Pets

My little Darlings:

Here is the list of pets I've had in my life by category:

Dogs -
Johhny
Ralph
Daddy Grace
Beau
Maggie
Pearl
Rosemary
Sam

Cats -
Clyde
Jennifer
Porter
Vicky
Sally
Flash
Poo
Bruce
Dammit
and Odessa

Whew! I've raised a passle of'em, but there was not one of them whom I had to send to college...nary a single teenager in the bunch who acted up or hated my guts. They all displayed blind devotion, unconditional love and heartfelt gratitude for my presence. My list shows that although I chose to be a childless woman at the age of 25, I've surrounded myself with little darlings who were so glad to see me at the end of the day, only needed food, water and love and never asked to use my car!

If I had a child, I'm afraid I would have been so overly protective that I would have seat-belted the poor thing to the couch from age two to age eighteen so I wouldn't have to worry about them. I would have produced a potential serial killer, manic-depressive, sociopath who wound up in prison and never spoke to me again.

Pets do get cranky on occasion. If you step on them by accident, it pisses them off and they try to bite and scratch you. I've known children like that too and they don't really understand the word, "accident." They look at you like you did it on purpose, but with pets, there's no retribution. They don't try to get back at you if you 'accidentally' kick them across the room. I think they curse me every now and then...like when Odessa 'accidentally' got out the other evening and had to spend the night outdoors...her first night out. When I called for her on the porch the next morning, she did look at me as she came screaming to my feet as if to say, "You BITCH! How COULD you have left me outside with beasts like rats and possums and raccoons, and because you had the vet pull out my front FINGERNAILS, I had no defense against the creatures of the night!" I apologized profusely, which they also don't quite understand, but she got over it in about 15 minutes. I dare say that a child might have been scarred for life after a night left outside. I'm just sayin...

And, unlike children, I've had to put a few of them 'down.' I've spent many an hour cradling their tiny heads as they drifted off to cat or dog heaven after a full happy life. I would cry buckets, spend the rest of the day bereft in my bed and not answer my phone or go to work. But, unlike children, within 48 hours, I was at the pound again picking out my next precious, little darling. Pet's are so much easier. They last about a decade and then you get to pick out another one.

If you want unconditional love, get a dog or a cat!
kk

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My cat's name is Buddy because he is my little buddy. He's a Turkish Angora: long and elegant with long hair and fluffy tail. Beautiful black and white with a mischiefous glint in his kiwi green eyes. He thinks he is the king of the house and terrorizes Dammit daily. Odessa likes to play with him every day but they get excited and then Buddy tries to bite her on her ass and she has to hide under various and sundry chairs as he's too big to follow her under those tight places. Then she dashes out and chases Buddy and they tumble in a blurry ball of hair and hisses.
When I first got Buddy he was about 6 months old and some asshole had left him in a dumpster in a downtown loft building. The guy just left him there and Buddy was sitting quietly, waiting for him to come back and get him. Luckily, one of my acting students found him and guilted me into giving him a home in my fifth floor apartment in Hollywood. You could not touch him or he would try to bite you. I just left him alone but tried to play with him by throwing the ball from the kitchen to the bedroom or dangling and swishing my robe sash around the living room floor. My apartment was big compared to most but still a one bedroom and he was getting bigger every day.
I moved to Austin in March to take care of the ancient one and brought Buddy with me. That's not as easy as it sounds. I had to get him shots and buy an $80 dollar ticket for him on American Airlines. When he was at the vet to get his shots, he went crazy and turned into a Tasmanian Devil. He bit me, the vet and the guy with the blanket and huge leather gloves who said he had gone through this with wild, ferral cats. It took the three of us to get Buddy down for the two seconds it took to give him his rabbies shot while he made noises like a pissed off Bengal Tiger.
KK came to help me move out and we found a red-with-black mesh cat carrier at Target. The animal has to be able to stand up in the carrier or the airline won't let them fly. They can't weigh more than 10 pounds and can't have bitten anyone in the last ten days. I should have sent my vet some flowers cause he weighed in at 11 pounds and bit all three of us three days before the flight. She lied, bless her heart.
KK and I were enjoying our last cigarette on a bench just outside the Burbank airport when a securitiy guy passed by and commented on what a beautiful cat I had. Then he casually mentioned that I would have to take Buddy out of the carrier at the security gate to pass through. KK and I stared at each other straight-faced and in shock. We had given Buddy a tranquilizer but you don't know this cat. He's an alfa devil in an airport where the loudspeakers are blaring and people are everywhere and everything smells like white tile and feet. Luckily, it was all too much for him as I lifted him out of the carrier on the conveyor belt that goes into the x-ray machine and ran through the metal detector door hugging Buddy to me for dear life. He was dazed and terrified as I handed him to KK on the other side. She grabbed for him just as the carrier came out the other side of the machine and we slapped him back into the carrier just as he realized that it might be fun to run through this whole, big place.

Buddy slept like a baby from Burbank to Phoenix and then on to Austin. KK and I introduced him to the ancient one and turned him loose in this big house.

All he needed was some space and somebody fun to play with. He and Odessa can be found sleeping together between bouts of hysterical running and wrestling through the house. You can pet him now and he purrs and lets you hold him and carry him around. Odessa won't let him mess with her sexually as she is fixed, so Buddy has chosen the white, furry bath mat in KK's and my bathroom as a girlfriend. He has been neutered so I don't understand why he wants to screw the bathroom mat. We have to keep it folded up or he will go in there and knead on it and purr and eventually hump it until it is all bunched up and looking like some sort of demented volley ball that grew white fuzz. And he doesn't even care if we see him do this. Pervert.
KK is a cat-whisperer and one day she told me that Buddy has to be taught that I, Sally, am the alpha cat of the house and he has to mind me! So I held him up to my face and said sternly, 'I am the Alpha Cat!'. Right after that she went to get some alchohol and cotton swabs to wipe off the blood from the four-inch gashes left down the right side of my face.
So, Buddy is the king of the house and I pretty much do as he wishes and wait for the times when he is lovey and calm and then go mush his face and and pet him all I want.

Every cat I've had has lasted longer than any man I had and they are quieter and easier to feed. As three-dimensional expressions of awareness go, I'll take a Buddy over a Bubba any day.
SalGal