Jen's Crazy Cats

I love cats! As an adult, I have been “Mom” to six different cats, and all of them have had their quirks! Is that a surprise to anyone that I have weird cats? Back in my early married years, my husband would joke around with people. He said that he had heard that if you give your wife a pet, that extends her desire to have kids by two years. By the time we were six years married, we had no kids and 3 cats! I guess it worked! Ha.



Sherlock



Our first two cats were a boy named Sherlock and a girl named Misty. Sherlock investigated everything and Misty was a pretty, long-haired gray cat. These two little fur balls cracked me up. There were so active, and yet they loved to be held. I remember one day (not too long after we got them) I was holding Misty upside down. Now, although I have had cats in my past, I was not too familiar with how to tell if cats where boys or girls. You’d think being married would have given me a clue on some of the parts! As I was holding my fuzzy baby girl, I saw something that surprised me. Suddenly I have grabbed my boy Sherlock, and I had them both turned upside down in my lap. Sure enough -- they matched! I still wasn’t completely sure about Misty, but we went ahead and started calling “her” Mystery (because it was becoming a mystery as to what sex this cat was). Not too long after that I got confirmation that my girl cat was actually a boy. Being two boys sure didn’t stop them from “play acting” -- especially in the middle of the living room when we had guests over! I guess that was giving me practice dealing with embarrassment for years later when both of my kids ran downstairs completely naked when I had friends over! By the way, I now know for certain how to tell a girl cat from a boy cat!



Mystery



Christmas time arrived and my husband and I decorated our 5-foot, artificial Christmas tree. It was a thing of beauty with tons of ornaments and strings of tinsel. The cats thought so too! Our biggest mistake was to place the tree at the end of our long sofa. The cats used the sofa as a launch ramp! They ran across the top of the sofa, jumped into the tree, and slid down (bringing ornaments and tinsel down with them)! Wheeeeeee! Oh my goodness! By the middle of December, I had to redo the Christmas tree. From 3 feet down, the tree was completely bare and all of the limbs where pointed down. I re-bent the artificial limbs and redecorated the bottom of the tree. This was all for nothing. By the time Christmas arrived, the bottom of the tree was bare again! We learned never to use tinsel (we think that was the main attraction) and never to place our future Christmas trees at the end of such wonderful launch ramps called sofas.

My husband and I decided to take our cats to the park one day. We put leashes on both of the cats. Next we tied a rope to the end of Mystery’s leash, threw the rope over a thick branch of a large tree, and finally tied the other end of the rope to Sherlock’s leash. This way they could roam without getting too far away from us. We set out a blanket and had a relaxing afternoon talking and playing card games. Mystery, our less active cat, spent a lot of his time lying next to us on the blanket. Sherlock, on the other hand, had to investigate everything! At one point, Sherlock found a flying insect and took off! Before we react, Sherlock had gone the length of his rope and all of the slack from Mystery’s rope. Poor Mystery didn’t see if coming! Suddenly he was jerked halfway off the ground. If a cat could have a surprised look, Mystery had it! I quickly grabbed his leash and kept him from being dangled. Bless his heart! I believe it was about this time that we decided to unhook the “children” and take them home.

About five years after we got Sherlock and Mystery, we moved from California to Virginia. By then we had a third cat -- a black cat named Chelsi. Our trip across the states was done in a Uhaul with our vehicle towed behind. We placed all three cats and their litterbox in the back of our vehicle. (It was a Rocky which didn’t last long in the US. It looked a lot like a jeep.) As we talked with the vet before we left, she mentioned that we needed to keep lots of water on hand (jugs of it). We would be driving through the desert for several hundred miles. Apparently cats don’t sweat. She said that if it was getting too hot, we would need to pour water on the cats. Really? Have you ever thought, “Hey, I want to hold a cat while I pour water on him?” Uh, no….at least not if you want your arm intact. It’s good thing that we brought the jugs of water, though. We ran out of gas in the desert! My husband took off to get gas, and I was left alone with our three cats for three hours. As it was getting warmer, I decided that I better do what the vet suggested. Thankfully, none of the cats took off when I held them. The large trucks rumbling by scared the cats enough to realize I was their only safety. They didn’t like having water poured on their bellies, but at least I didn’t end up with my arms in shreds. I did this at least once or twice and hour. Mystery was the problem; although, I didn’t know it at the time. Mystery’s attempt to hide once he was in the car was to crawl into the litter box and lie down in there. The litter was clumping litter. Mystery had long hair that I had just soaked with water. Let me put those two together for you -- by the time Mystery came out of the litter box, he had large clumps of litter dangling from the ends of all his long fur! He looked like a Christmas tree with little dirt ornaments surrounding his body! Later that night I tried to brush out the clumps, but some of them held on tight. In fact, Mystery’s fur was never the same after that. We finally gave in and let his new vet give him a Lion Cut (most of his body shaved). I’m including a picture so that you can see how silly he looked! Poor boy. The first time he put his bare bottom on our cold floor, he jerked it up so fast! It took him awhile to get used to his new hairless body.

I loved those two cats (and the four others that have become additional family members). Mystery was my cuddly one - he would actually wrap himself around my neck or just fall asleep on top of me. Sherlock was my intuitive one. When I had those awful surgeries in the first couple years of my married life, Sherlock always knew when I was sad and would just lie in my lap and purr. That was a comfort. Sherlock and Mystery (and Chelsi and JR) are gone now, but we definitely enjoy the antics of the two gals currently taking over our home and hearts -- Boo and Megan. Life is never dull when you have a cat!