Road Work (September, 2011)

August was a quiet month in our neighborhood. Lots of people seemed to be away on vacation. Pat let us spend more time than usual relaxing in the yard and on the back deck, where she and Henry spent their afternoons reading.

Then one morning, Pat warned us that it was the Labour Day Weekend. But we didn't know why we should care about that.

We got our answer early on Tuesday morning, when lots of men and noisy machines arrived right in front of our house, and Pat refused to let any of us go out there, not even Summer!

But today is Saturday, and no men have come to turn on the machines, so Pat said that if we would wear our collars, we could all go outdoors together to check out the situation.

The last time men with big machines came to our street -- back in December -- they cut down the forest across the street from us.  Then they spent months building a new house there.

But this time, there seem to be many more machines. The machines are parked all up and down the street.

The men have left piles of curious objects on almost every lawn.

In our own front yard, there is a pile of long black tubes:

Also in our yard, the men have dumped a huge mountain of dirt! On top of the dirt they stuck a huge concrete thingy, which even Pat is unable to identify.

As Toots looked on, Natasha volunteered to undertake a thorough exploration of the dirt-mountain:

After Nasha reported that the dirt-mountain seemed stable, we went right to work putting our paw-prints all over the side that faces the street:

That was fun!

But Pat complains that we are tracking in too much mud, both from the dirt-mountain, and from the street, which is being all torn up by the heavy machines.

Furthermore, we are certain that as soon as the men come back on Monday and start up the machines, Pat will again imprison us.
 
Oh how we hope that the men will soon finish whatever it is they are doing so that our lives can get back to normal!
 

  

Collared! (July, 2011)

Since Tootsie disappeared for an entire week, Pat and Henry have been keeping most of us under house + pen arrest.

There are exceptions.  Summer, for example, is so good about staying in the yard and returning immediately when called, that he has been allowed to go out even while the rest of us remain confined:

Farah, also, is totally trustworthy, and is allowed out every evening for an hour or so after Summer, her archenemy, has come indoors.

Sweet Cocoa is so affectionate that she will not leave Pat's side so long as Pat stays out in the yard with her, so she, also, has been allowed a bit of carefully supervised outdoor time:

Tessa and her kittens Dolly and Dandy don't mind the new rules: they are entirely content to remain in the pen wrestling with each other and killing all the bugs they can eat.

But the rest of us are NOT happy and we DEMANDED an explanation for our confinement.

Pat told us all that "pen" is short for "penitentiary," and that if we look at the roots of the word, we will understand that a "penitentiary" is a place where we should think about our misbehaviour until we feel remorse.

So, here is Hershey, doing his best to re-morse and re-pent:
 

The rest of us, however -- even Tootsie, whose bad behaviour was the immediate cause of our imprisonment -- refuse to acknowledge that we have anything whatsoever to repent, and Hershey, too, soon grew bored with this novel concept.

We have all been so unhappy, that Pat has been trying to figure out a way that we can continue to enjoy the yard during this short spell of summer weather. 

And she thinks she may have found a solution!

Look back at the picture of Hershey in the pen: Did you notice that he is wearing a collar, with a funny dangly thing attached?  Here, you can see Taffy wearing the same kind of contraption:

BECAUSE:  Pat has discovered Loc8Tor radio devices!

Here is how the Loc8Tor system works:

Before any one of us is allowed out the door, Pat attaches to each of our collars, one of the little dangly things (she calls them "homing devices"):

Pat -- who always goes out with us now -- carries a little black rectangular gadget that has buttons on it. Each homing device is assigned to a specific button.

Pat keeps track of which cat is wearing which homing device.

Then, if one of us disappears from sight, Pat presses the appropriate button on her little black gadget, which proceeds to act like a geiger counter:

Pat wanders around the yard, and whenever she happens to move closer to the missing cat, the black thingie BEEPS! LIGHTS flash on the black thingie!

The closer Pat gets to whichever one of us has vanished, the brighter the lights become, and the louder the beeps!

And that's not all: the dangly thing on the collar in question beeps in response!

Taffy was the first one of us to disappear and be located by the gadget. She was SO surprised when her collar starting beeping, and Pat came running around the corner of the house to collect her and bring her back to the deck! Where Boris greeted her, in cat-fashion, by sniffing first her front end and then her back end:

If you want to learn more about how the black thingie works, go here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSqkBFXrm9k&feature=related

There are some limitations, of course. The radio signals only reach about 600 feet.  But that's usually far enough. And anyway, in the past, whenever one of us went missing outside the yard (first Cocoa, then Hershey, most recently Tootsie), Pat and Henry walked all over the neighborhood searching.  If they had had the little black thingie, Pat now believes, they would have located every one of us within an hour.

But another problem has arisen:  the homing devices are not waterproof!  SO Taffy, who is as clever as she is naughty, while pretending to drink from one of our many bowls, gave her homing device a good dunking, so that it won't work anymore.

Now Pat is ordering new homing devices that are encased in something that makes them waterproof.

Another potential problem:  What if two or three or four of us -- or for that matter, ALL of us -- agreed to run off, all at once, in different directions? As far as we can see, Pat can press only one button at a time! And we are certain she can chase us in only one direction at a time!

Hershey tried to discuss with Summer, our Fearless Leader, the possibility of organizing such a plot. But since Summer doesn't wear a collar, he was not interested. In fact, Summer told Hershey that if we all behaved as well as he does, Pat wouldn't make us wear the homing devices!

And even if we did run off in different directions, Pat says, she would simply track us down one by one.

Anyway, as you can see from these pictures, most of us enjoy staying right here on the deck and in the yard with Pat.

