My 2003 Entries About Fred

January 07, 2003
Have I mentioned Fred is what I call a cuddle bum? When I lie down on the sofa bed to read or watch television, he is immediately there lying on top of me. He closes his eyes in pure bliss while doing paddle paws or gazes at his handsome reflection in the nearby mirror. If I don’t notice him right away, he gives me a knuckle nosh to get my attention where it belongs…on him.

He is also addicted now to television. Any animal show has him sitting in front of the TV. Yesterday, he blocked my view during most of a car race while he tried to catch the cars roaring off the left side of the set. At other times, he will give me his opinion of what I’m watching by sitting sit on top of the set and letting his tail drop down to obscure the picture. Subtle, he isn’t!

He recently displayed an endearing habit that proved to me cats can feel the emotion of their humans. There had been a baby fly hovering on my computer monitor, and I tried to gently brush it off with my eyeglass case. I accidentally killed it and felt like Norman Bate’s mother. Adult flies are fair game, but this was only a tiny little thing, and it did upset me. Fred, ever since that episode, has taken over the task of bug removal and does a darn good job of it. When he spots a fly, he will race and jump as high as he can to reach it. A cricket got into the front room somehow, and Fred stalked it until it disappeared to safety under the cat castle.

I think Fred knows I’m writing about him for he’s sitting on top of the office TV watching me.

February 25, 2003
A few days ago I bought a CD by Lifescapes at Target called Rain and Thunder. For the last two nights, I’ve played the 30-minute CD to relax when first going to bed. It’s wonderful with what sounds like rain falling on leaves and thunder grumbling in the background. I would prefer a loud rousing thunderstorm, but I’ll take what I can get.

The only drawback is Fred also loves it. The CD unit is in back of my bed on a shelf, and Fred insists on sitting on my pillow facing the stereo speaker with his fat bum next to my face. Because Fred enjoys eating, he has what I call BBS or big butt syndrome. This is the same cat who stays inside during sunny weather but manages to escape outside when it’s raining. He will race all over the front yard collecting every bit of rainwater he can on his undercarriage before coming in to share it with me.

March 13, 2003
Today I was reminded of the episode where Mr. Carlson threw turkeys out of a plane one Thanksgiving, only to find out they don’t fly. Well, I can attest to the fact that turkeys DO fly.

Our little country road has recently been infested by wild turkeys going from yard to yard. I was out this morning loading my car for a dump run when I saw a female turkey in the yard across the road. She jumped up to the top of a six-foot fence and took off flying across the road into my neighbor Jerry’s yard. It was quite a sight…huge wings and flying so close to the ground. It’s a good thing Jerry and his wife aren’t home right now. Unlike me, he doesn’t welcome strange animals in his yard.

A second turkey, a bigger male this time, suddenly appeared where the female had been. Fred, who had been enjoying the sun on top of my car, suddenly sat up and was only kept from bird hunting by my lunging and holding on to him tightly. That would be just what I needed, a cat dragging a wild turkey home as a present to me.

Now, I wonder if that old saying of pigs flying could also be in error.

April 29, 2003
That rotten, turkey turd of a scuz cat escapes outside in the evening whenever he can. Tonight, as I was leaving out food for whatever animals come by during the night, Fred the stinker ducked between my legs out the open front door and took off at warp 10 through the tall grass.

This time, I thought I’d try another approach to catching him since none of the others have worked so far. Fred always races from whatever room in our home he is in when I turn on and use my office printer. This defenseless piece of machinery is quickly sat on by Fred while he attacks the paper coming out.

There is no way, however, he could hear the printer chugging away in the office at the back of the house while he was outside in the front yard. To get around this, I simply found my dusty little tape recorder and recorded the sound of the printer. With the volume turned up fully, I played the recorder at the open front window. I hid so Fred wouldn’t notice me and take off running again.

I could see him come out from the well shed to investigate the sound and watched as he jumped up to the board outside the window. As soon as his furry black body was fully in the house, I slammed the window shut, trapping him safely inside.

