My 2002 Diary Entries About Fred

January 10, 2002
Is there a reason for this? I find myself asking Fred this question two or three times a day. He chewed the various envelopes this morning while I tried to pay my bills. I sure hope Pacific Bell doesn’t mind having tiny holes in their mail.

Fred also insists on sitting on the back of my computer chair. I really can’t complain about this since he makes a marvelous neck warmer. It’s become a daily routine for me to play Ring Around the Rosy by swinging the chair around and around. I get a tad dizzy, but Fred seems to love this.

The pushy cat constantly comes to stand between me and the keyboard wanting to be cuddled. I’m quickly learning to type with one and a half hands. Thank goodness he doesn’t seem to mind being slung over my shoulder when typing becomes too difficult.

He no longer wants to be blouse-pouched like I did with Punzel and Violet when they were little. I guess I should be grateful for this. Fred has become rather big, and I honestly don’t need a third…well, he still is my bosom buddy! .

Oh, I forgot to write that I woke up this morning with a mouse in my bed. It was only one of his tiny, furry mice that I bought for him to play with, but he didn’t have to put it under the covers while I slept. Again, I asked him, “Is there a reason for this?”

February 02, 2002
This morning I needed some slippers so went into the back spare room. Since my small Hansel and Gretel home is limited in closet space, this room is my catchall place with tall, open shelves all over.

Dishpans hold various items on these shelves like underwear, slippers, garden stuff, and old outdated paperwork. I also keep the bed clothes and a pile of small rugs back here. Oh, there is also a stack of about 100 or so vinyl records plus MAD magazines bought when they cost only 10 cents an issue. One green dishpan holding my assortment of slippers was on the fourth shelf next to my dusty Belitz Spanish tapes and a 20-year-old bottle of port I’d forgotten I had. I probably should throw this out since it must be spoiled by now.

As I reached into the dishpan, up popped a gray ear; this caused my hand to freeze in midair. That ear was followed by a second one, a little pink nose, and a long mouth. The head ended in black, slanted eyes staring sleepily at me. A second later, a second head of black fur joined the first one. Deciding I’d rather go barefoot than further disturb Punzel and Fred, I snuck in a quick pat on the possum’s back, scratched between the cat’s ears, and left the room.

Walking around barefoot is supposed to be good for the feet, or so I’ve heard.

March 21, 2002
It seems Fred lately only knows one speed, warp 10 ½. He races around my home causing me to do the two-step cat walk. This means I take two steps then freeze in place as Fred races by me. I take two more steps and stop once more when he returns to race by me again.

Well, this racing around caused a minor accident today. The cover to the toilet is left down for obvious reasons with a curious cat and possums in the house. As I lifted the cover to eventually do what I needed to do, in raced Fred. He jumped up on the cover, as usual, only to suddenly disappear downward into the watery depths.

Since I had my back turned at the moment, the first I knew about this was the wildly splashing sound accompanied by the high-pitched screaming of a terrified cat. After I grabbed Fred and brought him back to dry land, he rewarded me by frantically racing up my blouse and holding on to my neck for dear life.

This would have been a tender moment if he hadn’t been dripping toilet water, albeit clean, all over me.

April 27, 2002
Oh dear, not only do I have FOFU, today I acquired FOFS (fear of feline spit).

Fred had accidentally been locked in my office overnight and had chewed and sogged up the foam on the ear pieces of my work headphone with his saliva. When I put the ear pieces into my ears at the start of my working day, I slowly sensed something was different. Quick I am NOT that early in the morning.

Later in the day, I had some papers printing on my little printer, and I got the message that it was out of paper. Not true, not true since I’d loaded it just a few hours before. When I looked over to check the printer, there was Fred sitting in the paper tray. He was chewing on the paper trying to escape from him and weighing down the machine so no other paper could get free.

Right now as I write this entry, Fred is asleep nearby and looking like a little angel. Looks sure can be deceiving, can’t they?

May 31, 2002
If ever a day deserved to be named after a cat, it would be today, Friday the 17th. I’ve tried to keep Fred inside because he had a case of the sniffles, and it’s been tiddling rain outside for the last couple days. Well, first thing this morning, he escaped outside, not once but twice. I wandered around our small house trying to find out how he did it, and he politely showed me.

Earlier in the day, I’d placed an old painting flush against the cat door in the back hall to keep Fred inside. He had managed to hook a paw under it and edge the large painting out far enough for him to race through the cat door into the side yard and around to the front where he ran back and forth in the muddy grass. After I fixed that point of departure, he was quiet for maybe an hour.

At that point, I was sitting in the bathroom behind a closed door and hoping for a little privacy. Fred sat outside crying pitifully to be let in, but I ignored him. Suddenly, the same paw that had managed to find a way outside slid under the bathroom door…and pulled and pulled and pulled until it opened. So much for a room of my own!

