Relaxing at Home

I don't come home very often, but when I do, I relish in the atmosphere - both of the natural beauty of the woods and lake surrounding my house and also in the home-ness that pervades every inch of this old house. Included in my favorite aspects of home are, of course, my 3 cats: Jeffery, Jackson, and Blackie. They are beautiful cats. Jeffery turns 19 on Monday, which just happens to be my Dad's 54th birthday. Very convenient for remembering birthdays in March.

Jeff is your typical grey-striped tabby cat, but he is very unique in 2 aspects. 1) He is missing one fang (they have 2), he lost it in a battle either against another cat (which he was eager to fight in his young days) or against some small critter that he was eating (probably lost it crunching on that critter's bones). 2) He has had an amazing life. Given to us by our old piano teacher, he broke his leg jumping off of the hood of my dad's station wagon in his first year and had to wear a splint for a month or so. Everytime we came home from school we'd hear the clicking of the metal part of the splint on the concrete of our driveway. The second amazing adventure Jeff had was when my parents decided to get rid of him, along with our other cat at the time, Missy (who kept having babies - she had 4 litters while with us). So I found a friend at school who lived on a farm to take them in. I'd ask her how they were getting along and Angie would tell me they were just fine, enjoying farm life. Then, a month or so after they went to her farm, my aunt Connie had 2 strange cats show up at her farm. One of them fit the description of Jeffery, the other Missy. The odd thing was that Connie's farm was over 7 miles away from Angie's, so the probability of it being our cats was slim to none. We went over to Connie's and saw one of them, and sure enough, it was Jeffery. They had been coming home - Connie's was 7 miles closer to our house from Ang's. So we brought Jeffery home - obviously he was meant to stay with us. And he's been here ever since. He's got arthritis in all of his joints and cataracts in his eyes now, and he drools all over through the hole where his lost fang used to be, but he's so great. And soon he'll be 19.

We found Jackson, when I was in middle school, hiding under Evan's car (that's my brother) in the driveway. He was smaller than the size of my hand, at the time, and his starving, but bloated little tummy was all you could hold on to - and touching it felt like you'd break every single rib, which you could feel through his paper thin skin. His fur, black and white in no specific pattern, was longish and his little blue eyes were piercing. He ate that day as if he'd never seen food, nor ever would again. This is a trait he never lost. Jack is now one of the fattest cats we've had (and we've had lots of cats over the years). He eats food like it's going out of business. He's fiesty and has been hateful for years. Except recently, he's been warming up, as if maturing, post mid-life crisis. When he was tiny still, he used to run up your leg to sit in your lap - whether or not you were wearing long pants. His claws were like razors. We had him declawed during a brief stint when he was an indoor cat, but he proved too adventurous and wild, so we let him loose. Sad, if you think about it, we took away his only means of defense. Or so we thought. Turns out, Jackson can still climb trees, somehow. I've seen it many a time, and I am a witness to his lack of claws. Must be a miracle. He became best friends with our Golden Retriever, Dusty, during the final years of Dusty's life. They slept together in Dusty's pen in our sideyard, and Jack always smelled like dog. When Dusty died, though, Jackson went through a time when he would walk around the pen, looking for his playmate - and he was very subdued for a few weeks - as if missing something. It was heart-breaking.

Blackie (this will be short, I promise) is a stray that my dad has tamed since I came to college. She started living under our shed a few winters ago, and Dad felt sorry for her at the same time that he was intrigued by her color - black. She came from a nasty line of strays that live in a woods about 1/4 mile from our house. These gross cats are fed by our neighbors, who claim to have no cats, so the population is out of control. At first she only allowed Dad to touch her, but now, if I'm lucky, I can pick her up and sit her on my lap for 2 minutes to pet her. She is sweet though.

My parents sometimes forget to look at the cats, I think, when I'm not here. Jeffery always has new problems (he is old) and this time Jackson has some nasty eye fungus or infection and he coughing and sneezing and they won't take him to the vet. I'm trying to get him taken care of, but when I only come home once in a great while, it's pretty tough.