Now, I doubt if this trick will work more than once or twice, but I’ve been walking around with chest puffed up proudly for FINALLY outsmarting a cat, if only this once.

May 04, 2003
While Richard, the man I’d hired to work on my front yard, was planting three bottle brush bushed near the driveway, I was out there greeting all the dogs being taken for walks on my little country road.

There was Stout, a rather chunky corgi, who loves chasing Fred. His human, David, is in the process of training Stout to voice commands that he says work except near my house. Stout will see me from way down on the road and race up to greet me, ears lying flat against his head and his short legs pumping like mad to get to me. A quick head rub from me, and Stout is off searching the yard for Fred.

My big black Fred is usually out lazing in the tall grass but jumps up to meet Stout half way. Nose and butt sniffing then goes on as the two friends say hello. I am SO glad humans greet each other with simple handshakes and not this way.

Next down the street comes Happy, a Westie. I don’t know his human’s name, but Happy lives up to his name. After I bend down to be given wet doggie kisses, I had to eventually go inside to wash my face. Happy is a sweet but moist little dog.

The best is yet to come. Shadow, a teeny tiny white poodle, comes jauntily down the road followed by his human, Beverly. Shadow is missing teeth (maybe that’s why I like him so much). This causes his tongue hangs out of the side of his mouth making him look a bit silly. Shadow is 21 years old. That’s dog years, which is 147 in people years, but he doesn’t look a day over 105. Today, he ended up helping Richard by coming over to one of the freshly planted bushes and fertilizing it. The poor puppy probably couldn’t figure out why three silly humans were laughing.

All this time, Harvey, the spaniel from next door, was constantly escaping from underneath his fence gate to come greet all the other dogs. All in all, I had a great dog day afternoon. Life is good!

June 30, 2003
Fred saw his first horse today. He was sitting at the screen window looking out at our road when he suddenly came to attention. I swear every cell in his cat body was aquiver; his nose was twitching like the nose of a rabbit, his ears were pointed straight forward, and his tail stood straight out without any movement.

Not sure what was going on to bring on these reactions, I looked out the window and saw two horses being led down the road almost at my yard. When they did get to the yard, one horse kept going. The other, a large grayish horse with a huge head, stopped and gazed back at the entranced cat and human. It felt like a magical moment as we three different species of animal communicated for a minute or so. It would be fun if I could read a cat’s mind, particularly what Fred must be thinking while he added the sight of a horse to his collection of cats, dogs, little birds, turkeys, and people.

I’ve been seriously considering buying a harness and leash so he could go outside for walks with me and see even more critters. After pondering the pros and cons of this idea, I made a trip in the afternoon to PetsMart and bought a leash and pretty red harness with rhinestones on it. The hope is that I can train Fred to walk quietly up and down our country road to get the lure of the outside out of his system.

After reading the instructions on where to put what, I placed the harness around Fred’s ample tummy and around his neck. At this point, four legs and paws started to windmill and fight his pretty new harness. Meanwhile, I was being given EXREMELY dirty cat looks from him. Fred isn’t much of a talker, thank goodness, or I would have been rewarded with some nasty cat swear words. However, he made his point with those looks. My feelings were definitely hurt!

When he settled down a bit on the sofa, I moved in quickly and clipped the leash to the harness and plopped him on the floor. What came next couldn’t really be called walking the cat; it was more like dragging the cat upside-down and backwards across the floor. I’d set him back up on his feet, start walking, and he would become boneless again. This went on for about 10 minutes before I finally admitted I’d lost the first round.

If my neighbors ever saw what I’ve gone through so far today with him, my reputation, such as it is of being a normal person, would be shot to pieces. I’ll try again later today. I’m bigger than Fred and more stubborn (I think), so I will win this battle sooner or later.

July 02, 2003
This morning, determined to leash train him, I buckled Fred in and took him outside for a few minutes. He would slink over to a spot in the yard with me quietly leaping to keep up. We’d stay there for a few minutes, and he’d flatten his ears back on his head to slink forward a few more steps ahead of me to once again stop. I feel we are making progress, sort of. I did find out a cat’s head can turn almost 180 degrees backwards. This is what Fred does when he tries to eat the harness on his back.