Simon, the Siamese who lives two doors down the street from us, is, as usual, JEALOUS: For years, while the rest of us have tried constantly to escape, he has always tried to run IN to the house or pen, only to be evicted by Pat whenever he managed it.

Now Simon has yet another cause for complaint:  Pat refuses to give him one of the collars that the rest of us are sporting!

Summer gets SO tired of explaining to Simon that he is NOT a member of our clowder:

But at least Boris can again enjoy the flowers he loves so much:

UPDATE Our Tootsie has come HOME (June, 2011)

Thursday, June 30, 2011, 10:20 a.m.

TOOTSIE has returned, just twenty minutes ago.  Pat has already telephoned and emailed the close friends who were agonizing along with us.

Tootsie had been gone one week today and Pat and Henry had given up hope that she would return to us.

When Tootsie arrived at the back door, she was in perfect condition but still so frightened that as soon as she ran inside, she hurried upstairs to hide under a chest of drawers!

Pat and Henry believe that she must have been accidentally shut in a shed or a garage -- they always thought that was the most likely scenario ....

Pat and Henry are overjoyed at (what they take to be) Tootsie's miraculous return, but we cats are not so pleased:

Although this pretty, dainty girl certainly LOOKS like our Tootsie, she SMELLS different to us! 

One by one, we are each approaching her, to sniff her flanks and determine whether or not we actually know her. So far only her sister Cocoa and brother Hershey have recognized her sufficiently to touch noses and rub heads -- even her other sister, Taffy, is hesitating. 

And because of her (whether or not this IS Tootsie), we are all under house arrest for the foreseeable future ....

More news soon, when Pat calms down.

------------------------------

Darling Tootsie went outdoors with several of the other cats on the morning of Thursday, June 23. Usually the cats roam the yard for only a brief time before returning inside for breakfast. But on this morning, Tootsie vanished.

Tootsie has always been the most fearless and adventurous of the cats. Just the day before Tootsie disappeared, Pat watched her climb all over the very steep roof of the house next door.

Now we fear that she may have been shut accidentally in a neighbor's shed or garage; or perhaps she climbed into a vehicle that transported her far from home.

If you have seen Tootsie or have any knowledge of what became of her, please email srebrnik@gmail.com.

Here is the most recent picture we have of Tootsie:

Tootsie loved Dolly-Mop, one of the two kittens born in our house in August 2010:

Tootsie was also very close to her brother Hershey.  Here, Hershey (on the left) helps Tootsie to more treats:

Tootsie had her own website at VivaPets, where she posted her favorite pictures and complained, "I wish Pat would stop worrying that I'll take too many risks, or roam too far away."

Since Tootsie disappeared, friends and relatives have been asking Pat, "so why do the cats go out at all if they have a pen? Didn't you learn your lesson when Hershey went missing in December?"

The answer is: yes indeed, after Hershey was lost and found, Pat decided no cat would go out unless she went with us.

The winter was long and and although we cats delight in leaping and dancing and skidding across deep, ice-covered expanses of snow, it was far too cold and wet for Pat's comfort, so there were very few mornings when we could go outside.

But when warmer weather arrived -- well, not only do we cats love to go out into the yard for a short spell in the morning -- Pat loves to go with us.

On warm, dry mornings, we have been going out together at 6:30 or 7.

Pat strolls with us in the yard or watches us from the deck as she drinks her coffee, and since we have so much fun playing with Pat and sharing all of our discoveries with her, most of us -- at least, most of the time -- stay very close and return to her side repeatedly.

Within an hour or two, with Pat's persuasion (sometimes coercion), we return, one by one, to enjoy breakfast in the pen.

Although we cats get plenty of fresh air and exercise in the pen -- and we really enjoy being free to go out there through our cat door, even in the middle of the night -- it's not the same as chasing each other at a mad dash through the width of three back yards, especially when we conclude the romp by scurrying up a handy tree.

These morning jaunts had become the happiest time of our day and also of Pat's!


And we still can't figure out what harm could have come to Toots at such an early hour of the morning, in a suburban neighborhood where such predators as there are come out only at night, and at a time of day when traffic in our neighborhood is so light . . ..

Here is Tootsie (on the right), as a blue-eyed baby, with two of her siblings (Cocoa on the left, and Hershey barely visible at the bottom of the picture).  Tootsie could always be recognized by the big white patch on her left back leg:

Yes, in hindsight, Pat knows she was overly confident concerning our safety. And now that Tootsie has vanished, our outings have been cancelled.

OH how frustrated and envious we are now when we stare out from the pen and see the several other cats who live nearby, strolling all over OUR yard, at any hour of the day or night!

Sometimes at night other cats come right up on to our deck to peer through the screen door into our pen. When that happens, Summer Cat, our Fearless Leader, HOWLS so loudly that Pat fears the neighbors will be awakened! Then Pat gets up herself in the middle of the night to chase the intruders away.

Summer has always done his best to guard and protect all of the other Pat's Cats. Here is a recent picture of Summer with Tootsie:

As for Tootsie, we want to say this to her:

Dear, sweet, brave, beautiful, far-too-adventurous girl, you have now been missing for longer than any other of the many cats who have lived with Pat and Henry since our first adored and adorable kitten came to us (Zaidman, 1988 - 2005).  Never before has one of Pat's Cats disappeared forever.

We hope you have suffered no pain. We hope that somewhere you are happy.

No Comment (Spring, 2011)

(don't forget - click to enlarge!)

Dandy the Baby Coon

Farah with her bags

Toots and Boris - Open this door!

Taffy the Daffy

Summer - Something to print?

Window to the pen

Dandy again

Boris again