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.

WHAT TIME IS IT?

I fed the bird

See this Instagram photo by @elephant_soap * 1 like

This was a weird morning and it had nothing to do with the live bird Albus brought into the house (the second morning in row that he has done this). This is what has become normal in my daily life; collecting the living and half dead animals that Albus drags into this house. The thing that unsettled me on this particular morning was that the sun was mostly up when my alarm went off at 5:50 AM and so was Michael. I don't know which part of that threw me off the most. Michael usually has an alarm that goes of for twenty or thirty minutes and me telling him that it is time to get up before he ever gets up. Ten minutes to six usually just seems darker. Michael was up and he made himself breakfast while I was in the shower. And when Albus brought the bird in this morning, I made him deal with it because he had on pants and I still did not have on a bra. I win. 

I was slightly confused the whole rest of the morning. Even though I was on time (meaning ten minutes early), I still thought I was late by at least an hour. Morning traffic usually runs in waves with busy times varying between seven and eight. My road connects to Hwy 71 and cars coming off that highway stream down the road, paced just far enough apart to make it a little difficult to leave my driveway. There's also a kid that walks to the school bus who is almost always standing in the middle of my driveway when I go to back my car out of the drive. I will admit that there was one very frightening morning when I almost hit him with my car. I am uber vigilant now. This morning there was no traffic and there was no kid. In fact the ride to work was pretty easy except for when that cop pulled out into traffic and every one slowed down to twenty five miles an hour in a thirty five mile an hour zone. You are not going to get a ticket for going the speed limit people! I didn't even get one for practically running that super yellow light and I was right behind the cop. 

Then I realized it's Summer. No school. There's still some light in skies when I go to bed and there's light when I get up in mornings. It has finally decided to stop being monsoon season around here and I have to water the plants. The weather app says it's going to be ninety degrees on Thursday. Ninety! I'm toying with the idea of surprising Michael and the Cabbage with a cheap inflatable pool. Last night, I watched Josephine chase a firefly around the backyard and I thought that maybe it was time I smelled like bug spray and sunscreen. Then we could just hang out in the backyard chasing fireflies together. My legs are covered in mosquito bites already. I wore shorty shorts yesterday and blinded every one in the grocery store with my winter white legs. 

It is all glorious. 

LOVE THURSDAY

Albus is enjoying some TV time.

"Albus is enjoying some TV time."

I am not a cat person. I've always slightly clashed with their indifferent attitudes and the way they love you one minute and then want to claw your face off the next. Then Michael fed a little white kitten a can of sardines and the next thing you know, we're owners of a white cat who is for the most part indifferent to our existence. He's very loving when his food bowl is low. Other than that, we rarely see him. He prefers to hang out in the basement or on a shelf in the garage that is just out of Josephine's reach. In the evenings he will come into the dinning room and sit or lay behind a piece of furniture with only a paw or tail visible for taunting Josephine (do you see a theme?). We originally had named him Albadine because it rhymed with sardines and Josephine, but when we realized she was a he, we adjusted the name to Albus. He may or may not recognize this as his name because most of the time I just call him "cat" as if I were Holly Golightly. 

Albus has access to outside, but I've never seen him venture out further than the back step and garden area until recently. He's been hanging out in the front yard lately. I think Michael and I are just waiting for the day Albus decides we aren't his people after all and steps out into the world never to be seen again. He sticks around because we feed him. This weekend we put two bowls full of food out and plenty of water and left Albus all on his own. The benefit of having a cat. They seem to take care of themselves. I figured he wouldn't really miss us and might even enjoy a break from the dog. So I was not prepared for the onslaught of love that greeted us when we came home Monday evening. Albus rubbed his head on my shins. He has rubbed his whole body up the full length of Josephine and I am sure Michael has received the same treatment. Albus actually jumped up on the couch to touch his nose to my face before walking over to do the same to Michael. That's the first time he has ever climbed up into my lap. 

I figured once I filled his almost empty food bowl up, he'd chill out, but nope. He runs figure eights around my legs as I move through the house in the mornings. Josephine has a habit of grabbing one of her toys and hanging out behind me on the bathroom mat as I get ready and  now both of them are in there. Albus prefers the toilet seat lid or the lip of the bathtub or even flattening himself out on the middle shelf of our bathroom trash can/organizer. I guess you can say that our absence has made his heart grow fonder. Which is sweet. It's made my heart soften a bit towards that darn cat. We might just be unofficial cat people after all. 

Happy Love Thursday!