In the afternoon, my AOL screen suddenly went from a lovely lilac color to dark purple, and then to light blue and finally to dark navy blue. I logged off and managed to even get off the computer completely entirely just by listening to the sounds it made. By now, the entire screen was solid black. When I rebooted, all I got was an ugly grid on the monitor that stayed there even with the CPU turned off. It turned out Fred had pulled out the big orange plug at the back of the computer in his catnip-enhanced race around the house.

His afternoon nap calmed him down a bit. I was lying on the sofa in my shorts and blouse as Fred and I watched television. Violet, who had gotten over her fear of the cat castle, must have rolled over in her sleep and started to fall off the top of the castle. She managed to grab the platform atop one of the side posts and swung back for forth trying to get back while maintaining some dignity.

The noise startled Fred lying next to me, and he ran for parts unknown, leaving behind two long scratches on my leg. I didn’t notice them at first, but the feeling of blood pouring down onto my bare foot soon got through to me.

A knock on the front door later in the afternoon turned out to be the UPS guy wearing adorable brown shorts some of us women love to see those men in. He was delivering a package from Drs. Foster and Smith that included a package of 12 furry mice and a couple other cat toys. Fred has been beating the heck out of one of the mice since then, but at least he is leaving me alone.

Today definitely has changed from Friday to Fredday! I hope I survive what he does next. Oh heck, he’s on top of a bookshelf behind me now eating the poster on the wall of Roosevelt the Cat, and I better go rescue it. Bye for now.

June 15, 2002
I’d bought some little, fuzzy, mice toys from PetsMart for Fred last month and splurged to get a dozen, very expensive, furry mice from an online site. Only after receiving them a couple weeks ago did I find out they were covered with rabbit fur. How terrible!

I found five of the expensive mice this morning floating bellies up in the water dish on the kitchen floor. Fred evidently decided he didn’t like real fur and tried to “off” them. After unsuccessfully trying to remove all the water out of their little bodies, I put them on a paper plate and tried to dry them out in my new microwave. Not knowing the proper setting for mice, I put them in for three minutes.

By two and a half minutes, the smell of cremated fur drifted into the office where I was working. To make a long story short, these five ended up in the waste basket, and Fred went back to happily playing with his cheaper PetsMart mice.

Somewhere in the house, seven furry mice are hiding in terror, living on borrowed time, just waiting for a Fred attack.

July 25, 2002
Fred assumes there will be some body part waiting eagerly to be used as his play toy or cushion. I was typing this afternoon at the computer, and Fred came between me and the keyboard. He stood up on his hind feet and hugged me with one paw on each side of my neck. My head had to bob back and forth while I tried to see the screen around those furry ears. Sometimes I didn’t move fast enough and got a sandpaper tongue on my nose.

I simply have to write how Fred got me through the six days last week without electricity. It happened when Spock, my cedar tree, fell down on my house during a particularly cold and windy rain storm. Fred decided to make sure I was warm, well fed, and had plenty of exercise. To keep me warm, Fred would climb on my chest and start purring. His body felt like a hot water bottle, while his hot breath on my face kept my nose warm. When happy and purring, Fred tends to drool, thus giving my neck a warm, wet bath as an extra bonus.

Next, he tried to provide the food, but I had to politely decline his offering. Fred, who has not met a bit of food he didn’t like, has NEVER been hunting in his life. On Tuesday, he proudly jumped up on the ledge outside the front window holding a dead mouse by the tail between his teeth. The poor, little rodent swung back and forth as Fred walked toward the open window to give me my food for lunch. I thanked him profusely, praised his hunting skills, and guided him off the ledge to the ground with the mouse. I had to content myself with some chips instead.

Fred also provided the exercise. When I wasn’t playing fetch with him by throwing fuzzy mice across the room, I was walking around the house constantly bending down to pick up these selfsame toys.

I also was chasing him around the yard whenever he escaped outside, despite all my precautions to keep him inside for the night. I never knew what exercise was until I was outside in the dark trying to catch a stubborn cat who absolutely positively did not want to be caught. There I was with rain pouring down on me, the wind whipping my nightgown up in the air, and my slippers slipping and sliding in the muddy grass chasing a black cat on a moonless night. Such fun!

August 26, 2002
I have a question that’s been bothering me for years. When I’m walking from my car to the house, arms filled with grocery bags, being escorted by Fred walking in front of me, why does he suddenly stop and decide to wash or scratch himself? Is it pure cussedness or simply a sign of a cat’s warped sense of humor?

I don’t even have to call Fred at mealtime any more. The sound of the can top being removed brings him running from wherever he was sleeping. I watched this morning to see how far the sound carried. Through the kitchen window, I could see Fred asleep at the far end of the side yard in his small, plastic chair. As the pull-tab sound was made, I saw his head pop up and his ears start to swivel as he homed in on the sound. When I tore off the can top, all I could see was a black blur as he raced the length of the side yard, up to the wooden catwalk outside the open kitchen window, and over the small dog house outside the window.

By the time I scooped the food out of the can, there was a black, furry head hovering over his food dish; all of this took about 15 to 20 seconds.

