Hemi the Cat
came to visit us a while back. He’s a
senior citizen now, having existed more than a dozen years.
He has renal
problems. He’s supposed to eat a high-powered
cat food available only from his vet, but he doesn’t seem to care much for it. The result is he has lost a lot weight from
his halcyon days.
He has slowed
down some, is quite willing to lounge in your lap for as long as you’re willing
to let him. He still wants to play hide
and seek, especially late at night or early in the morning. Then he is content to spend the rest of the
day napping or visiting the sand box. He
drinks a lot of water.
However, he still
enjoys finding ways to annoy. This trip,
he discovered the joys of the step cabinet.
The step cabinet is somewhat of a Japanese antique. It is a quite versatile piece of
furniture. Apparently, in the olden
days, it did double duty as a stairway to the loft as well as a place to store
stuff.
It comes in
three pieces, which can be arranged in various ways. Besides a stairway, it can also be arranged
as it is here, as a regular cabinet.
Here it doubles as the entertainment center, meaning for us, it holds
the TV and the video player.
Because it can
be configured different ways, it has another unique feature: the doors and drawers are the same on both
sides. The drawers can be slid out or
removed from either side, with identical handles on either side. What you see on this side is also what you
see on the other side.
Hemi learned
early in life how to open doors. If you
linger in bed beyond 6:30 or so, you will hear him meowing and sticking his
forepaw under the bedroom door, trying to get it open. The door is closed and latched because if you
don’t do that, he will be on the bed with you during the night. That would be okay, too, except he can’t hold
still. He has to try continually to make
his nest more comfortable, which means you will have a fuzzy tail or a purring
nose in your face when you are trying to sleep.
Hemi discovered
the ring handles on the step cabinet. He
can hook the handle, pull it out and let it fall back, making a clinking sound,
not unlike the grandkids when they were still in their crawling stage. He could actually pull a couple of the
lighter drawers out. Unlike the
grandkids, he didn’t remove the contents of the drawer and scatter them all
over the floor.
So far, so
good. Another thing Hemi likes to do is
crinkle paper. He likes to march in
place on paper, newspaper, book, magazine, loose leafs, it doesn’t matter. He likes the sound of the crinkling
paper. The hinged door provided a double
treat form him.
Inside are
goodies wrapped in cellophane (an old word for you) that make a lot of noise when
it is handled (or walked on) like crinkling paper. The space probably has a smell from the
various kinds of seaweed and other goodies.
Hemi found his way into that part of the cabinet. When we blocked the front door, he went
between the wall and the back side of the cabinet and got into the cabinet from
that side.
A piece of foam
jammed between wall and cabinet cut off his access. We managed to pass the rest of the week in
peaceful coexistence.
Hemi was
successfully captured and sent home. He
hates riding in a car. If he thinks a
car ride is imminent, he will hide. In
previous visits, we have spent a lot of time trying to find him when it came
time to go home. We have learned to lock
him in the bathroom while we load his litter box and his food supply. Such actions tip him off that a car ride is
on the agenda.
We have readjusted
to life without a pet. We don’t miss
cleaning the litter box or trying to rid ourselves of black hair from clothes
and seat cushions.
We do miss being
greeted first thing in the morning with a chorus of meows, the flopping down on
the floor in front of us, the demand to have belly and ears scratched. We miss having a warm lap companion while
sitting in front of computer or TV.
Viva Hemi.
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