My 2001 Diary Entries About Fred

January 02, 2001
I opened my last Christmas gift from Mum this morning since I like to stretch the holiday out as long as possible. Inside a colorfully wrapped package was a pair of fluffy, slip-on slippers that looked like Dalmatian puppies. Walking into the library where Fred was playing with his own Christmas gifts, I immediately wished I had a camcorder to capture his reaction to those slippers.

First, my brave boy hissed at my feet after jumping three shelves straight up on a bookcase to safety. I could tell from the language he used that he was swearing in loud cat speak at me.

Eventually, I convinced him to jump down on the floor. Big mistake! Suddenly my right ankle felt wet. Looking down, I saw a trickle of pee (or as we say in my medical profession, urine) running into the brand new, soft as a puppy, never worn before slipper. Fred had expressed his opinion, in no uncertain terms, about those two imitation Dalmatian interlopers. I wonder if mum would understand this reaction to her well-intentioned gift. Not likely since she’s a dog person!

February 16, 2001
I have no idea how I was able to get any work done today. Fred snores worse than my father did and insisted this morning on sleeping in the office. When not snoring, he was awake and sniffing constantly from a slight head cold. This caused me to yell, “Go blow your nose!” Hey, it worked when Mum yelled it as us girls.

Fred later decided to clean his nether region thoroughly today. He plunked himself right next to the keyboard, flung his hind leg up in the air, and proceeded to lick and lick and lick. Cats have absolutely no modesty to speak of, do they? I have no idea where Fred gets all that saliva, but he washed for almost an hour, very juicy sounding. After that, he wanted to have a kitty cuddling session with me. Trust me, nose nuzzling a cat covered in spit leaves a lot to be desired.

A couple hours later, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Fred walk back into the office from a quick trip to the kitchen for munchies. When I looked over in his direction, he most pitifully started to limp on his front leg the full length of the room. He sat down at my feet and looked up at me with such sad, pain-filled eyes. His silent meow almost broke my heart. After I picked him up to cuddle and fuss over his poor little leg, he jumped to the floor and walked WITHOUT A LIMP out of the office. I think I was conned once again by a cat!

If I sound like I’m complaining, I’m really not. Just think, I could be working in a dull, stuffy office somewhere with people (shuddering) instead of working at home with a snoring, sniffing, washing, licking actor.

Life is good!

March 31, 2001
Usually I’m up at the crack of dawn, or earlier, to get to work while the mood is still upon me. This morning I had a feeling there wouldn’t be much work waiting for me, so I decided to stay in bed a little longer.

Just as it started getting light outside, I was weighed down by Fred climbing on top of my hip. Slowly I opened my eyes a slit to look at him. He was getting anxious and starting to starve to death since I was more than an hour late in feeding him. Do you know how intimidating it is to have a cat staring at you while you wake up and wonder how long he had been doing it?

When I opened my eyes all the way, it was like a signal to him. Fred raced for the kitchen, yelling at me to “Hurry up, hurry up, feed me. I NEED FOOD.” So much for being lazy and sleeping in.

After he had filled his face and was looking around for something to play with, Fred found his favorite toy, a sock I’d filled with dried catnip. I’d bought a package of children’s socks the other day and mentioned to the clerk that they were for my cat. Why would this comment cause her to give me a strange look? It’s not as if I have Fred wearing the socks.

April 07, 2001
Fred hadn’t been home during the day lately. I did catch a glimpse of him two days ago when he dropped by …literally.

Where I work at my computer, there is a bookshelf behind me with a pillow up on the top shelf. Don’t ask me why it’s there. I’m a terrible housekeeper, and items end up in strange places throughout my home. Anyway, Fred had come in unobserved while I worked and was sitting on the pillow. Somehow, he and the pillow both fell off the shelf and landed on the floor with Fred racing out of the room so I wouldn’t see his embarrassment at being so clumsy. Two days have passed since his little mishap.

This morning, about 3:24 a.m., I was lightly sleeping when a loud shriek from the next room shocked me awake. Fred’s shriek has to be heard to be appreciated. Imagine an industrial wood buzz saw at its highest volume, so loud that your teeth ache. That’s close to hearing Fred trying to get attention. The first time I heard it, when he was just a kitten, I thought a cat was being killed by a demented dog. However, it was only Fred expressing himself at catching sight of another cat outside in the front yard.

Another piercing cry, and I had the bed light on while I stared around the room. I was looking for who was being brutally murdered and hunting frantically for my knife covered with peanut butter. The thought behind the knife was if I failed to stab someone in a vital organ, the peanut butter might knock them off with food poisoning. Thank goodness I’ve never had to test this theory!

There on the floor near the doorway between the two rooms sat my missing, big-mouth Fred, screaming his foolish head off. I don’t know if Fred was just letting me know he was finally home in his own unique way or he simply enjoyed scaring the bejeezus out of me. Either way, this was definitely not the way I wanted to jump start the day.

I love Fred. I love Fred. I love Fred. I must keep reminding myself of this on mornings like this.

