cats

There’s a man in my house who claims to be my cat

/ sweetsaraline

Hello, my dear readers! Today is Wednesday and it is time for some fiction. I do have another horror story for you, but this one has more jokes than the last one.

The last thing that I want to see is some guy that I don’t know sitting on my couch when I get home from work.

A heavy ball of nausea drops to the bottom of my stomach. I am trying to remember where I put my phone so I can call the police.

“Who are you and why are you in my house?” I say as I shove my hands into every single one of my pockets.

“What do you mean?” he says. “It’s, me, Freddie.” He jumps onto the floor and lays on his back. He arches his belly at me. He curls his hands over his chest with his fingers pointing down.

My pockets are empty. “Freddie who?” I say as I move on to my purse. It feels like someone is dribbling a basketball in my chest.

“Freddie Purrcury,” the man says sadly. “Don’t you recognize me?”

“Freddie Purrcury my cat?” My phone is not in my purse either.

Continue reading →

Tradesies?

/ sweetsaraline

One year ago

Freddie Purrcury sits in the hard, plastic carrier that is strapped into the passenger seat next to me. He gives a worried meow, and I rest my hand on the carrier reassuringly, and then realize that it’s probably actually not that reassuring.

We are on the way home from the vet’s office, where he charmed everyone with his handsome features and his friendly demeanour. We haven’t had him for very long yet. He’s still afraid to sit on the furniture and he still watches us while he eats, surprised that we’re feeding him and also worried that we’re going to take his food away. He eats his food too fast and then he throws up. He wanders around the house at night meowing loudly and sounding distressed. His gritty, sandpaper-like coat is starting to get softer with daily brushing, but now he has a bald spot.

I wonder, Is this cat just stressed out being in a new place, or is he sick?

The vet thinks that he’s going to be okay. She gives us some food for cats with upset stomachs, a canned and meaty version of mashed potatoes.

Freddie seems relieved when I bring the cat carrier into the house and open the door. His new brother, Sirius, is happy that I brought Freddie back, too.

I prepare their dinner for them. I set the food for sick kitties down in front of Freddie and the regular cat food in front of Sirius. Each cat looks at their bowl of food, and then at the other cat’s bowl of food. Without any hesitation, they switch spots.

Coffin

/ sweetsaraline

Papa knows that his cat will die soon and that there is nothing he can do. This cat has lived with him for sixteen years, so this situation is not unexpected. Papa will show his appreciation for his friend by building him his own custom-made coffin.

The cat lifts his head briefly when Papa brings his measuring tape. He is too old and sick to be overly curious. The fur around his nose and eyes has become frosted and dull over the years and his body is thin and frail. He patiently allows Papa to measure him.

With the measurements in hand, Papa goes out to his workshop. He loudly builds a box that the cat will quietly rest in for eternity. After all the sawing and the hammering, he inspects it. It’s a good and sturdy coffin, perfect for a good and sturdy friend, but when the cat dies, it turns out that he no longer fits in the box.

Papa tells me this story in my mother’s kitchen after Christmas dinner. Nobody knows it yet, but this will be his last Christmas.

My mother walks in as Papa is saying, “And he knew that I was measuring him for his coffin, too. Anyway, he died that night, and his whole body swelled up and wouldn’t fit in the coffin. I had to shove him in there, and I was banging down on the lid—”

My mother is so shocked that she has to interrupt. “Who are you talking about?” she demands to know.

Yoga time, party time

/ sweetsaraline

The yoga mat unfurls with a fwooooop. My cats think, Oh, cool. A group activity.

Sirius hops down from the cat tree and trots over happily. If this cat was a puppy, he would be wagging his tail. Freddie stretches and says, “Brrrrrrt?” before he also makes his way over.

The YouTube yoga instructor tells me to go into plank pose. Freddie helps by going under me and rolling around on his back so that he may display his magnificent cat belly. In sphinx pose, Sirius stretches out as he lays down on top of my arms. In downward facing dog (downward facing excuse me?), I have one cat affectionately head butting me in the face and one sitting down on my toes and leaning against my ankle.

The yoga instructor says, “And now press back into a well-deserved child’s pose.” I feel tiny, heavy feet walking up my back, and then Sirius lays down between my shoulder blades.

Pickles

/ sweetsaraline

Once upon a time, my husband had a cat named Pickles who hated everyone but him.

When they met, Phil was still a child and Pickles was a traumatized kitten who had spent his life until that point living in some guy’s garage and getting beat up by other kittens. He wasn’t sure about his new home, but Phil carried him around in his shirt like a mother kangaroo until he finally felt safe.

They watched each other reach adulthood. Phil went away to university, but then he came back. Maybe Pickles was happy to see him, but it was hard to tell because he wasn’t generally a happy cat.

Pickles’ hobbies included sitting on laps (but not being petted), striking fear into the hearts of baby bunny rabbits, and biting people who were trying to be nice to him. He died many, many years ago and I think that my husband still misses him.

A perfect moment

/ sweetsaraline

I spend more time helping my son with his homework than I spent on my own homework when I was in high school. Every day we come home and do homework until it’s time for bed.

One night I help him with French reading comprehension. It is a slow and laborious process. He reads a sentence out loud. I say, “Okay, so what did that mean?” He says, “I don’t know.” Sometimes I just want to tell him, it would be faster if I just did it for him, but I don’t do that. We go through the sentence word by word, defining each one. I make him look up the ones he doesn’t know, which is almost all of them.

My shoulders are aching. There is an invisible string running from the crown of my head to the ceiling, maybe a spiderweb. It’s so fragile, and it’s the only thing holding me up. My son is tired, too. His voice slow and choppy. Neither one of us wants to be doing homework right now. I yawn and stretch and then I hear a sound.

“Eliot,” I say, “are you purring?”

“No,” he says, annoyed that I’m asking such a stupid question, “it’s Sirius.”

I look down to see a soft, glossy cat wedged between us on the couch. His eyes are almost completely closed and his ears stick straight up into the air. His front paws rest gently on the couch, pointing slightly towards each other. For him, this is a perfect moment.

Cat tree

/ sweetsaraline

The most practical spot for a cat tree is in front of a window. Ours is in front of the big window in the living room. One of our cats predictably likes to sit on it to get a good view of the front yard. He watches the birds, the squirrels, the rabbits, the neighbourhood cats who come to sit on the railway ties bordering our garden bed. He watches the people walking by as they stroll down to look at the lake. Some of the people have dogs. If he’s lucky, he’ll get to see a duck, a wild turkey, or a fox. This is exactly what we envisioned when we put the cat tree in front of the window.

Our other cat likes to sit on it too, but he faces the living room so he can watch us.