IT IS NOT A STRAY

I had two very different stories rolling around in my brain when I sat down to write today. I’m choosing the less angsty one. Also, I’m too tired dig too deep into what patriotism means to me in this current environment. So here is the second story which sort of explains why I’m too tired to do any deep digging.

We knew something has been coming into the house at night or attempting to because most nights we close the kitchen pet door. We’ve just gotten used to the idea of letting the cat fend for himself at night, but there have been a few nights when we’ve forgotten to close the door. Josephine knows when it is not the cat. She just knows. I mean, she’s a barker. That’s what Schnauzers do, but she reserves her barks for outside. Something is seriously off if she barks in the house. Every time she’s gotten out of bed in the crazy morning hours to bark at the bedroom door, I’ve scooped her up and placed her the bed with a firm ‘wait’. Then I quietly open the door to go investigate and every time, the coast has been clear with the dog door in place. Then I open the bedroom door and Josephine tears out of the room, snarling, grunting and barking through the dining room and kitchen and out to the backyard.

I never see anything. It is all just an illusion or an idea of something, a presence and I kind of feel like I’m going crazy.

Chris, Amy and I decided for our last year in undergrad to move out of the dorms and get an apartment together. We searched relentless for an apartment and finally landed the top floor of a house that had been converted into apartments. It was a total dump and landlord was reluctant to rent to college students. I think the only reason we got the place was because Amy walked into the office with a check for a down deposit before the landlord could could change his mind. Good lord, the work we put into that place. All the cleaning and painting, but it was ours. We bought groceries and cooked meals. We hosted so many breakfast for dinner nights.

Then the mice came.

So many mice.

It started out small, a loaf of bread with teeth marks puncturing the bag. Then we found mouse droppings on a can of soup. Every time we found evidence, we’d clean out the pantry, set traps and then buy new groceries. But things escalated and we’d find the evidence of mice in more than just a loaf of bread or on a can of soup. We threw everything away, completely emptied the pantry and started eating out for all of our meals. Chris kind of snapped when reached this point. There was one evening when we had just emptied four mouse traps. Chris reset them and then we started putting our shoes to go out for pizza. I hadn’t even gotten my laces tied before we heard the snaps of all four traps going off. Chris built a maze out of cardboard and he’d sit in wait for mouse to come out and get trapped in the maze. Then he’d use a can of hairspray and a lighter to make a flame thrower. I don’t know what the result of this was. I did wake up one night to the sounds of him beating a mouse to death with a dustpan.

Shit got dark.

We did eventually manage to rid ourselves of the mice and our lives returned to normal. Breakfast for Dinner night came back, but I have trauma. I don’t just obsess about mice. If I wake up with a bug bite, I immediately start questioning. Is it bedbugs? Fleas? Both? Do I need to clean my house with fire? If I see one mouse, I am one hundred percent convinced that somewhere in the walls or attic of my house there is a whole cast of mice from Ratatouille living it up. So this thing with the our early morning visitor/s is just kindling for my panic fire. We’d finally settled on the idea that we had a stray cat sneaking in to eat the cat food and I was okay with that. Then, at 5:00 Tuesday morning when Josephine barked at the bedroom door and we went through our usual routine, during my initial scan of the dining room, I saw it. There he was, a small raccoon sitting on the bench, inches away from the cat food bowl. I looked towards the kitchen door and sure enough, the pet door had been left open. I looked at him and said “Okay…you have to leave now.” Then he looked at me in a way that said “Are you sure?” I nodded my head and said “Yeah. You need to go.” And he left.

At least I thought he left.

Instead, he and a friend scurried up the wall and tucked themselves into the corner near the garage door. So when I thought it was clear and I let Josephine out, she went straight to that garage corner and started barking her little head off. Getting them out of the garage was not easy. I had to wake up Michael, but did manage to spook one of them out by opening the garage door. The second one, the one who was all “you sure I have to go?”, that one had to be shot four times with the garden hose before agreeing to leave the garage. I guess I kind of feel some relief now that I know what has been coming into the house. They’ve been really nice and polite for raccoons. They haven’t gotten into the garbage or tried opening the fridge. They haven’t pooped in the house. Really, the only evidence they leave behind is an empty cat food bowl. The one I had a conversation with is actually really cute.