When I brought him back in after this drag, race, and stop workout, I put the harness and attached leash on top of the cat castle. A few minutes later while I was out in the kitchen, I heard the sound of something fairly light hitting the floor. With my heightened ability to read sneaky cat minds, I returned to the library. There was Fred, leash in his mouth, pulling the instrument of torture the length of the floor. He didn’t notice I was standing in the doorway and proceeded to hide his trophy behind a bookshelf. When he looked up and saw me watching him, this innocent look came over his face, as if to say, “It wasn’t me!”

Later in the afternoon, after giving up on trying to train Fred, I felt as if I was in the middle of Hitchcock’s The Birds. There had been a flock of small birds going absolutely crazy outside in the back of my home. They would fly by, swooping over and over, about 20 times. After buzzing my roof, they would head to the field in back of my property, and then return from another direction, pretending to be a bunch of Red Barons. This went on for about 15 minutes.

I went out there to see for myself what was going on and was followed all the way to the back yard by Fred. Suddenly, he raced by me as if all the furies of hell were on his tail and jumped straight up in the air. I didn’t see it, but I bet he got dived at by a bird or two. It must be nesting season or something. Hopefully, it doesn’t mean an earthquake is coming.

It was quite a sight, but a bit eerie. My neighborhood seems to have gone to the birds lately. I love to go outside with my coffee just at dawn to hear all the song birds tuning up their voices. Of course, the wild turkeys gobbling and that dratted peacock the next road over screaming plus a big-mouth rooster aren’t what I’d call song birds.

August 20, 2003
Having lived with cats for all my life, I’ve found that all a cat really needs a human for is to provide food, water, a litter box, a sunny place to sleep, and an occasional cuddle or two of course at the discretion of the cat. What we get back, though, far outweighs the cost of some kitty litter and food. A motorboat of a purr, paddle paws on a body part, a soft lick on the nose by a sandpaper tongue gives us humans the better part of the deal, in my biased opinion.

Fred had been acting like a little angel lately, and I praised him yesterday for his good behavior. I spoke too soon. When I walked into the office this morning, it was flooded with light. The two back windows that meet in the left corner of the room had been denuded during the night of their curtains. Sitting on top of the cat’s bed shelf under one of the windows was Fred, sound asleep in the nest he’d made of the pink curtains. He made such a pretty picture I didn’t have the heart to scold him.

I wouldn’t have minded so much, but with no curtains up, I saw washing the windows was LONG overdue. This also inspired me to rearrange the office since I’d been thinking of doing it for a few weeks now. I wonder if Fred was once again reading my mind and simply helping me get started on this project.

Have I mentioned the mystery critter eating out of one of the kitchen sink drawers? It must have come inside from under the sink. To try and catch it, I’ve left a small dish of water along with various types of food in this drawer, but still have no idea what the new critter is. I do know it likes Cheet-Os as do all my animals, and it also eats lettuce and lemon cookies that I’ve put in the drawer for it. After it ate almost all my small package of licorice, it tired of that and left the few scraps for me to throw away.

It doesn’t really eat a lot. A few pieces of lettuce, half the lemon cookie, and a couple Cheet-Os seem to fill the critter up. At least it’s getting a balanced diet. I hope some day to find out what type of new animal I have. Anything would be okay, except I really, really hope it’s not some type of snake. I wonder, do snakes like lemon cookies?

September 18, 2003
After being in the hospital and rehab for three weeks, due to surgery for a benign brain tumor, I returned home to find Fred fat and sassy, despite my worries about him while I was away. My neighbor Jerry from next door was kind enough to feed him, and I doubt if Fred even knew I wasn’t there. However, I seriously missed my furry buddy and spent the rest of the day kitty cuddling.

The walker frame I have to use for a while to help with my balance is confusing Fred, but he seems to sense it would be best if he kept his distance whenever I attempted to ever-so-slowly move around our small home. I also missed my computer, but will only write a little bit today before returning to bed.

