The Blackburn Digest

Good-bye, “Little Bit” . . .”Fossil” . . .”Old Lady”. . .  unlike any of our other cats, you seemed to collect names as you aged!  You aged quite well, too; since I was lax about dating photographs, we’re guessing you were with us for 18-20 years!You possessed a sweet temperment, a couple of really objectionable habits, a cuddly nature . . . .and you became very much a part of the fabric of our lives! Wait for me at the foot of the Rainbow Bridge, Little Bit - I will look for you there

 We’ll miss you

We named our youngest “Fur Kid” Diva, because of the incredibly loud voice she used to announce that she was lost and frightened outside of my former office in Leon Valley. (She employed the same volume to state her distaste for the cat carrier I placed her in until I could bring her home - she “almost” got on everyone’s nerves enough to get me out of work early that day!)

As she has grown in size and agility, she has also exibited uncanny (uncatly?) abilities in “breaking and entering” (opening closed doors), “aerial maneuvers” (leaping amazingly high and changing direction while in flight) and “criminal activity” (locating the most important object in a given room and creatively attacking it!) These antics have led to my nickname for this adorable fur-ball: “Diva Devil”!

Someday, I will laugh about this morning’s misadventure. “Someday” isn’t here yet, by a long shot!

The morning started in deceptively innoccuous fashion: the alarm went off, and we both stumbled out of bed to greet the (pre) dawn gloom. Tom’s focus was on getting ready for work, while my focus was on ignoring the “weather report” from multiple joints until my meds had an opportunity to lower the reports’ volume somewhat.

Then, IT HAPPENED! In rather bleary-eyed fashion, I gazed into my sink. “Wake UP, brain! Something is wrong here! But what????” It took a groggy moment to identify what . . . . . . there, in the center of the sink, was the container my dentures reside in at night. With its’ lid next to it, instead of on it. With only my upper plate residing in it!!!!! The cats seem to enjoy knocking the container off the soap ledge, but one of them had upped the stakes of the game by Stealing My Lower Plate!!!!!

As “MommaCat”, I suppose it is fitting that my first entry in this blog is cat-oriented. (For those who have never been owned, bullied and loved by a cat, you can probably stop reading right here - - - you won’t understand.)

The time period from 3:25 through 6 this morning was (in this order) irritating, horrible, gut-wrenching, euphoric and exhausting . . . . . . . . all accomplished by one endearing and exasperating Very Large Cat. Yep - Sundance, the 20 lb. domestic/Maine Coon mix autocrat of the Blackburn household.