So Mom was not going to come down, because of the cancellation of the sale of the house, but now she is coming tonight anyway. I'm glad I'm going to get to see here. I'll take the day off tomorrow and we can just have a mother/daughter day together. The people that were going to buy the house are pulling some kind of game, hemming and hawing about it. So, if Mom doesn't come down and they decided to close, she would be in breach of contract by not being there. She is coming, and we will go down to St. Louis to sign some papers to cover all bases. Then I think we may just end up at Lotawata.... woohoo!
On a sad note, I think Cheetah Bear is gone. He was not looking so good yesterday and had several bouts of vomiting again. I let him out when I was home for lunch, and usually he just stays on the porch for a couple hours and wants back in. When Ev went to work, Cheetah didn't want in (it was a nice day to lay in the sunshine, if you're a cat..). When I got home he was no where to be found. He was gone all night, which is very unusual for him. I went home at lunch time again today and Ev and I looked all over for him. There is one place he might still be, but if he is there, he's not of this world anymore. He used to get up in the rafters of the outside shed, but neither Ev nor I think he can climb up there anymore, so it's doubtful he's in there. We were out there calling him and he didn't answer. So when I get home from work tonight I guess I'll screw up my courage and look up there, unless Nick does it before he goes to give guitar lessons tonight.
Cheetah has been with us for 11 years. He came to us as a stray with another cat we named Sox. Both were half grown males we think were littermates. Someone had them at one time, because both were neutered. When he came to us, he was skin and bones. You could count every bone in his body. Sox was the dominant cat of the pair and he would always eat from the food bowl first. After Sox was done, Cheetah would eat. We used to feed the two of them on the front porch and not let them inside. We had Nakia (dog) and Figaro (cat) inside at the time and did not want two more cats in the house. Well, if anyone has ever fed a cat on their front porch they probably know that this creates a whole host of issues that most of us would like to avoid.
The first thing to happen was that a neighborhood call went out to all stray cats that there was food on our porch, so an all night battle went on, with every stray vying for a place at the food bowl.
Next came the opposum. Did you know those freaky little you-know-whats aren't very afraid of grown women in bathrobes? I remember opening the front door to shoo yet another stray off the porch, when this young opposum looked up at me with those weird eyes, then bent right back down to the bowl and continued to munch!
At this point, I convinced Ev to at least let me bring the food bowl inside and let Sox and Cheetah in just to eat. He was accepting of this idea, having had to live trap the marsupial and release its nasty self out on the outskirts of town. It still makes me smile when I remember him trying to open that live trap and jump back from it like it had electrocuted him! So the food bowl came inside and so did Sox and Cheetah.
Sox did not like being inside with Nakia. Nakia could care less about the two cats, having learned at early puppyhood that if there is a cat in the house to just give it a wide berth. But somewhere along the line Sox decided he would find a home elsewhere and soon we had Cheetah Bear inside along with Figaro and Nakia.
Well, Mr. Cheetah soon realized that the food bowl was now his, all his (Figaro was not a big eater and had her own bowl). Cheetah started eating and didn't stop until he hit the 20 pound mark! He was a fat and sassy cat and loved to curl up next to me at night in bed. He would snuggle up alongside me and then flip his girth over so he was on his back and I would absentmindedly rub his belly in my sleep.
In the mornings, he would get up with me and wait, sometimes not so patiently, for me to let the dogs out, then demand water from the bathroom faucet. He loved to drink running water from the tap. Up until the past year he could jump onto the vanity by himself but this past year or so he needed me to pick him up and put him up there for his morning drink. When he wasn't drinking from a running tap, he would drink from the water bowl only by dipping his paw into it and making a cup out of the pads of his foot! He was certainly a character!
Wrigley used to have fun with Cheetah. When Wrigley was a pup, and Cheetah had not yet reached his maximum weight, you could say to Wrigley "get kitty!" and watch the fun begin! See, Cheetah was very mellow. He tolerated all kinds of nonsense, including a slobbering pup grabbing him by the back of the neck and dragging him through three rooms of the house, or across half the yard, or even (gasp) down a few steps! There really was never a dull moment around our house back then!
Now, today, I believe that all the animals I mentioned in this post up to this point have passed. I know in my heart that Figaro and Nakia passed at an old age and were ready to go. The wound is still too fresh to speak of with Wrigley, but scroll back to last week for that so very sad tale. And now my fat cat, beloved Cheetah Bear, fat-harry-uss, fatty-us the catty-us, and whatever silly goofy names we had for him appears to have left this world. I hope you didn't suffer, kitty. See you on the other side!
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