A Tail of Two Kitties

It was the best of felines – it was the worst of felines.

Oh!  It  actually hurt to write that – I mean, even I thought it was woefully corny, and I generally let some pretty corny things past the gate.  Ah, well.  As I’ve never let that get in the way before, there’s no reason to break with tradition over this wee point.

By the way, Happy Beethoven’s Birthday!  (With thanks to Schroeder for reminding me).

As I am writing  this, I’m chewing a Rice Krispies Double Chocolaty Chunk Marshmallow Square sent by my wife’s Aunt Grace.  Aunt Grace, you are truly evil! (he says while taking another bite).

Back to the cats.

We have two of them.  They are the same breed, that being Rescue Cat.   

The elder, Ms. Skittle is a long hair common tabby with a healthy dose of miniature mane coon.  I say that carefully, because this petite wee miss is anything but ‘common’.  Just ask her.  She is The Mistress Skittle – Queen of all she surveys.  She is petite, elegant, demure, soft-spoken, mature, and very, very lady like.  I found her crying in a pile of leaves in an abandoned apartment’s walk out sunken patio when she could have been no more than six or 7 weeks old.  I was smitten, she was willing to settle; after the old geezer had to be better than starving in a pile of leaves if he could be trained to fill the food and water bowls and clean the litter box regularly.  I am uncertain as to who rescued whom, but she knows the answer for a fact.  Ms. Skittle is a matronly 7 ½ human years now.

Then there is the Jazz Cat.  From a home filled with other felines, she boldly walked up to Linda and said “Hmmmm – I choose…YOU!  Kindly take me home and feed me.  Now, please.  DO IT!”  They called her Crybaby.  We call her Jazzy.  Her secret cat name is Beastie from the Night Terrors.  Jazabel is two.  She alternates between grooming Ms. Skittle and trying to kill her.  Her breed is part minx, part Leopard, and she is distantly related to Macavity: The Mystery Cat and the two evil Siamese from Lady and the Tramp.  She tears through the house like a cat bullet, or can be found sleeping – usually stretched her entire almost 4-foot length on Linda’s mother’s bed.  She adores Linda’s mother and ‘her human’, and tolerates me as one would any other furniture that came with the house.  She has figured out how to open the sliding door to Linda’s Mother’s bedroom closet and close it behind her from the inside.  She has either not yet worked out that the reverse also works, or perhaps just likes hiding in the dark.  Not only has she discovered that kitties can also use the doggie door, but that she, unlike the canine beastie dwelling here, can climb the fence, and not only that, there is a huge world to explore out there, from which she can bring offerings to her human, mostly in the form of lizards, leaves, moths and large roaches called palmetto bugs.  For this, she has been grounded.  She is not pleased.

I asked Ms. Skittle what she’d like for Christmas, and she said “Find Jazabel a nice home.”  I heard her tell Jazzy, in little cat whispers,  “You know, next time you want out, I’ll distract the humans, and you could just run away and not come back.” 

Oh, ever so subtle are the wee beasties.

But there are those times – they snuggle sleepily together – at opposite ends of the couch back or opposing corners of the bed (hence, the term, kitty-corner) and all is right with the world.

They agree on only one thing – neither will be dressed up for cute Christmas Pet Pictures.