look at the window panes strewn with frosty icicles rivers and tributaries, diamonds, circles and stars – to die for beauty, especially when the winter sun enshrines them in a golden haze.

Besides when  Jack Frost paints our windows in the deep of an Arctic vortex, I feel it in my thirteen year old arthritic bones.  Oh, I can still put the fear of the Good Lord Almighty in to all the cats in the neighbour hood and our Indoor Cat Charlie but I know, I am failing fast when it comes to terrorizing (but  sshh…that is our secret).  Here at home, they haven’t noticed and everyone knows, what you don’t know can’t hurt you, right?

Now, my dear sweet sibling, Diva Calico Gen doesn’t read window panes or feel it in her bones.  No, she coddles herself.  I think she follows the calendar and reacts accordingly because early in December, even before winter descends, she hibernates inside, getting in to all kinds of mischief because she is full of unspent energy, still as agile as a kitty, while wily like a fox which means every once in a while, when Jakita is asleep (she runs interference for her Best Friend Forever, Gen) and Momma is busy, I board Gen to put her in her place because, well, Gen doesn’t seem to know she even has a place.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, she is pretty, a great fisher of things out of wicker baskets, a tried and trued Olympic Hockey player but she is not as discerning and bright as me.  How can she be if she will curl up beside that poor demented Charlie?

What’s that you are saying?  Okay, you are right, I am a bit psychotic, purring one minute, prowling and snarling the next but I am no fool.  I am very loving with Momma and Wonder Boy and all of the guests that come over – well, except that one time, when Momma’s Sister-Who-Taught-Her-Most-The-Things-She Knows, slept over.  I mean, she slept on the couch, my bed, so I had to slap her with my paw, across the cheek, just to wake her up, so she’d move you know.  Instead, I got pushed in an embarrassing heap on the floor.  Momma would never do that to me.  Not all Two Footed are created equal. 

Live and Love.  That’s my motto.  Too bad no one took the time to teach Momma’s Sister-Who-Taught-Her-Most-The-Things-She Knows.