From March 10, 2016
Does your cat get along with your technology? Watch this little character’s eyes get wider and wider as she tries to let this printer know who’s boss.
My cat, Peep, has been fascinated with fragile machinery ever since she got up on top of the refrigerator somehow–I don’t know how–as a kitten, wormed her way inside the box containing my ice cream-making machine, and brought the whole thing crashing down to the floor. Peep escaped uninjured. My ice cream maker didn’t.
Our cat Missy loved my pipe cleaners. She especially loved playing “fetch” with them, and never outgrew it. Sometimes she would growl as she wrestled the pipe cleaner into submission. Oh, I miss that little girl!
I think of our cat Peep as such a benign little soul. But that’s only till she has to see the vet.
She has a fearsome reputation there. Such a sweet, jolly cat–and she turns into the Tasmanian Devil on a bender.
But first you’ve got to get her there. She yowls and cries the whole way there, 20 solid minutes of it. The same thing, coming back: but by now she’s so upset, she throws up in her carrier. And I’m about ready to dive out of the car. There has to be a better way than this to spend the morning.
She wasn’t there for any painful or difficult procedure. Just a check-up, with some blood work. So why does she go positively crackers over any visit to the vet? Her sister, Robbie, is not much better. These cats just can’t stand a visit to the doctor.
What’s so horrible about it? I don’t get it. I mean, I know what’s so horrible about it for me, but why are the cats so fantastically upset?
I have to say that all the cats I’ve ever had were the same way. Only my rats and my iguana could face the doctor with equanimity. (I have always wanted to use that word.) Poor Buster practically declawed himself, trying to escape from the carrier.
Do veterinarians know how much cats hate and fear them?
It just doesn’t seem fair.
I have to take Peep to the vet this morning, my wife has a whole list of things she wants checked.
I’ve been experiencing below-average viewer numbers lately, which makes me wonder if I’ve done something wrong–so I’m leaving Byron the Quokka in charge. He says he can get those numbers up. I’m sure he’s eager to impress me. We’ll see if he can make it happen.
“Have fun!” he says.
There are some cats who would not be amused.
This is our cat, Robbie, as she appeared in The Old Farmer’s Almanac some years ago. Now that’s fame! I’ve never had my picture in the Farmer’s Almanac–have you?
Robbie’s bigger now, but she still maintains that solemn expression on her face. I’m happy to say that her celebrity has not gone to her head. She remains the same lovable cat we’ve known all along.
I’m afraid that that much fame would have quite overthrown my reason; but Robbie handles it well.
This is shameful. I know I’m being manipulated by my cats, and yet they succeed in manipulating me anyway. Neither of them has yet jumped onto my head while I’m brushing my teeth, but they do try to stop me writing.
Meow. Meow. Meow. It’s like the water torture. Robbie is agitating for cat food. I say, “Do you think I don’t know how full of it you are? Do you think I don’t know that as soon as I serve up the food, you’ll walk away and let Peep eat it all, so you can keep on bugging me?” Meow, she explained.
Except at mealtime, Robbie totally dominates Peep. Then the food is put out, and she turns into the incredible shrinking violet. All right, this time Peep didn’t eat it all, so now Robbie’s having some.
*Sigh* Back to work. If they’ll let me.
Cats sometimes behave like they’re convinced they can do absolutely anything that pops into their heads. Their athletic ability lets them get into predicaments that would never befall a human being. Some of these they can get out of.
Our cat, Peep, when she was a kitten, somehow got up on top of the refrigerator–I didn’t know she could fly!–then got inside the plastic bag containing my ice cream-making machine, and then caused the whole shootin’ match to come crashing to the floor. Happily, she emerged totally unscathed; but my ice cream-making days were over.
This video was sent to me by the Robbie & Peep Marching & Chowder Society as proof that my two cats aren’t so bad, comparatively speaking.
Obviously cats have been around human beings way too long, and have picked up a lot of iffy habits from us. The poor honest dogs don’t know what to make of it.
My wife is in love with this noisy little character, so here he is: Ollie the talkative Siamese kitten. By now he has grown up to be a talkative cat.
Shouldn’t let him bite, though. It reminds me of how I used to think it was so cute to get down on all fours and encourage Buster the kitten to ride on my back. He really took to it, and when he was a full-grown very big cat, he’d hop on anybody’s back. That did not always go over very well.
Don’t worry–it’s not about cats lying, running for public office and then betraying the cats who voted for them. Cats will never learn to imitate the finer points of fallen humanity.
But they can imitate certain things they see us do. My cat Henry used to try to horn in when I was playing Strat-O-Matic Baseball; but his idea of the game was to flip the little plastic men to the floor and bat them under the bookcase, and I couldn’t have that. You should have heard the back-talk he’d give me.
Anyway, let’s unwind. Join me in enjoying these cats.