EXCEPT THEY ARE WILD ANIMALS!

We’re back to square one, spraying the yard with fox urine and setting the trap. We caught a possum in that trap last nigh/this morning. I have an unopened Costco sized container of fox pee crystals and my next plan of attack is to leave large piles of it around all of the doors. I’m waiting to do this until the night before we leave for vacation to maximize the repellent. If this doesn’t work, well…I guess we have new pets.

Maybe I’ll call them Flim and Flam.

THE SECRET LIFE OF ALBUS THE CAT

Albus tends to shy away from strangers. He will walk through the pet door, through the kitchen and turn the corner into the living room. If he sees unfamiliar faces, that means six more weeks of winter. If our visitors have dogs with them, we won’t see Albus for the remainder of their visit. That is why I was surprised to see him stretched out on my bed Saturday night when Chad and Jess were here. Albus’s ear had a cut that was actively bleeding and a scratch over one eye. This is typical. We’ve seen this before on him. Michael went to move Albus from the bed so I could go to sleep, but I stopped him. “No, let him stay in here with me and Josephine tonight.”

Usually, this is a big no. I will say that Josephine and the cat do less arguing about who is going to sleep where these days, but two pets in the bed is bit much for me. I always wake up in the middle of the night, sweating because one of them is pressed the length of their body to my right side and the other has pressed the length of their body to my left. Which is exactly what happened on this night. Nothing unusual. The next day, I saw Albus laying in various places around the house. This too is normal. At bedtime the next evening, I noticed Albus curled up in the dog crate that is in my room. This is also normal. The crate is right next to a heater vent. This time, Michael put his foot down and went to remove the cat from the crate, but when Albus got up, we could see that he was walking with a serious limp.

Michael did a thorough check and nothing seemed broken or out of place. Albus was able to hop up to his food. He could hobble out side. The next day, he had even hobbled down to the basement. Monday evening, he hobbled over and got into my lap. I gently petted his head and asked him a string of questions that I wish he could answer. “Were you hit by a car?” “Were you attacked by a coyote?” “Was it an altercation with a raccoon?” “Can you tell us what happened to you?” He blinked and continued to purr, refusing to answer. When I moved the fur around on the back of his neck, I could see scratches. He acts like none of it bothers him, yet I have fretted over that dummy for days. I hate the not knowing, but I’m pretty convinced he was in an altercation with a big dog. I can imagine the wounds on the back of his neck was from being shook like a rag doll.

This morning, Albus was barely walking with a limp. He’s much improved. He was sitting in the kitchen looking pretty smug, watching me put away dishes. I looked down at him and asked “Are you plotting your revenge?” He yawned and swished his tail to the side. I’m pretty sure that means he is definitely plotting something.

ANIMALS

Last year was the first year where the veterinarian did not lecture me about Josephine’s weight. Every year we go in for her yearly exam, Josephine comes in two pounds over weight on the scale and then her doctor spends fifteen minutes telling me that Josephine needs to be eating the most expensive diet food. The year before last, I switched Josephine to a reasonably priced diet food. Except I felt bad about the dry kibble, so I started mixing a little wet food to give her a ‘gravy’. I fed it to her twice a day and the veterinarian said at the last wellness exam that Josephine’s weight was good. I fist pumped the air and gave Josephine an extra treat. We had entered into straight up lock down and I figured that all the walks we were taking would counter act the effects of extra treats that seemed to fall down from the sky for her.

And it did, until it didn’t.

