My story from last night

April 6, 2004

My last couple of days

April 13, 2004

The Basement

April 17, 2004

I'm free!

June 16, 2004

What's happening?

July 27, 2004

Back to Normal

August 09, 2004

Months of Updates

November 21, 2004

Just a Series of Lazy Days

March 6, 2005

Where My Toys Seem to Go

June 19, 2005

Tonight I Sat in Gary's Box

January 19, 2006

So I've been hanging around Minneapolis for the last couple of months -- checking the place out, seeing how things work out. I'm originally from St. Cloud, yes you can say it -- a damn farm cat! Not exactly from a farm, but I wasn't living in Paris either. I saw a lot of mice and I can tell you they weren't wearing berets.

Anyway here I am in Minneapolis and last night it was prime cat time -- around 2 a.m. -- and I was having a ball batting my pretend mouse around upstairs. I had quite forgotten the weightier issues of the day and I was just enjoying myself, batting around that mouse totally involved in the pounce, the whack across the room, slide, pounce, whack -- oh the simple joy of it all.

All of a sudden the light flashes on. My pupils shrink to pin size. My new person is upset. Something about needing to sleep, getting up in the morning. The new person wants to know what all the racket is about. Then she spots my mouse.

I can tell you I'm a smart cat. Why my old people even took the time to write that down on the papers they signed when they gave me away. Yes, Muffy is intelligent. Muffy, can you imagine? That's what they used to call me. Anyway I'm intelligent and I could see the thoughts running through the new person's head. "Smuf is making a racket with the mouse, if I get rid of the mouse, I'll be able to sleep" and then heartlessly she picked up my mouse and threw it down the stairs.

I meowed a plaintive sad whine, I cried. Why did she have to do that? I was enjoying myself so much. Now my mouse was gone. I just want you all to know how horrible I felt at that moment. How selfish of that person! To take my happiness away like that. I cried for several minutes.

But the new person. I don't know what her feelings were. She turned off the light and managed to go back to sleep -- just like that.

But I'll get back at her. I was able to find my mouse even in the darkness. I picked it up with my teeth and carried it back upstairs. It's waiting for me to play with whenever I want.

- Posted by Smuf at 06:10 PM

Like a lot of cats, one of my favorite things is hiding. I'm constantly hanging out underneath the bed, just lying in wait for my new person. I'm kind of proud of saying, I think she lives in a certain amount of fear that I'll jump out and scratch her. She doesn't know whether to be amused by my antics or mad because of the pain she's feeling. But anyway in the last couple of days, I've really outdone myself.

We live in this old house. The second floor is just really half a floor, so a number of the walls slope. This doesn't bother me. I'm not the one that has to worry about hitting their head. People that lived here years ago built in some drawers in one of the crazy spaces under the ceiling which left behind this little nine inch square area behind the drawers. It's about a five foot drop from the top of the drawers to the floor. I've always been curious about this space. What's down there? How would it feel to be there? Would I be able to get back out?

So the day before yesterday I decided to give it a try. I was there for a while when I heard my new person enter the room. I meowed quietly. She couldn't figure out where I was. I meowed again. She didn't want to believe that I was down there stuck in that little space. I know she's worried about that before. But she looked down and there I was. The look on her face, it was so amusing. She assumed I was stuck and went to look for something to help me get out. But I wasn't stuck, with a big effort, I scrambled out to the top.

Of course then there was the happy hugs she gave me to find that I was safe and not trapped forever in this little tiny corner of the house. I suppose she could have always dropped some cat food down for me and probably even some water but I have other needs and well anyway lets not think about that anymore. I was pretty happy too and we went downstairs and sat on a chair together and I got patted. I don't know what my new person did, but I fell asleep.

When I woke up, I started thinking. Had I been stuck? Was I pretending to be stuck to fool my new person? I wasn't sure anymore. I thought about it all day yesterday. It continued to bother me until I woke up this morning filled with anxiety. I ran up the stairs howling. I howled and howled, my thoughts had upset me so much. Was I stuck? I couldn't remember. I think I fooled myself.

Of course again I woke up my new person who felt sorry for me and didn't yell and encouraged me to just lie down and relax. Later this morning, hanging out on the front porch watching the birds, I began to feel better, relaxed, more like myself. I had some great long naps throughout the day and when my new person returned home, I was in the mood again to play another trick on her.

The sun had begun to fall and the house was darkening. My new person was walking around the house and closing the shades. She noticed that I wasn't in any of my usual spaces. Not on the bed, not on any of the soft chairs, not on the futon couch. H'mm. Was I hiding under the bed? Nope! Perhaps I had disappeared or was locked out on the porch?

She looked in the closet and then I rustled around in the box I was hiding in. Yes, I was hiding in one of the boxes on the top shelf in the closet. What made this even funnier is that this box contained Buddy the Gourd's coffee mug collection. Ha, ha Buddy, I sat in your box of mugs. My new person baled me out. She laughed. I'm still giggling about it too.

- Posted by Smuf at 08:45 PM

You know nothing of life, if you haven't spent at least a few good hours in a basement. I've got a basement in my house and whenever the laundry gets done, I make an effort to get downstairs. I don't know why it's so alluring. Perhaps because it's usually behind a closed door. It's like a trip to the carnival, all those fascinating amusements, mesmerizing, dazzling and so often out of reach. There's usually an hour long trip in the car to get there. That's what they tell me. But my basement is close by, just behind a door.

Today is laundry day and my new person, well let's not call her that anymore, I learned that her name is Diane. But to preserve her anonymity let's refer to her as Frances. Anyway, "Frances" is kind of sleepy today, doesn't know what to do with her time and is dawdling with the laundry, slowly moving one sock after the other into the waiting machine. I've made it downstairs and she's ignoring me.

