Tag: cat toys

The Sausage

We’ve always had cats. We claim them as ours. That’s because we paid the rent or the mortgage, bought the food, and paid the other bills. We thought we were in charge because we control the money. Yeah, we control the money, but they control us. Cats have us. Out of the most recent who lived with us (Sammy, Scheckter, Pogo, Smudge, Lady, Quinn, Tucker, Boo, and Papi), all came to us. They picked out our house, walked up, and meowed, “Hello. Feed me.” The exception is Lady. We took her in because the elderly man who took care of her and six other cats was moving into a home, and couldn’t care for her any longer.

The thing about cats is we love to entertain them, because it entertains us. We love watching them pretend to stalk and kill strings because they’re cute and funny. Plus, we need to entertain them. When they’re not sleeping or eating, they need entertained. Fortunately, they’re eating or sleeping twenty hours out of the day. But if you’re not entertaining them for the other four hours, you will become their entertainment. They’ll start playing head games, like the Door Game, or they’ll start walking around, meowing, the game they call Meow Polo. It’s like the Marco Polo game humans, but crueler, and sans water.

These circumstances drive us to hunt for cat toys. You’d think it’d be easy. Cats like chasing mice. Bugs. Spiders. Each other. Lights. Strings. Pieces of foil. M&Ms. Blueberries. Should be easy to find them a toy.

But no. One of the mind games cats like to play with people is to be indifferent to what we offer them. Food, snacks, treats, toys…cats like to look at them, sniff them, maybe give them a bat, and say, “No thanks,” and walk away. And we know this about cats, so we try to out-think them. But we can’t, because we’re using human logic, and they’re using cat logic, which is superior.

Yet, we still try.

That’s why we’ve been so happy with the sausage. Sixteen inches long, it looks like four sausage links. It’s stuffed with catnip. Every cat we’ve had will walk into the room, see the sausage, walk over to it, and go into some frenzied but gently violent feline foreplay with it. They’ll lick it, bite it, seize it with their front paws and kick it with their back paws, roll around on it, drool and dribble on it, and gently rub their faces against it. Then they’ll get up, step away like, “That’s enough,” wash, and generally pretend that what just happened, didn’t.

And we love it because we feel special for finding something that entertains the cats, so they can entertain us, and re-establish our balance about who is supposed to be in charge.

4

Contemplating the Storms

Inside, safe with coffee, I eye snow ranging between raging and swirling.

Everything is white, a cover-up to hide yesterday’s progress of melting and drying roads. It looks cold, and cold is permeating my protective window panes.

I made an espresso sized cuppa using French Roast. The staunch flavor pleases me. It’s great not needing to deal with all that extra water that goes into a larger cup. The coffee fuels thinking about the storm’s extent. The web helps track its size, what has passed and what is expected. I need something like that for the rest of my life.

The cats, of course, drift between blissful slumber and energetic bonkers. That’s when older cats are preferred; they recognize bad weather and are happier to watch through a window than the young beasts. Quinn is the rule’s exception; he enjoys the cold. We think he employs an active imagination, going out and pretending he’s Siberian. His whole demeanor reeks of of it. But this weather play has a heavy element of wind; Quinn says, “Nyet,” to wind.

Tucker indulges in several mad dashes, practicing his football jukes. Taking pity on the kitties, I visit with each and play with them. The toy of choice is the white feathers on the yellow string on the pink stick. All love this. Meep captures it, picks it up in his mouth and attempts to carry it away, tail up. His trophy pleases him. Boo, the oldest, becomes most engaged. He manages to free three more feathers. Only one feather remains on the toy. Time for a new one.

Snow surrenders to sunshine, which yields to rain. No matter; the temp has scaled thirty-eight degrees. The wind refuses to abandon its role so the cats stay in but the sun is back.

Time to move, get ready to go out and write like crazy. Breakfast, first.

It’s a good morning for pancakes.

 

8

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