When the cat had his car accident, we started feeding him cans of Fancy Feast, crack food for cats. We had been desperate to get him to eat anything. His body wilted down to a frail and skinny version of himself that had both of us terrified. So we fed him the crack and he ate it up as long as it wasn’t salmon flavored. Now the cat expects his Fancy Feast daily along with the dry kibble he used to eat. Basically, he never wants his bowl to be empty. The result is that the cat is no longer frail and skinny, but quite hefty. I said something to Michael about the other day and Michael said that the cat just looked fat because of all his winter hair. While it is true the cat’s winter coat has come in fierce and he even looks like he has a lion’s main, he is heavy. I had to pick him up and remove him from my bed recently and it was work. I watched the cat cross the backyard and find a place to settle near the fire pit. He looked massive. Then the cat and one of the chickens had a staring contest. I really thought that the cat was going to try to take down a chicken. He didn’t, but it was a tense staring match.

Josephine’s weight started increasing when she realized that she could reach the cat’s food bowl. The cat is a grazer and often leaves his food behind while he goes and takes a break. If you are not paying attention, Josephine will sneak into the kitchen and eat all the cat’s food. We know it is her because the cat never cleans a bowl and Josephine always leaves a happy plate. We’ve taken to setting the cat food bowl up on the kitchen counter when we think the cat’s finished eating, but now the cat gets up on the counter. So be it. I’ve adjusted Josephine’s evening meal to just plain old kibble. I have to stir the kibble around with my finger before I set it down for her to eat. The first time I just set the kibble down, she looked at me with her head cocked to the side in question. I picked up the bowl, swirled the kibble around and set it back down. She shrugged and then ate all of the kibble. My plan is to get Josephine down to whatever weight is needed so the vet won’t lecture me when I take her in for wellness exam in a few months. If pretending to mix in wet food with Josephine’s dry food gets us there, so be it.

It seems we live in a society where even our pets need be on special diets. I feel the same way about this as I feel about the food I put into my own body. I rarely over indulge. Meals are filled with greens and rarely come out of a box. I splurge on cheese and good chocolate. I enjoy the occasional potato chip. I don’t see why this philosophy can’t apply to Josephine. Forget the cat. We let him do what he wants. Josephine is more one of us. I don’t go overboard with treats for her. She gets two little biscuits in the morning before work. All other treats are things that fall onto the kitchen floor or at Micheal’s feet. Sure, she’s been known to steal half a sandwich or drink a whole bowl of unguarded cheese dip, but haven’t we all? I’m sure Josephine regrets all of her binge moments just as much I regret my own occasional binge moments.

Like I said. She’s one of us.

BEWARE ALL YE SMALL CREATURES WHO VISIT HERE

Wednesday

Michael went back to work this week and I am on a Tuesday/Thursday work day schedule. It has just been me, the dog and the chickens in this house this week. Some time the cat rolls and complains about the teaspoon of food that is missing from his already full bowl of food. Mostly it has been pretty quiet and kind of great. I play whatever music I want on Alexa. I only have my own dishes to wash at lunch time. No one gives me side-eye when I start dancing like Elaine Benes and I can plop my yoga mat down anywhere I want. Occasionally I look over from my desk to the window that used to house an air conditioning unit. I have a clear view of the chickens being chickens. It’s a nice view.

Except when it’s not.

Wednesday, I stood at the kitchen sink, staring out the kitchen window while I drank a kale and watermelon smoothie. I saw something dart around inside the chicken pen. A squirrel had gotten inside. The door was wide open, but this dummy started freaking out and literally bounced off the walls trying to find an escape. I just stood there watching and thinking surely the little guy will figure it out. Then I watched all four chickens walk into the pen to investigate. All four chickens ran out of their own pen squawking as that squirrel went on the defensive. Just as I set my smoothie down, Josephine headed out the door. She was inside the pen before I could stop her and the next few minutes were minutes of horror as I watched my sweet Josephine catch that squirrel and then shake it until it was mostly dead. I told her to take it out of the pen and then she trotted proudly out with the squirrel hanging out of her mouth and headed to the back door. I yelled “DON’T TAKE IT INSIDE!” She dropped it and then laid down next to it with a smug look of satisfaction.