October 29, 2003
The people across the road just got a couple of horses a few weeks ago. I love watching the horses racing around the field in back of the house. The sound of them talking to each other carries on the wind over to my place.

Well, today the horses got free and were racing up and down the road. All the men in the area came out to try and catch them, while we women stood on the side of the road cheering on both the horses and the men. I looked over my shoulder at one point and saw a fascinated Fred sitting inside the house at the window watching the “big cats” go by.

Later in the day, I finally have my new, fancy, oscillating lawn sprinkler figure out, even down to what it is called. It took me a couple weeks, but then I’m definitely not good with complicated mechanical items like this. I put it out in the dry front yard and let it run for about an hour. It was great, and I sat inside watching the water hit the front room window just like it really was raining. The spray coming in through the screen window landed on my bare legs and felt fantastic.

When I figured the yard was no longer a fire hazard, I went outside to turn it off only to be met by a wet Fred who hadn’t moved quickly enough. You don’t know being miffed until you see a damp pussy glaring at you from underneath the sanctuary of a car. Of course my laughing at his bedraggled condition didn’t set well with him either. I tried to tell him life is great…if you can run fast enough, but he didn’t believe me.

November 11, 2003
Fred has been sick lately with a cold, but is back on the mend now. However, still a bit wonky in his legs, he is having problems jumping from the floor up to the work areas here in the office. He is able to jump up on other places, but the slippery edges of the tables are just too much for him. This morning, he found a way around this.

As I was concentrating on what I was working at on my computer, I felt him jump up and land on my back, run over my shoulder, and finally jump on the table beside the keyboard. Twice since then, he has used this way of getting up. He gets excellent traction since he digs his claws into my back just before shoving off and flying over my shoulder. If I had warning before he does this, it might not be so painful, but he’s very sneaky and quiet when he comes into the office. I think he’s enjoying doing this to get back at me for not letting him outside during his recent illness. He is NOT happy about being kept inside.

I’ll never believe that cats are dumb animals; he worked out this way all on his own. Now if he’d just learn it’s not nice to sit on the mouse when I need to use it. Life is hectic in my home but good.

December 31, 2003
Fred has developed ways of getting my attention. He waits until I’m reclining on my side on the sofa either reading or watching TV. He then jumps up on me and does paddle paws in my exposed armpit. His eyes close to slits, and he practically drools as his paws alternate digging sharp little needle claws into my tender skin. He then is satisfied when I tip him over on his back in the crook of my other arm and tickle his tummy.

Sometimes, on the other hand, he enjoys stepping on my phone’s buttons to hear the three mailboxes say, “You have no messages!” In the middle of the night when awakened by the voice of a strange man with a deep loud voice, I really don’t care that I have no messages. However, I can’t seem to get this point across to Fred.

Recently, I read that if you put orange peels in your yard, it will keep cats away since they don’t like citrus. Guess Fred doesn’t know this fact. I caught him this morning drinking Sunny Delight out of my glass. Well, drinking and exploring it with one paw, I guess to check if it was cold enough for him.

An online friend mentioned Goldfish crackers recently, and I remembered I had a small bag of them in the kitchen drawer from a long time ago. My mystery critter left four of them last night, and they were gone this morning. I really am curious about my mystery critter and what it is. This friend mentioned horses like the Goldfish crackers, but I doubt if even a small pony could fit in the kitchen drawer. So far, I think I’ve been able to rule out horses and also snakes since I was told they don’t like lemon cookies.

Late this morning, I decided to go grocery shopping to stock up on groceries before the start of the coming year. When I was about half a mile away from my home on our little country road, I saw what looked like a few big dogs standing in the middle road. Because I didn’t want to hit them, I slowed my car down to a crawl until I spotted huge ears on the three “dogs.” It turned out to be a deer and two fawns, so I immediately turned off the car and just watched them as they watched me. When they finally got out of the road and wandered into an overgrown yard, I started the car again and rode off with a huge smile on my face.

With cats, possums, dogs, horses, sheep, goats, turkeys, and now deer, what a great place I live. I wonder what the upcoming year will bring!