Dogs and Cats
Our Furry Friends
We don’t have dogs right now in our family, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like them. I love dogs. It’s just we don’t have a yard, and we live on the second floor. I can’t manage steps anymore. Or, at least, right now. It takes me five times as long to go up and down the steps as it does a normal person. I was a normal person before getting Covid in December 2022. Now? I’m like a semi-invalid. It’s just amazing what a difference Covid made in my life. I’m a f*cking weakling, and it makes me really angry. Still.
Of course, it still wouldn’t matter. We live in an apartment where the landlord won’t allow pets. We moved in with one cat three years before the current owner bought the house. She likes us, and so hasn’t said much about our cats all these 31 years that we’ve lived here. But I think she would draw the line at us having a dog. I know our downstairs tenant wanted a dog and was told no. I can’t imagine that she would give us permission to have a dog.
Growing up, we had dogs all the time. Pretty was our first dog. I could stand propped up. I don’t know how old that made me. Probably one or two years old. Pretty was a cocker spaniel. She had gorgeous auburn hair. You can’t tell from the photographs we have of her and me because nobody had color photographs at the time. That would have been in 1957 or so. I named her Pretty. It was my first word. My mother tells the story that she was holding me, and we were looking at the dog. Mom was saying, “Pretty. Pretty? Pretty,” and so I said, “Pretty,” and the dog was named.
Other than that, I don’t remember so much about her. I was a baby. Less than a toddler. This was in Alaska.
My mother had a miscarriage after me. So, there are 18 months between me and my brother.
Maybe that’s when we got Pretty. Once my brother was born, according to family lore, I got my nose bent out of shape. Hey, I’d been Queen Bee, but once he was on the scene, I had to learn to share. Evidently, I did not like it. Another family lore story is that I tried to kill my brother by dropping marbles down his throat and laughing. I always cringed when somebody told that story.
Currently, my husband and I have four cats and a parakeet.
What I’ve noticed about all these animals is that cats can provide companionship, but only if you don’t always want them close to you. That requirement changes on cold nights when they will typically try to get under the covers with you. I always like to read just before I go to sleep. They use that time to spend an inordinately long 45 minutes having a bath, purring, and kneading with their sharp little kitty nails. These cats generally get an appointment at Mommy’s Going To Cut Your Nails Today Salon the next day.
Right now, at 11:15 in the morning, they are all asleep somewhere. The baby, Daisy Mae, is sitting on the windowsill beside me, watching everything going on in the backyard. Lots of birds swooping around. I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but there is a prodigious amount of bird splat on the window. Perhaps a seagull took her presence amiss one day as she lazed away on the windowsill. I wasn’t here when it happened, so I didn’t see what her reaction was. I can only imagine that she hid under Dennis’ shirts for a while in the closet. I wonder what it is like to don a shirt trimmed in cat fur on the bottom. At least, he tucks his shirts in.
Stanley has been keeping an eye on Dennis, who hasn’t yet gone to work. Molly is asleep somewhere, as is her sister, Miss Millie. Actually, I am not sure where Millie spends her days. I suspect the backyard might be a nice place for her. She is still lithe enough to jump the fence.
This is our life. It is quiet. We write, my husband and I. He is trying to drum up interest in a documentary he wants to write about the Transcontinental Railroad. It’s exhausting asking people for money, but that’s what he’s been doing.
I just told my husband a story of what Stanley did this morning. I was doing my morning stuff in the bathroom. Stanley walked in, jumped up on the side of the tub, and then sailed over my head to get to the sink. We have always kept a bowl of water there for the cats.
The practice started years ago when we watched my mother’s two dogs, Sadie and Goldie, while she was in Saudi Arabia with my father. I suppose it was probably a couple of years. Sadie was a large dog, and Goldie was a Yorkshire Terrier with bad breath. They would scarf down the water we had in a bowl for all of them in the kitchen. In those days, we only had Sam, our Samantha from when we lived in Germany, a world traveler. She was offended, so we started the practice of having a second bowl of water on the counter in the bathroom where the dogs couldn’t get to it.
Anyway, Stanley leaped over my head to the counter and stood there looking at the water bowl. His tail switched back and forth as if he was angry. I said to him, “Stanley, what are you talking about?” See, cats also vocalize with their tails. If they are pissed off, their tails will start switching. When a dog’s tail does that, they are happy, especially if their back end joins in too. Madly happy. A cat? Pissed off about something.
There wasn’t much water left in the water bowl. It was not completely bone dry, but it sure wasn’t full to the brim. I filled it with fresh, cold water and then started calling for Stanley to come back. It wasn’t until I walked into the living room. He had heard me. It’s only a few feet away. As soon as he saw me, he made a beeline back to the bathroom. I tippy-toed my way back to peak around the corner of the door jamb. Sure enough, he was drinking water.
I went out into the living room again, and my husband and I had a bit of conversation. I said, “Dennis, let me tell you what just happened.” Our lives are not dramatic. There are no swashbuckling spy moves. Nothing dramatic going on. But I am happy and content with our life.