May 25, 2001
Fred now has a new favorite toy, the catnip-filled sock relegated to obscurity in his toy bowl. On the small table near the kitchen counter is a large stuffed Bill the Cat of comic book fame. This is a big red cat with odd-sized eyes and a pink tongue sticking out of his mouth. Fred enjoys jumping up on the table and wrestling with Bill the Cat. I have to stand there and rescue Bill since Fred repeatedly knocks it off the table. When he tires of wrestling, Fred tries to stand on his head by Bill’s foot. His face is smashed into the foot while the other end of Fred does the famous elevator-butt routine. All the time he is doing this, Fred is talking at full blast to Bill the Cat. Have I mentioned Fred is a Chatty Cathy type of cat? I’m waiting for the day Fred loses his balance and tumblesalts off the table.

By the way, I have no idea how to spell tumblesalt. It not in my computer spellchecker, and I can’t seem to find it in the dictionary. I know it’s a word ‘cause I used to do it all the time from the lower limbs of the apple tree when I was a kid. Some day I must put an entry into my diary about this tree that became a home for my caterpillar collection.

June 06, 2001
Today I rescued a spider when the back room called to me, “Clean me, clean me NOW!” As I brought an old plastic shelf from that room into the kitchen to lysolate it, I noticed this long-legged spider clinging to the rim of the shelf, all its legs waving while it tried to keep its balance. It was a race to reach it between me who wanted to save its life and Fred who simply wanted to eat it. I won! A quick trip outside, and the spider was freed to make more cobwebs on the outside walls. If only cobwebs came in various colors, I’d have the prettiest home in the neighborhood.

Later in the day, I decided to change my side yard from a dried-out hay field to a lovely clover field. To do this, I first needed to water the yard to soak it thoroughly. After digging out an old water thing that goes back and forth (I’m not sure what the item is called) from under a pile of dirt where it had been for a couple years, I attached it to the end of the hose. The holes in the thing where water would come out were filled with dirt, but slamming it on the ground a couple times loosened most of it.

I next went back to the well shed to turn on the water. As I walked away, I noticed my black monster of a cat coming over and lying next to the thing I can’t remember the name of. When I turned on the water, there was a sputtering sound with the water trying to come out of the dirt-filled holes. Fred’s ears perked up to listen to the funny sound, but he stayed next to it and innocently waited to see what would happen next.

I swear Fred shot up higher in the air than the water when it suddenly spurted out on him. He raced from one end of the yard with the water following him in a fan-shaped spray. When he tried for the other end of the yard, the water came after him, as if it were chasing him. A considerate person would have turned off the water at this point, but I was laughing too hard to reach the faucet.

Fred shot out of the yard into the driveway and huddled under the car dripping water from all his whiskers. For the following few minutes, there were two penny-colored eyes glaring out at me from amidst all that shiny, wet, black fur. My little panther was a bit ticked off with his Mum.

July 05, 2001
I’ve been excited about the A&E Boston Pops Fourth of July concert for weeks now. There I was, counting down the days, then the hours, and finally at 7:30 last night, on it came. The guests were great as usual, the orchestra seemed to love what they were doing, and what else can be said about Keith Lockhart except to say he’s one sexy guy.

As the evening started coming to a climax with the 1812 Overture playing, I slowly cranked up my TV as high as it could go, in anticipation of my favorite time of the concert…canons, church bells, chimes and, with the encore of Sousa’s Stars and Stripes, the dropping of the gigantic flag from the top of the Hatch Memorial. These are moments I look forward to all year long.

Just a few seconds before the first view of the National Guard and their big guns, through an open window shot a big black shape. The animal bounced off the windowsill to land between my reclining body on the sofa and the wall behind me. My sweet, gentle Fred for some unknown reason hates classical music and had come inside to share his opinion of it with me. He was soon letting me know with a screeching sound, which could be heard even above the loud rumbling of the guns.

As the television showed the much anticipated church bells ringing, (my personal favorite of this part of the music) Fred’s shrieks became louder than a fire engine siren. He sat behind my poor tortured ears and expressed his musical opinion of what he thought of me for playing classical music. Among other things, he included a description of my parentage, and what the future held for me if I didn’t turn down the volume of the TV.

By now, the long chimes were being rung, the soldiers were reloading while encircled by smoke from the canons, and the church bells were ringing wildly to the accompaniment of the out-of-control crowd of noisy Bostonians. To this was added the spits and snarls of one maniacal cat and the yelling of one frustrated person trying to hear television.

As I finally caught Fred and covered him with a blanket to smother the sounds of his horrible cat voice, Stars and Stripes had been played, and the moment I loved when the flag drops was upon us.

Nothing! No flag! Keith Lockhart ended the concert and left with no flag coming down.

I sat there in the now quiet room in total shock, still waiting for the flag to drop down from the roof of the Hatch. Today, I’m seriously thinking of committing Fred to the feline insane asylum and writing the Boston Pops to complain about sitting in my room last night completely surrounded by no flag.