I just hung up the phone after talking long distance with Mum. She had called to wish me a happy birthday. When her usual scolding of my being a terrible housekeeper got to me, I told her that Fred helped me wash dishes by eating the leftovers off the plate. No dishwasher for me; just put the plate on the floor and let Fred at it, run the plate under the faucet, and then put it away in the cupboard. For some reason, she actually said she refused to eat ANYTHING if she came to visit. Go figure!

September 30, 2002
I think Fred wants to kill me. He’s attempting to smother me in my sleep by putting his furry paws over my nose. This wakes me up, thank goodness, and I open my eyes to see Fred staring at me and trying to look up my nostril. Cats can be so nosey, no pun intended.

On second thought, maybe Fred is getting back at me for recently befriending Stout. He is a corgi whose human walks him up and down our country road every day. This low-slung dog loves chasing cats, especially my Fred. Stout’s human is in the street yelling for Stout to stop, and I’m in the driveway shouting at Fred to, “Run, boy, run.” Fred isn’t really afraid of Stout but enjoys watching him have his daily run through the front yard.

What’s even funnier is when Harvey, the big spaniel from next door, gets out and makes a beeline over here. Fred races to various places all over the front yard, under bushes, on top of the front fence, or up to the cat walkway by the front window. Meanwhile, this overly friendly dog races around my front yard trying to catch Fred and play with him.

October 17, 2002
What will the neighbors think? To be honest, I no longer care. Tonight around dusk, I was outside dressed in shoes, shorts, blouse, and a flapping knee-length bathrobe trying to catch Fred and bring him in for the night. Trailing behind me was the cat toy fishing pole I use for trolling for Fred. Sometimes I can tempt him close to me with this, but this time he was too busy using my car tires as a scratching post.

When he tired (sorry!) of shredding the tires, he noticed the hot-pink catnip mouse at the end of the cord. I flipped the mouse on top of the car’s engine area causing Fred to jump up after it. Fred finally caught the poor mouse only to fall off the car with the mouse firmly in his mouth. Back on the ground, he proceeded to try to kick the stuffing out of it with rapid rabbit punches.

Bored with this and seeing me creeping silently up to catch him, Fred took off down the driveway and across the road into my neighbor’s yard. There I was racing behind him, my bathrobe flapping behind me like Superman’s cape. I stopped short just as he made a U-turn, his devious cat brain probably thinking the yard one house down would be more fun to explore. Having second thoughts, he started back slowly only to stop in the middle of the road to raise a hind leg for a leisurely wash. I decided I’d had enough exercise and hoped my neighbors enjoyed the sideshow.

November 06, 2002
I was just hit in the back of the neck by a shooting rubber band. Remember now, I live alone so it had to be Fred who did it. When I stopped shaking, I looked around, and there was Fred on the book table looking at a wooden clothes rack I’d temporarily brought into the office.

He was staring at another fat rubber band that was on one of the long cross poles. Don’t ask, I have no idea why they are there. They simply came with it. His gaze was unwavering as he studied the rack’s position. His head would move from one angle to another as he puzzled out the best way to reach this weapon on the opposite side of the rack.

Without any warning, Fred jumped on top of the rack, caught the band in his teeth, pulled it back to its longest limit so it would snap. Fred then let go to shoot it right at me as I quickly ducked for cover.

I swear he was smiling when he looked at me before starting to wash his beautiful fur. Just think, beauty and a brain in one, large, black, furry package. He’s sitting next to me now on the computer desk staring at me with those big copper-color eyes unblinking as if to say, “Be afraid! Be VERY afraid!”

December 31, 2002
Getting Fred to listen to me is all in the tone of voice, believe me. Also, it depends on the time of day, his mood, and what he’s doing at the time. If I lean out my back window whistling for him and yelling, “Here, Fred, munchie time,” sometimes he will make a mad dash under the gate and be a black blur for the length of the yard to make a five-foot jump in the open window.

Other times, nothing!

This morning, I got another long-distance lecture from Mum about my being a terrible housekeeper. She actually told me people do clean behind their refrigerators. Who knew?

Anyway, she suggested I wash the area with bleach. My refrigerator is in a recessed area, so I had to pull it out into the main part of the kitchen. After doing this, I hunched over to thoroughly soak the walls and low ceiling of this alcove with full-strength bleach. I figured the dripping liquid would hit the floor and clean that, too.

Before I could back out, tears were streaming down my face, and I was gasping for breath. Why Mum didn’t tell me to dilute the bleach in water, I’ll never know, but that taught me that a clean house is HIGHLY overrated.

Maybe I should pass on this bit of information to others: Dilute the bleach in water before applying it in a closed-in space.

No thanks to either Mum or Fred, I’ve survived another year and actually am looking forward to 2003.

The last of my diary entries about living with Fred are next.

My 2003 Entries About Fred  (E) A fifth year with Fred goes by quickly. #1287544 by J. A. Buxton