That is what I thought. I now know better. During his lengthy recovery in the hospital and therapy my brother let his four cats to tend for. As you know I had grumpy Matilda already. She was not sociable at all and our home had to be unequally divided into two parts, mine and Matilda and my brother and his four cats. This is now over. I have the whole house open for all of them. I thought it was easier. I thought wrong.

Matilda loves to stand at doors, hissing and growling at every cat that passes by, and this they do often as you imagine, for a cat does not like to stay put in one place unless he is taking a nap or waiting for food.

After two months, Matilda has become more sociable, except for Windy, the little demon, a fast growing kitten with weird habits like eating with her paws (she takes the cat food nuggets with her claws and bring them up to her mouth; she gets little boxes like those with alcohol pads with both arms and lift them and throw them away; she cannot see a pencil, she pitch them out of tables and desks and plays with them until they are absorbed in mysterious black holes). As you probably none of the other cats likes Windy because she jumps on them when they are napping, bites their tails, pushes them away from their food when they are being fed, and the moment she sees them headed toward they favorite nap place, she rushes in and sits there for a while. But she is the loveliest critter ever. It is worth a million bucks to see how she cuddles with Bindy for hours and they sleep together hugging each other.

Bindy behaves more like a monkey. She loves climbing up to any possible object, up the terrace screen, clinging in there, despite her gaining weight a lot for five or more minutes. Norton, my brother's favorite and oldest cat in the house, when Windy suffocates him, begins to meow out loud until I have to open the door and let him out. He does, and then lies on the grass close to the terrace where the rest watches him with envy and look at me like asking, "why the hell he can and we can't?" Well he is used to go in and out. You are too small and Matilda is too wild.

Dalmata is our next door neighbor's. One day, he decided to spend most of the time in our house, better and a more peaceful place where he could take long, long naps in the most outrageous position. Dalmata enjoys his naps so much that neither my brother nor I dare to make a noise and wake him up. Windy doesn't care. But Dalmata's sleeping is so contagious that even Windy is seduced and sleeps with her head on his belly. So touching!

Every one of these five cats and Dalmata is a character with so many distinct features that one cannot help loving them deeply, even when they drive us crazy — something they do quite often.

Copyright © Ralph Rewes
February 24, 2008