I could see that the squirrel was still breathing, but there was no miraculous recovery going to happen here. I went inside and sent a text to Sarah and Jeff, my co-workers I chat with daily. I told them what happened and the squirrel wasn’t dead and I didn’t know what to do. Jeff replied first with “Finish it off. Get a shovel!” My shoulders slumped and I felt a little sick. Jeff was right. I was going to have to finish that squirrel off. I looked out the window to see Josephine tossing the limp body up into the air like it was her new best toy and then I gathered some supplies. By the time I made it back to the yard, the poor creature had finally stopped breathing. All that was left was scooping its body into a garbage bag. This, I know how to do. The cat’s given me apple experience with cleaning up the dead. I might just need to add ‘good at cleaning up the dead’ to my resume.

Look squirrels, you’re just not safe in this yard. Enter at your own risk.

MISSING

Long

9 Likes, 1 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "Long"

I haven't seen the cat since Saturday. His food bowl is half full, the level it was on Saturday. No one is eating his food, so it's not like he's sneaking in at night to eat. Michael and I take turns despondently looking from Albus's food bowl to the backyard. Josephine has searched the house every morning for him. Michael has posted on Nextdoor and Facebook about him, but so far we've heard nothing. I checked the animal control website today and found out that they do not pick up stray cats. He's either found a new family or something bad has happened to him. I'm really hoping it's the first thing. 

When I was a kid, we had a gray tabby named Tuffy. He was hilarious and the whole family loved him. He would lay at the top of the stairs and slide down them just like we used to do in sleeping bags. He liked to walk on the edge of the tub while you were taking a bath. Sometimes he would freak out and climb to the top of the floor to ceiling baluster of the staircase. Tuffy was one funny little cat. We had him fixed and declawed so he'd stop ruining Mom's furniture and permanently made him an indoor cat. One day, I was walking back from playing at one of our neighbors houses and I stepped up the steps to the back door. As I pulled the screen door open, something caught the corner of my eye at the edge of the steps. I looked over and there was Tuffy, sleeping in a brown paper bag. I started to say "Hey! What are you doing out here sleeping in that bag, you silly cat?" but then it dawned on me that he was not sleeping. Tuffy had gotten out of the house when no one was looking and was attacked by a stray dog. You know? I can still see every detail of how Tuffy looked 'sleeping' in that bag. 

Tuffy was the last cat I cared for. After that I was officially a dog person and only tolerated cats. I never begged Chris for a kitten. It was always "can we get a dog? can we get a dog? can we get a dog?" until he finally gave in. Then, when Michael fed a can of sardines to tiny white kitten, I shrugged my shoulders with indifference. I told Michael Albus was his cat even though I ended up feeding him and it was my lap he usually plopped down in. I have cursed that cat for all of the dead bunnies, squirrels, rats, and birds we have had to dispose of. I have snarled at all of the cat hair that I sweep up from our floors. I have done my best to remain indifferent to the cat. Michael said once that we should be prepared for the day Albus didn't come home. We know he leads an adventurous life of a wild animal and it is a dangerous world out there. He never really belonged to us as much as we have belonged to him. 

That doesn't mean I am not sad about the idea of him never coming home. I'm pretty sad about it. All three of us are. 

I FELL IN LOVE WITH LUIGI

I named him Luigi.

7 Likes, 1 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "I named him Luigi."

A week or so ago, Michael and I were driving around town when a commercial for the Missouri Alpaca Show came on the radio. I gasped and nearly screamed "DID YOU HEAR THAT?!?!?!" Michael gave me his sideways look he reserves for crazy people and said "I'm not sure what I heard." So I repeated the commercial information and emphasized that it was a FREE event with FREE parking. He sighed and said we could go if I wanted. If I wanted to go? Of course I wanted to go. Plus I knew that we would have the Cabbage that weekend and free alpaca show basically means free alpaca petting zoo. The night before we were supposed to go, Michael said to me "You know they're just going to try to sell you an alpaca. What are you going to say when they do?" I sat up straight and raised my right hand and said "I will tell them 'NO! We can't have an alpaca because we live in the city!'" Then I whispered "how much is the alpaca?"

