This is not our cat. It's not our house either. This was one of my Mother's cats. I think this was Nellie. Regardless of her name, she was a very nice kitty. I grew up having pets in the house. I can recall dogs, cats, fish, birds and turtles. I may have left something out but those come immediately to mind. And it was never one pet at a time but multiples. Two dogs, three cats, 4 fish, 2 turtles, 1 bird all at the same time. And the cats and dogs always had the run of the house. On the bed? yes. On the sofa? yes. In the chair? yes. We were always covered with pet hair. My parents had an enormous bed, I think it's called a California King. It wasn't because they were large people who required that amount of room, quite the contrary. It was because of the animals. I vividly recall my mother muttering while climbing out of bed over and around various cats and dogs, saying under her breath, "It's like living with Wild Kingdom". heh
It was an ever changing cast of characters. And somehow, they always got along. Or if they didn't like each other, they opted to pretend that the other didn't exist. My mother would not put up with any pet attitude. One of the most memorable cats my parents had was one Maggie Ethel. She was a fat calico with a nasty streak. She adored my mother but hated everyone and everything else. In fact, she hated everyone else so much that she opted to live in the basement. All the other people and animals were upstairs having a fine old time, Maggie Ethel sulked in the basement. The door was open, she could have come up at any time but she preferred to sit at the top of the basement stairs hissing at anyone who passed by. I remember the time period when my dad had his huge German Shepard, Max and my mother had a little daschund, Emily. They would play together all the time. Max would carefully take in consideration Emily's much smaller size but they were buddies! Anytime the FedEx or UPS guy was foolish enough to come to the door, he was met by a giant german shepard standing silently at the door and a tiny weiner dog barking her fool head off standing between the shepards front legs. Each intimidating in their own way I suppose. The first pet I recall that was mine was a cat named Posh. He was a goodly sized, hefty, long haired, black and white tuxedo and was the laziest cat I've ever known. He would lay on the picnic table outside and watch the birds and never chased them. In fact, if the birds were within paws grasp, he still wouldn't flex enough to swat one. I don't honestly know if he was a pacifist or, as I suspect, just lazy but I knew he could be trusted to not hunt anything more than his own food dish. He had a very sweet nature. I could dress him up in doll clothes and carriage him around the neighborhood (and did). He not only didn't mind, he seemed to like the attention. I was determined that my kids would grow up loving animals as I did. Consequently, we had a few dogs and quite a few cats over the years. I tried very hard to keep them off the sofas and chairs and absolutely off of tables and counters but I never minded if the kids wanted a pet in their bed with them. I don't think it affected them adversely although I read all sorts of terrible warnings about it nowadays. Pets should be in crates at night! That is what all the experts say now. Puppyjail. Perhaps it is the better way of doing things but I have to honestly say that if I had a dog, it would not be consigned to a crate. Ever. Period. It's probably my own phobia of being confined, but I just couldn't do it. We do not currently have any pets at all. I am of two minds about it. First, I miss the companionship. Especially when Tim travels and I'm home alone. I miss how silly and fun a pet can be. I'm fairly self entertaining, so I don't require anyone or anything to tapdance for me but I do miss that unexpected fun of a pet. I miss their personalities, it's like having 4 legged, furry additional family members. On the other hand, I don't miss cleaning up after them. I don't miss having to arrange for sitters or kenneling when we travel and then the worry while we are away. I do not miss the vet bills (I will never understand how crazy expensive pet care is). At some point we will again be a house with a pet or two. I'm not certain when it will happen, but it will. I'm not even sure if it will be a cat, a dog or a mix of each. However it works out, it will be perfect and frankly, I look forward to that day. As messy and complicated and expensive as pets may be, what they give back more than outweighs any negatives.
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AuthorYup, this is me. Some people said, "Sam, you should write a Blog". "Well, there's a thought", I thought to myself. And so here it is. Archives
November 2024
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