Dougy is tired of posing and being a pretty kitty boy…
Andy’s not pleased taking Dougy’s place. He slips off to the guest bedroom. If I want to get glamour shots of the kitty boys today, I’ll have to be a lot sneakier.
Day before the eclipse…
…I ask Andy what he plans to do during the eclipse since many of you have asked about Andy and Dougy’s plans.
Andy wants to know what an eclipse is, so I explain. Don’t be frightened, Andy, it’s just legend that a big jaguar eats it!
Just in case, Andy will take precautionary measures!
Dougy’s plans are simple.
In the meantime, I should be cleaning since I invited a friend to come to town, perhaps stay overnight to avoid the traffic. The kitty boys pretty much claim the guest bedroom until I have guests, and they leave a mess!
Andy likes to perch here. When the total eclipse occurs on the 21st, what will be his reaction?
The best sources suggest he and Dougy will think it’s night and will have a midday nap!
I will be outside observing it so may never know what the kitty boys are doing, in fact, but “taking a nap” probably covers it pretty well!
I’ll leave the walker by the open front door because Dougy likes to perch there. Who knows? Maybe they will enjoy the sudden drop in temperature, too, being fuzzballs!
I feed Andy* and Dougy** first, of course, then prepare my own breakfast.
They finish their kitty food, then come over to watch me fix my breakfast. It’s a regular scene out of “Oliver Twist”! [At this point, “Food, Glorious Food”, from the movie goes through my mind…!]
Dougy goes “Super Shaming” here. “Maybe there’s a crumb of spider, a gnat, or a dead fly under here…” He sucks in his tummy for dramatic effect, though I can’t see it because he is so furry.
LOL! What a dramatic performance, MacDougall! You should be in pictures!
[*Andy is in the bottom three photos in the collage, and **Dougy is in the top two.]
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Dougy’s anxious. The recliner tends to slide around when I get up or sit down in it. Now it’s a bit too close for Dougy’s comfort.
More to the point, it’s too close when Andy’s perched on his favorite arm of the recliner, and Andy insists on perching there when Dougy’s on his ottoman!
Boys! Boys! Boys! Wait a moment and I’ll push the recliner back so you both can enjoy your favorite furniture.
(Anxiety taken care of.)
What’s up, Andy? Andy has a challenge to meet, but it requires some strategic thinking! He heard someone make noises outside the front door, and it turned out to be the USPS delivery person leaving a box!
He tried to get into the box, of course, even put his front paws inside it before he decided it wouldn’t work for a kitty of his size. (I think it would, but I’m not Andy!)
Since he couldn’t get satisfaction with the box, he came over to me (see the foot?) to get some loving. After some nice “scritches”, I gave Andy kitty treats. He soon forgot the box.
But I didn’t! It held three jars of homemade jams made by my friend Deborah!
Peach-hot pepper, rhubarb-ginger, and blueberry-ginger jams from Maine! I could eat them on just about any type bread, but scones seems like the best bet. I bought the missing ingredients I needed to make the recipe in the morning, knowing the jams were on the way. Not a moment too soon!
Couldn’t wait! I had toasted English muffins with the peach-hot pepper jam for breakfast. Yum! I’m saving the rest for those scones.
Thanks, Deborah! Andy may be disappointed with the box, but I enjoyed your peach-hot pepper jam a lot!
Charles and André, Deborah’s Bombay kitties
My friend Deborah recently hosted grandchildren at her home, and they came up with an interesting game for Deborah’s two cats.
I noticed that my grandson C. was pretty good at imitating the voices of sportscasters. I told him he might have a future as a sportscaster but that by the time he was an adult all sports were liable to be broadcast on the Internet and that on the Internet cats rule!!!
André Breton (Monsieur Moustache)
So we came up with the idea for Internet Cat Wrestling, governed by the IICWA (International Internet Cat Wrestling Association).
Charles is a handsome black kitty!
Like all sports, the rules had to be codified, so while I was cooking dinner, C. and I made the rules.
Some of them can only be read by him apparently, and there had to be exactly ten which got harder as the dinner making reached a crucial stage, but here are the ones I can decipher:
1) both awake
2) both in same room
4) only hand and mouth
7) cat can have a coach
10) sportsmanship at all times
Charles and R. are BFFFF’s (Best Fur Friend and Friend Forever)!
The game is played as a best of 10 rounds each day for a week and involves dangling their favorite cat toy (a multicolored felt wand on a pole) in front of them until one or the other traps it in their mouth or under their paw.
Seeing C. (just finished second grade) write down the rules inspired R. (mid-kindergarten) to write her own set of rules which seems to consist of a lot of “no”s only one of which I can decipher with certainty: “5. No C.” although “no shoes, no cats, no boot, and yes Mom” are strong candidates.
R.’s rules
André won the series, not surprisingly, as he is much more a game player than Charles. André is quick on his paws and does not mind flying around to chase the wand, while Charles prefers to conserve his energy.
For half brothers they are very different. Charles does have the ability to get a grip with his mouth and not let go despite tugs from the referee but there are no points awarded for tenacity.
The Award Ceremony: André vs. Charles
At the end of the week, during our Camp Monster dinner party with their parents and A. and his wife in attendance, C. presented the awards: a fish for André The Vainquer and fish juice to Charles The Sportsmanship Winner (by default — the loser always gets the sportsmanship award).
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I hope you enjoyed this story from my friend Deborah! Her kitty boys are BFFF (Best Fur Friends Forever) of my kitty boys (Andy on recliner arm, and Dougy on floor), who were glad to have a day free of me nagging them to stand still for photos or “Do something… anything… interesting, dag nab it!”
Curiosity is driving Andy wild! These boxes are different and Andy wants to hop right in!
Oh. So Amazon sold me eclipse glasses that could cause me to go blind. Great! I’m getting a credit and don’t have to return them at least.
No time to order glasses that meet the standard, so I go old school and make two pinhole viewers. My friend Craig, who’s coming to town for the eclipse at my invitation, will be surprised since he’s expecting eclipse glasses.
Fortunately, I’ll have the ding-dang thing over my head so no one will recognize me. Whew! Of course, there’s a good chance I will be laughing at the absurdity of it all. You put a box on your head and see what it gets you!
I live right on the path of the North American total eclipse that’ll occur August 21st. I’m ready…if I can keep the kitty boys from hopping in these tantalizing boxes! (I have them up high just in case.)
What will the eclipse look like in your Zip Code area? This popped up on Facebook”
http://time.com/4882923/total-solar-eclipse-map-places-view/
Dougy certainly got his kitty on when I brought out this old feather toy!
Andy waited instead for me to run some kitty videos. To each his own!
“Bye! Bye!”
Dougy has left the room!