My 64th birthday went really well, a bit of clothes shopping in the morning (very rare indeed, now I’m OK for a couple of years!), followed by a Formula One qualification in the afternoon, and a lovely meal in the evening.
Quite satisfactory.
BUT! We were once more foolish enough to let Fister out in his yard after about 7 in the evening. He had been out a few days ago but been good and came back on time. This time though, he decided to make a real trip out of it, and went on one of his famous walkabouts. On my birthday of all days.
He He He, you can’t catch me!
What a sleepless night that became!
He had of course spent his childhood down in the yard, but he has grown a bit softer since then, and a nasty aggressive tuxedo boy has since appeared in the yard and considers it his own. Fister has had a clash with him before, which ended up with him getting an infection in his mouth and losing two teeth. At least the other cat got a good beating and lost a lot of blood, but Fister is not at all aggressive and doesn’t like fighting, so he is always very careful down there nowadays. That’s one of the reasons we have difficulty sleeping when he’s out all night.
He was about to be a good boy and come back up about 10’ish, but unfortunately some kids appeared in the yard and he immediately made himself scarce. So we call him again at 11 and then again at midnight. No sign of him. I get up and go out about 2.30. Still no sign.
Randi tries it about 3 o’clock … and there he is, calm as can be, a real cool cat. He wanders slowly over to the door, stops and begins to wash himself. I know this one, it’s SO FRUSTRATING. He sits about a meter away and just stares at you, giving himself the odd lick now and again. After about 5 minutes of this Randi understandably gives up and came back to bed cursing under her breath.
Then Randi tries again at 5 in the morning - not a whisker to be seen.
At 8.30 in the morning, I go out, and there he is, pitifully hiding up on a roof and miawing, because his enemy the tuxedo is out and about! He scrambles on to his tree, loses his balance and falls over 3 meters to the ground with a terrific thump.
Pride comes before a fall!
Then he saunters slowly over to me as if nothing had happened, sits down a meter from me and starts playing Smart Alec again. Aaaarrghhh!! Luckily, he sees the tux again and wanders in. But will he come up the stairs? You must be joking. He decides that this is the perfect time to make a detailed inspection of the stairwell to the cellar. That was it. Enough is enough. He got a bit of boot-assisted take off and was sent upstairs post-haste.
Was he happy to be back? Certainly in no way that I could perceive. He was actually really miffed at the treatment that he had received, and went straight under his wardrobe in a big huff to sulk. He slept there for about 8 hours, then got up for a snack and continued his sleep on his armchair. I definitely wasn’t flavour of the day, he completely refused to recognise my existence, and if I stroked him or talked to him, he would ignore me and just kept his eyes tightly closed if I came anywhere near him or petted him. This has happened once before, when I turned round in bed not knowing he was behind me, and he got a sharp elbow straight on the nose. He wouldn’t talk to me and refused to recognise me for two days after that!
He’s been back for two days now, and apart from coming up onto the bed and getting a couple of perfunctory cuddles in the middle of the night, he has done nothing but sleep and eat. Oh well, he’ll get over it soon enough.
Good Grief, can’t cats be FRUSTRATING sometimes!
john
PS. It’s now Sunday evening, and everything is back to normal again. He just CANNOT understand why humans get so uppity about loosing a few hours sleep at night. In fact, he’s out on the back stairs now, howling and calling to be let out again. FORGET IT!
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