With the primary wars over, it’s time for a change. Pooties rule!
As some of you know, we share a home with my 88-year-old Dad. We always had cats, but after Mom’s beloved trio of flame point Siamese crossed the Rainbow Bridge, they didn’t adopt new kitties, so Dad has been cat-deprived for 15 years. Now that he’s up here with us, he has 4 feline companions to choose from, and he’s been having a ball.
At least one or two of them spend part of every afternoon sleeping on the couch in his den—and often they are ensconced in his lap. They’re remarkably careful with him. The Packhorse explained to the 23 pound brown tabby, Torachan, that he’s too heavy to sit on Dad’s lap, so he stays on the couch or the floor, crouching at Dad’s feet or lying on his back with his front paws tucked under chin (it’s amazing how cute a cat that size can look if he really puts his mind to it). Mike (pronounced "Mee-kay", the Japanese word for a calico), our pudgy bobtail calico, was told she can sit on his lap, but she isn’t allowed to rub her face against his doing "kissy-kissy), and she has limited herself to cuddling on his lap and petting his hands. Our cats understand English (and some Japanese) quite well, and I suspect that if they had the right equipment, they’d speak it a lot better than my brother-in-law.
Dad’s favorite pootie, though, is the yo8gnest member f the foursome, our little black female (with a white thong) named Morgana because she’s a witchy kitty, the perfect Halloween cat and my familiar.. The Packhorse rescued her from the parking lot near his old place of employment; she was half-starved and scared stiff. Her owners apparently abandoned her there. She had a rough few months for a while—our elderly Russian blue bullied her unmercifully but she finally started fighting back. She is still shy and tends to hide under our bed whenever new people show up or a crowd arrives. She was leery of Dad for the first month or so. Until we got his hearing aid fixed, he kept the volume of his TV cranked up to approximately the decibel level of a Spinal Tap concert, and the noise level alone kept her away from him. Gradually, though, she adjusted, and would sit in the living room on the back of the couch though she wouldn’t come near him. He figured out that if he approached from the rear, he could pet her before she realized it was him, and he slowly won her over. Once we moved into this house, she started climbing into his lap. Many of her afternoons now are spent in his den, keeping him company. If she doesn’t come in, he comes looking for her. If he can’t find her, he worries,, even though she doesn’t go outdoors ever (she’s mildly agoraphobic; to her "outside" means being cold and wet and hungry and abandoned, so she didn’t much care to go out even in my MiL’s fenced yard). He’s not happy till she’s been located.
But perhaps the most touching thing she does is walk beside him. She keep pace with him, as if she had been trained to heel. Sometimes she gets a bit ahead of him ( Dad has Parkinson’s , and tends to walk very slowly and to shuffle a bit), and then she will stop and turn to see how far behind he is, and she’ll wait till he catches up. No one taught her to do this. She simply began doing it on her own.
She’s still my kitty and my familiar, but I am more than willing to share her with Dad because she gives him so much pleasure.
Got any favorite pootie tales? Feel free top share ‘em here. Only rule is, no politics and no anti-cat comments.