Tag: Stormy

A game of cat and mouse

Stormy

StormyOn a recent Friday evening, I heard rustling, a game of cat and mouse. The cat was playing;  the mouse wasn’t nearly as excited about it.

Our remaining cat, Stormy, entered the living room from the hallway with a mouse in her mouth. Initially, I didn’t know if the mouse was alive or not. Eventually, Stormy got bored with holding it in her mouth, let it drop, and the mouse started to run away. Stormy quickly caught it.

The scene repeats a few more times as the mouse scurries into the dining room. Some boxes on the floor stifle Stormy, but I move them, and Stormy snares her prey. Finally, after releasing the mouse again, Stormy can’t quite get to it because it’s hidden between returnable bottles on the floor. I move the bottles, but the mouse moves underneath a tool chest; I don’t know how it fit under there.

Goodbye

The mouse was lying on its back, so I got a pair of winter gloves and picked it up. It was still moving but not nearly as robustly as before. I took the mouse outside, probably to meet its fate via an outside cat or a raptor.

Midnight and Stormy were inside cats and didn’t have the killer instinct. But they did have the play instinct. Earlier this year, we discovered a dead mole at the top of our steps. Even then, we were sure the cats didn’t kill the rodent but found the deceased creature.

Stormy is a great alarm clock for these things. One time, about a decade ago, she was staring at the brick wall above a fireplace, and we discovered that a bat was hanging there. We managed to get the bat out of the house without hurting the bat or us, but it was only because Stormy was so intent on staring that we even discovered the creature.

Stormy after Midnight

solo cat

How is our remaining cat Stormy after Midnight passed away? She’s doing OK, but she’s changed somewhat. She used to be much quieter and out of the way most of the time, but now she seems to have taken on some of Midnight’s attributes.

Specifically, she’s very loud when she wants food or even when she’s been fed. Midnight used to start on his food, then go over to hers, and I had to intervene. She doesn’t have to fight for her meals and tends to graze most of the day.

Her diet is also changing; she is, after all, 11, and so she’s an older cat. She used to eat dry foods plus moist foods (shreds), but now she’s also eating the pate she and Midnight both eschewed when they were kittens. I alternate between shares and pate.

Also, she’s often in the way in the doorway in the entryways; this is something Midnight used to do all the time. Now that he’s not here, she seems obliged to take on this role. The good thing is that she tends to move out of the way when I walk towards her, unlike Midnight, who would remain underfoot.

Becoming my cat, too?

Another interesting thing is that she would never come to where I sat on the sofa. She would sit on my wife’s lap or next to my daughter. But she would never do this with me because she perceived me as Midnight’s person. Now, if I scratch the sofa cushion, she’ll jump up and sit beside me. “That’s different,” my daughter correctly observed.

My daughter believes that Stormy realizes I’m mourning and wants to hang out to make me feel better. I think she was wary of Midnight being around that he might supplant her on the sofa, and she didn’t want to deal with the possible conflict. These both could be true.

Even before, she would often come up to me and rub her head against my leg or on my foot, although she does the same to chairs, the corner of the kitchen counter, and other surfaces.

I’m glad she’s still here. By the way, the banana picture was taken by my daughter about a year and a half ago. The reason it’s here now is that, though I was unaware of that photo, I put a banana on Stormy’s head, and she looked just as silly as she did here. She doesn’t seem to mind it terribly. What does that say about her, that she’s bananas?

Lydster: Midnight and Stormy

Aaron Copland

We have two cats. While they are both about seven years old, Midnight, the male black feline, is a few months older than Stormy, the female grayish one. And he is clearly the alpha beast.

This has created a problem of Midnight being overweight, and seeing them at mealtime explained why. Each of them receives a quarter can of wet food. Midnight devours this as though he had never been fed ever before. Left to his own devices, he’d bump Stormy out of the way and eat her food as well. Yes, one could stop him from stealing her food. But how do we slow him down?

Our daughter found this rolly-polly little feeder with a hole near the bottom. It sort of looks likes a tiny version of Arthur’s pet composting device, actually. Midnight’s job is to knock the device around and the kibble would come out of the hole. Meanwhile, someone would take Stormy’s half-eaten bowl of wet food and place it in a location where she could get it but he would not find it.

This is a twice-daily ritual at 7:30 Daylight Saving Time, 6:30 during Standard Time. I feed them in the morning because my wife is off to work. Our daughter feeds them at night, although she sometimes has to be reminded to leave the cave that is her bedroom.

Don’t mess with Midnightus

Midnight is quite hostile to most other human beings. He actually gets along with our contractor. He is civil enough to my daughter’s friend Kay that she can feed them while we’ve been away. But don’t take his tolerance of you as acceptance. My friend Uthaclena made the mistake of petting him, and Midnight’s claws came out. My MIL is terrified of him, as are others.

When we had inspectors visit our home for a loan, our daughter put them both in her room. Stormy wouldn’t hurt anyone, but she is terrified of strangers. One catsitter a few years back was afraid that she somehow escaped the house. Nah, she was just hiding, and she does it well.

Midnight can be quite affectionate to us. He’ll even let me put him up if I scratch under his chin before bolting. Stormy comes to people on her own terms, rubbing her body against my leg. She’ll sit on her laps if SHE feels like it.

We initially got the cats because our daughter wanted them. But my wife and I have grown rather attached to them, in spite of ourselves.

Here’s William Warfield, performing Aaron Copland’s song I Bought Me A Cat, with the composer conducting.

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