August 13, 2001
For about a week or so, a baby possum has been coming in to eat the Cheet-Os I leave out for it. The possum is about the size of a ferret but with a chubby tummy. The other night, I moved the food bowl into my bedroom next to the cat castle so I could watch the baby eat and make sure Fred didn’t hurt it.

The huge, old, gray/blue, carpeted castle has three stories with an outside opening on each floor and holes inside to climb from floor to floor. The roof also can be reached from inside. There is a tall pole on each side of the castle with a board about the size of a shoe box cover on top of each pole. Fred loves to sit high up on one of these boards and watch what’s going on below him. Over the years, the cat castle has become somewhat of an eyesore, but I don’t have the heart to throw it into the dump. It is raised up a few inches on a wooden pallet with wheels since it’s way too heavy to move without this.

Anyway, the night before last, the baby possum would grab a Cheet-O or two in its mouth and climb up into the first floor of the castle, landing inside with a loud thump. Possums are definitely not as graceful as cats are. Eventually, it climbed up inside to the third floor to do its after-meal washing up like a cat does. This gray head with the beautiful slanted eyes would look out the opening at me and either wash or start yawning. I wish I could get across to my friends how seeing this tiny, alligator-like mouth opening wide in a baby yawn would put a huge grin on MY face. For some reason, seeing this little head poking out reminded me of the fairy tale character, Rapunzel, so this baby is now named Punzel.

Last night I saw a baby possum underneath the castle between the wooden pallet and the floor. It would come out, grab some food, and then disappear under the castle again to noisily eat the food. I thought it odd that the baby didn’t go into the castle as it did the night before. The mystery was solved when a second baby possum raced out from the library to join the first one. This one, my Punzel, did go into the castle, so now I have the major problem of naming this second shyer baby.

It’s wonderful having babies in the house again. Even Fred seems fascinated by them. Life is good.

September 11, 2001
Right now I have the two baby possums, Punzel and Violet, running around the house. Fred almost yawns in boredom when he sees them. If a cat and possums can get along like this, why can’t humans get along with other humans?

I spent most of the day sitting in front of my television, crying as twin towers containing people I didn’t even know changed into clouds of dust. When the horror got too much for me, I’d grab Fred and soak his fur with my tears.

Why does our world no longer feel safe?

October 30, 2001
Well, Fred at times thinks he’s a mama possum, and now I have a baby possum who wants to be a turtle.

At exactly 1:30 this morning, I was rudely awakened from a deep sleep by the sound of something slamming around the bedroom. Since these noises most likely were produced by Fred and would disappear sooner or later, I tried to get back to sleep, but the racket intensified.

When I turned on the light in exasperation, there coming toward me was an upside-down, aluminum, turkey roasting pan. There are two of them kept out in the kitchen, and they usually contain dry cat food and fresh water. Somehow, the water level in one of them had got low enough that when Punzel started walking on the edge of the pan as was his habit, the pan flipped over to catch the baby possum underneath with no way to escape.

A possum with a roasting pan shell thumping across a linoleum floor can make quite a racket, and a curious Fred racing loudly in from another room to investigate only added to the pandemonium.

I stumbled wearily out of bed and carefully lifted the pan off Punzel. Without even one word of thanks or a backward look, he raced back to the cat castle and the safety underneath it. After refilling the water pan and putting out more Cheet-Os for my traumatized turtle/possum, I went back to sleep smiling at the silly antics that happen at my home in the wee hours of the morning.

Once again, life is good.

November 12, 2001
My nephew Kevin is here visiting from New England. After a day of sightseeing in San Francisco, we stopped at KFC to get some food to eat at my home. I warned him repeatedly this was a big mistake, but Kevin just wouldn’t listen. Finally arriving home, I went to the kitchen for a moment, and he stayed in the front room with the bucket of fried chicken.

Within seconds, I heard him yelling to me for help. When I got back there, he was sitting on the sofa with a starving cat trying to get at the chicken. If you believed Fred's plaintive cries of hunger, you’d think he hadn’t been fed in days and needed that chicken to stay alive. Kevin wasn’t used to the chicanery of cats so didn’t know what to do when Fred’s furry feet tried to grab the bucket away from him.

My helpless nephew was sitting there clutching the bucket to his chest, eyes pleading with me to rescue him. It took me a couple minutes to do this, but once I stopped laughing, Fred cleared out of the room quickly. I tried so hard to keep the “I told you so!” expression off my face, but I think Kevin got the message. You should always listen to your older and wiser relative, especially regarding cats and food!

December 31, 2001
Another year has gone by, and Fred and I still enjoy each other’s company. Fred, though, has picked up a new and painful trick. I’ll be sitting at the computer when a heavy lump of black cat will jump up from behind to sink his claws into my defenseless back. He will then clamber up to my shoulder and finally push off to land over on the window shelf a few feet away.

Well, sometimes he lands there. Sometimes he misses and lands on the table next to me either in his water bowl or dry food dish to turn into a messy cat. I wonder what new tricks he will master in 2002.

If you want to read about another year with Fred, keep going.

My 2002 Diary Entries About Fred  (E) Despite Fred (and Mum), I made it through 2002 #1285164 by J. A. Buxton