"If animals could speak, the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow, but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much."

--Mark Twain

I’ve given myself all next week to get this house in some kind of order. Patti and Bob are coming for a visit week after next. As I walk around, I see cat toys everywhere. Since we’ve had “Jonesie” and especially “Rhody”, every room has toy mice, balls, ball-go-rounds,-- (thanks "grandma" Bell (big smile) -- sticks with strings and mice attached, etc.

I usually put all of the toys in the cat’s toy basket. When the cats want to play, they go to the basket and find a mouse, a soft fuzzy toy, or something to play with. Pretty soon, all of the mice are under the couches or chairs or any furniture that has just enough room for the mouse to escape the abuse it’s receiving. When there are no mice left in the basket, I get my special “stick” and go around and get all of the toys out from under the furniture. I guess this amuses the cats because I usually have quite an audience when I’m on the floor running the stick under the couch, etc.

I’ve discovered that “Rhody” does not give up when he’s trying to catch something that is moving. He jumps and jumps and then when he catches it, he runs off with it.

The twins, Jason and Kaci used to play like that. Usually Jason would take the mouse or whatever was attached to the string and stick and run through the house, with Kaci in tow. If she was lucky enough to catch the stick part or step on it, Jason was halted. Then they started chasing each other through the house and up the cat tree.

Now we have four young cats. Thank goodness they don’t all play at the same time! When “Rhody” can’t find anyone to play with him, he just plays by himself. I woke up this morning to him playing on the bed alone. He was just scurrying around on top of the covers with his “imaginary” toy.

He reminds me so much of one of our first cats, “Calvin”. Before “Calvin” came in to live with us, I watched him out on our patio through the door. One fall evening, just before dark I looked out. There were some brown leaves that had fallen on the patio. “Calvin” was out there batting a leaf around. He’d jump on it, bat it and run after it. I can still picture that cat out there. He didn’t have a home, we weren’t feeding him, but here he was playing all by himself. He didn’t know he was “homeless”. As far as he was concerned, our patio and tent where he was sleeping were his home.

Calvin must have used the night time for his play time because after he came to live with us, he still liked to play after the lights went out. Before he got used to our schedule, many nights we’d go to bed and hear him running up and down the hallway in the dark, playing with something or just running. We’d lay there and laugh because otherwise during the day, we didn’t see him play much.

Calvin was not one of those cats who lived outside and then when he was brought inside, he always wanted to go back out. No, once he was in our house, that was it. He was perfectly happy to never go out again. Dad and son sleeping contentedly after a hard day at play and work

Calvin and Charlie Pennsylvania 1991

The only time he wanted outside was when we were on the patio with Rowdy. Of course, he wanted out with us, but we were afraid to let him out because he hadn’t been with us long and we knew he could jump the patio wall and leave if he wanted to.

Of course, we never let Rowdy out on the patio unless we were out there with him. Not that we had to worry about him jumping the wall. He had ear mites so bad when we first adopted him from the animal shelter, that one of his ear drums had burst. We got rid of the ear mites and he could hear fine, but he never had the equilibrium that he should have had. He was walking along the back of the couch one time and almost fell off. We laughed, but it was because of his ear.

“Rowdy” was actually afraid of heights and could never jump up on anything too high like the kitchen counters, etc. That was fine with us, but he got very nervous if we picked him up and put him up on something high like the table. He was such an easy cat to control.

We have lots of pictures of “Rowdy”, but for some reason we don’t have as many pictures of “Calvin”. We always joked that because “Calvin” was the “middle child”, we didn’t take as many pictures. “Chelsi” came along and we took lots of pictures of her. But, thinking back, “Calvin” was always off by himself somewhere when we were taking pictures. I know he didn’t like a lot of fuss being made. One thing that scared him really bad was plastic shopping bags. If I came home from shopping and started taking things out of the bags, he would make himself scarce.

Rowdy (left) and Calvin
1993 in PA

“Calvin” also never liked “Chelsi”. From the minute we brought her home at 6 weeks old, he was afraid of her. Well, at first it was fear and then it became personal. He hated her. For some reason, “Toby” also didn’t like “Chelsi” or “Sheila”. They were our only cats who felt that way about the dogs.

Calvin and Chelsi
Chelsi's "baby" was on the bed and Calvin "dared" her to take it
1993 in CA

With “Rhody”, we may have a likeness of “Calvin”. No, he’s not afraid of “Sheila”. He’s what we imagined “Calvin” was like when he was a kitten. We could only imagine because “Calvin” was five or six months old when he came to us. “Rhody” has the same spunk though. “Calvin” would set his sights on something and go for it and I see that in “Rhody”. Oh, and I guess it doesn’t hurt that “Rhody” is the same color as “Calvin” was.

“Jonesie” and “Rhody” make a “pretty” couple. We see them together quite a bit. “Rhody” is always looking for someone to be with. He is not a loner. It will be interesting to watch him develop as he gets older. We’ve had him about three weeks now and he sure has grown.

Rhody and Jonesie
July 2011

I was privileged to have "Rhody" on my lap for awhile this morning. He was playing on the floor while I was reading. Finally, like kittens do, he just layed down and was napping. I picked him up and put him on my lap. He was so tired that he stayed. It was nice to have a soft kitten sleeping on my lap. It’s been awhile. None of our cats are “lap cats”. However, in his last year, “Taz” started coming to my lap more and more. I’ll always be grateful that we had that special time together.

I also think that "Jonesie" is getting used to having a little brother around. "Rhody" is growing on him. We give "Jonesie" lots of attention too. We're always picking him up and fussing over him. He likes that.

“Rhody” goes to the vet tomorrow for his booster shots. I will bet that he is going to be almost five pounds, if not already.

More later.......