Get that out of the house!
After my divorce, I bought a beautiful buff colored cocker spaniel to keep me company and to sound frightening if someone was trying to get in the house. I mean, what's scarier than an eight week old puppy right? I loved that dog desperately, but when I moved here, my new apartment wouldn't allow dogs. My boyfriend at the time was finishing law school in Texas and she adored him. So he took custody of the dog, and she stayed behind in Texas.
I moved to Florida both for the free law school and also to be with him. Only, he ended up taking a job in Arkansas after graduation, so I was stuck here without anyone. No boyfriend, not many friends to speak of, and an incredibly empty house. I was afraid to sleep alone. It was one of the loneliest times.
In January, he came to visit and we went looking at the shelter for something for me to bestow my love on, to give me a reason to get out of bed in the mornings. We found three kittens, only five and a half weeks old, fleabitten and scrawny which were going to be put down because the shelter didn't think that they would find homes for them as they were so small. They had to be bottle fed because they weren't weaned. Before them I had no idea that they even made kitten formula & bottles. I didn't really want a kitten, and I sure didn't want two of them, and three was out of the question. A family that was there while we were took one of the kittens, and the two remaining were so pitiful, that I folded. I took them home.
Two boys, a medium length haired grey cat, and a little puff of black, brown and white hair with ears. I named the grey one Ashton [and no, I did not name him after Demi Moore's boy toy. He looks like he's covered in soot, and is my little chimney sweep - well, assuming I had a chimney], and the fuzz ball Alexander the Great (pictures forthcoming later this afternoon maybe if my camera batteries will ever charge, and assuming I actually make it home from the grocery store - which is a feat when you live in South Florida and every old person in the world winters here and their favorite social gathering place is the grocery store... ) Wait, where was I?
Oh yes, Ashton is a cold blooded vicious murderor. I lived in a penthouse apartment when I first got them, next to the intercoastal waterway. Ashton was always adventurous, which nearly led to his death when he was about ten weeks old. I had left the patio door open, and he decided to pounce on a bug that ran under the porch railing, and I managed to grab his tail before he plunged sixteen floors to his death. After that, the only time I allowed them outside was in a carrier to and from the vet.
When I first moved into this house, they would sit at the front and back french doors, watching the world outside, but they would never go out. Alex seemed to be the more adventurous of the two and we finally took him outside one day. Mind you, by this point Alex weighed over 20 pounds. He's a BIG cat. Michael picked him up and carried him onto the bricked back patio, and Alex was so afraid that he urinated all over him. Once I finally stopped laughing (o.k. wait - I'm almost finished... almost), we decided maybe the boys were just too afraid to be out there. So we didn't push the issue, but when we were in the yard we would leave the doors open for them to come out if they wanted.
Now we can't keep the little rats in. Our back door is scratched from them begging to go out. We have literally hundreds of lizards in the backyard and they boys love to chase them. Alex is a bit of a bumbling idiot, so if he ever catches one, it's likely only because he sat on it. Ashy however is a mean lizard killing machine.
The problem though, is that he likes to bring his prey in the house - and bestow gifts of maimed and injured critters to me. I do not appreciate my cat's hunting ability. It doesn't impress me at all. It FREAKS me out. So here I am making a list of what I need at the store, and this GIANT lizard now missing a tail and a back leg, comes scrambling up my leg in a fit of sheer panic, with Ashton looking triumphant on his heels, er heel.
Screaming and mayhem ensues. I'm sure the neighbors think I'm being viciously attacked.
There is a five inch long lizard under my couch, and I am so skeeved out. Ew. How am I going to find this thing?!?!?
I moved to Florida both for the free law school and also to be with him. Only, he ended up taking a job in Arkansas after graduation, so I was stuck here without anyone. No boyfriend, not many friends to speak of, and an incredibly empty house. I was afraid to sleep alone. It was one of the loneliest times.
In January, he came to visit and we went looking at the shelter for something for me to bestow my love on, to give me a reason to get out of bed in the mornings. We found three kittens, only five and a half weeks old, fleabitten and scrawny which were going to be put down because the shelter didn't think that they would find homes for them as they were so small. They had to be bottle fed because they weren't weaned. Before them I had no idea that they even made kitten formula & bottles. I didn't really want a kitten, and I sure didn't want two of them, and three was out of the question. A family that was there while we were took one of the kittens, and the two remaining were so pitiful, that I folded. I took them home.
Two boys, a medium length haired grey cat, and a little puff of black, brown and white hair with ears. I named the grey one Ashton [and no, I did not name him after Demi Moore's boy toy. He looks like he's covered in soot, and is my little chimney sweep - well, assuming I had a chimney], and the fuzz ball Alexander the Great (pictures forthcoming later this afternoon maybe if my camera batteries will ever charge, and assuming I actually make it home from the grocery store - which is a feat when you live in South Florida and every old person in the world winters here and their favorite social gathering place is the grocery store... ) Wait, where was I?
Oh yes, Ashton is a cold blooded vicious murderor. I lived in a penthouse apartment when I first got them, next to the intercoastal waterway. Ashton was always adventurous, which nearly led to his death when he was about ten weeks old. I had left the patio door open, and he decided to pounce on a bug that ran under the porch railing, and I managed to grab his tail before he plunged sixteen floors to his death. After that, the only time I allowed them outside was in a carrier to and from the vet.
When I first moved into this house, they would sit at the front and back french doors, watching the world outside, but they would never go out. Alex seemed to be the more adventurous of the two and we finally took him outside one day. Mind you, by this point Alex weighed over 20 pounds. He's a BIG cat. Michael picked him up and carried him onto the bricked back patio, and Alex was so afraid that he urinated all over him. Once I finally stopped laughing (o.k. wait - I'm almost finished... almost), we decided maybe the boys were just too afraid to be out there. So we didn't push the issue, but when we were in the yard we would leave the doors open for them to come out if they wanted.
Now we can't keep the little rats in. Our back door is scratched from them begging to go out. We have literally hundreds of lizards in the backyard and they boys love to chase them. Alex is a bit of a bumbling idiot, so if he ever catches one, it's likely only because he sat on it. Ashy however is a mean lizard killing machine.
The problem though, is that he likes to bring his prey in the house - and bestow gifts of maimed and injured critters to me. I do not appreciate my cat's hunting ability. It doesn't impress me at all. It FREAKS me out. So here I am making a list of what I need at the store, and this GIANT lizard now missing a tail and a back leg, comes scrambling up my leg in a fit of sheer panic, with Ashton looking triumphant on his heels, er heel.
Screaming and mayhem ensues. I'm sure the neighbors think I'm being viciously attacked.
There is a five inch long lizard under my couch, and I am so skeeved out. Ew. How am I going to find this thing?!?!?
posted by April at 11:39 AM
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