Despite the possibility that I would most likely come home with an alpaca, Michael drove us all to the show on Saturday. The Cabbage had zero desire to go see alpacas, but once we were inside, she changed her tune. She went from the bored dead faced look that she will torture her mother with when she's a teen to a look of pure joy, exclaiming "OHMYGOD! They're all so cute!" And they were all so cute and soft and cuddly. Your soul just felt better, lighter, just by being in the same room as the alpacas. Michael also changed his mind about alpacas, moving from a stern 'NO!' to a maybe someday if we move to a place with more land because it turns out that alpacas need more space than what our backyard would provide. Also, you can't just get one alpaca. Alpacas need buddy alpacas and it is heart breaking to see them separated from their buddy. We watched as one guy pulled one of his alpacas from the pen to take to the showroom. The other alpacas in the pen tried to follow and one in particular stood staring at his buddy being lead away and let out a very quiet sad moaning sound. I almost cried out "For the Love of God! Take them together!" 

We didn't just cuddle alpacas. We learned that alpacas are very sweet and gentle. One even kissed the Cabbage on the nose for no other reason then because the Cabbage was there. They can be trained in agility and obedience and are very smart. We watched women from the local fiber guild process alpaca fiber and spin it into yarn. Some women were sitting around knitting. One woman had a table loom out and was giving demonstrations on how to use it. I watched and listened to her explain how to use this simple loom and realized that the real danger was not that I would buy an alpaca. If they had been selling looms at the Alpaca Show, I would have purchased one right then and there. Michael even said "you could do that while sitting around the campsite!" The loom folded up and could be stored easily. It was wide enough to make scarves and shawls. I've been talking about trying to teach yoga classes at some of the campgrounds when we travel. I could sell scarves and shawls too! I could be a real traveling hippy girl! 

We left the alpaca show without an alpaca, even though Luigi smiled at me beguilingly. There was one alpaca farm there advertising alpacas as the 'next best thing to a unicorn'. If I were to have my own ashram, you would spend time caring and communing with alpacas and your daily meditation practice would be working a loom. Then you would spend more time communing with the alpacas, listening to their gentle hums of peace and acceptance.

Alpacas might just be better than a unicorn. 

THE ANIMALS ARE WINNING

White cat/black dog

"White cat/black dog"

Josephine is ornery. I mean, not all the time, but I spent most of Sunday picking up pieces of shredded Kleenex, moping up leftover tomato soup and explaining how we do not pull garbage out of the trash can. I know she ate at least half of a bagel because she came in with the other half, hunting around for a hiding place. She has discovered that she is just tall enough to pull trash out of a full trash can. She spent diligent time practicing this skill even after Michael chased her with the trash can while banging it around with the hopes of making the trash can into the scariest thing. Now, the trash can is a little scary, but not scary enough for her to keep her from stealing delicious treats off the top. When she wasn't stealing garbage, she was in the backyard shredding the seat off of one of chairs in the backyard or trying to drag the cat around by his hind leg. I don't know what her deal was, but she had a definite bee up her butt. 

In about three weeks, Josephine will be one years old. She is still very much a puppy. I have taught her sit, down and off and for the most part, she's pretty good with those things. Coming when she's called works most of the time unless she has something in her mouth she knows she's not supposed to have. Yesterday, that object happened to be one of my slippers. We did a hostage style trade with her toy turtle. At least he squeaks; the slipper is just soft. She's not a bad dog. I'm making it sound like she's a holy terror. Most of the time she just wants to chew on a toy while you pet her. Lately she's been waking me up around 4 AM to go outside and when she comes back in I just let her stay out of the crate. She curls herself into a ball at the foot of the bed and keeps my feet warm. She is a lovable crazy hot mess of a dog. 

One of my goals for the new year is to spend some time doing some serious obedience training with her. I have the know how. It's just been a hundred years since I've had to use that know how. In the meantime, we will be investing in a new trash can with a lid and maybe some puzzle treat toys. Now if I could only train the cat. This morning I walked into the kitchen to find worm parts and guts smeared all over the kitchen floor. This evening I came home to a cat who looked like he had rolled around in a mud puddle. I'm not sure what to do about that since Michael and I value our skin too much to attempt bathing him.