In previous visits, I've hung out amid the paint cans. Sat in the window wells. Jumped to the top of the empty shelves that previous owners left behind. I've jumped up and sat on the spare furnace filters, threaded my way behind the washer and dryer and water pipes. Perhaps Frances had imagined that I had already gotten into everything and she could safely ignore me.

Today I was more adventurous still. I wanted to make a quantum leap in exploration. You could say that I did that. I jumped from the top of the bookshelf into the rafters! Did you know that there are these metal shafts that you can sit on top of once you get up there? There are also wires going every which way and pipes and you're up really high, you get a great view of the room.

Having finally gotten her laundry going, Frances looked around for me. I wasn't anywhere to be seen. When she reached the small room with the bookshelves I put out a very quiet meow. She couldn't believe that I was up there. Hee, hee.

Later, she would try to tell me that she had had a premonition of the rafters being the next place that I would get into. What do you think? Is that a lot of baloney or what?

Anyway, I had all this horrible gunk attached to my head and ears. She tried to coax me down and when I resisted she went for a chair. I twisted around and planted myself firmly on top of the metal shaft. She returned in a minute or two and kept encouraging me to come down. Okay, finally I agreed, it was a little messy up here. I gracefully jumped back to the shelf and she grabbed me.

I had a wide gray stripe on my back, that's what Frances said. She tried to brush me off and then she gave me a sort of sponge bath with a towel. I was pretty dirty. Soon it was discovered that my stomach had more sticky gunk and generalized dirt. She tried to clean my stomach but after a short while I resisted and attacked.

As I write this, my stomach fur is still gummy and sooty and my head feels a little crusty. But that's me -- I'm Smuf -- I'm a street cat at heart.

- Posted by Smuf at 12:05 PM

At my old place, I used to be able to come and go as I pleased. I had the run of the place. When I wanted to go out, I went out. I came in whenever I wanted; well usually. Sometimes I got stuck outside. I've had a lot of adventures. I have a broken tooth and if you look closely you'll notice that I've got a scar on my lip to prove it. But if you saw me, you'd have to admit, I'm still looking pretty good.

Anyway, I've had a lot of adventures, but now, but now, I'm stuck inside all day. Frances is nice to me. She feeds me. Plays with me. Brushes my coat. Changes the cat box fairly frequently. All the important things to a cat. Opens windows so that I can jump up and sit and watch the world go by. But she won't let me go outside.

Today I surprised her. She's kind of crazy. She has all these flowers sprouting up all around the house. She didn't plant them and she knows nothing about plants or flowers. So she is just totally amazed to look outside and see flowers growing. I've actually heard her say out loud, "just how did those flowers get there?"

But anyway, she has been going outside to take pictures of the flowers as they sprout up. Why? Perhaps evidence they existed? Who knows. Yesterday, she was running late but still decided she was going to run out in the back yard with her camera and take a picture of some pinkish red small roses that had just blossomed. She was involved with the camera and I totally surprised her.

For the last couple of weeks I have been pretending that I didn't care any more about going outside. She stopped being careful when coming in and out the door. She had learned to trust me - heh, heh -- her mistake.

So yesterday morning I just sprinted out the back door while she was heading out with her camera.

I was outside! The grass was wet. Immediately my stomach is all wet from the wet grass. Frances is running after me. What should I do? Run? Go for a tree? Darn, there aren't any. Run?!! I squat down in the grass. Frances tackles me. I'm caught. Within the minute I'm back inside.

Once in the house, I run off. I'm afraid she's going to whack me for escaping. But she doesn't. She never seems to do that. But I still fear it. Don't know why.

I enjoyed being outside with the sun directly over my head. It was very nice. I spent the rest of the day upstairs napping on the bed. That was nice too.

- Posted by Smuf at 10:04 AM

Everything was going great at home. I had managed to curb my natural self a little bit and wasn't biting Frances quite so often, which made her happy. We got along pretty well I thought. I pretty much gave up insisting on sleeping on her head and trying to escape out the back door. What else could you want from me? Okay, whenever she got out her keyboard, laptop thing I had to sit on the keys creating havoc I gather from Frances' reaction. I always need to get into the center of things. But that is something that I absolutely cannot control. And when I've been left alone for hours, I need some attention. I need someone to play with me and help me let off some steam. I'm an active cat. I really need that. You can't expect me to sit there like some big old piece of meat loaf napping on one of the chairs. Well, I can do that for a few hours, but not all of the time. I have to run around the house and tear up the rugs and play with my toys and I need some attention. I have no apologies to make for my behavior.

So anyway, one evening, everything was going great. I had spent a nice half hour sitting on Frances' stomach. I'd spent some time sitting on the porch following the birds flying around outside. It was a nice semi-warm summer evening. The sky was beginning to darken as the sun started to go down. I was looking forward to Frances pulling down the shades and us settling in for the evening, perhaps taking a short nap before bed time or playing with some of my toys.

Then all of a sudden out of nowhere, Frances puts on her shoes, whips out my cage and tosses me inside -- no explanations. The next thing I know, we're off driving in her car. I make no noises at all, I am so completely surprised. What's happening? Are we going to the doctor again? Yes, I think I recognize the route. Okay, this isn't so bad. The last time we only stayed for a few minutes and were able to return home. I can take a short interruption of my usual routine. We're at the vet. In the office. There are a couple of very big dogs around, making a lot of noise. But they don't scare me. We wait around while the person at the desk looks for some papers I guess. I don't know. We're waiting. And then finally, Frances is taking me out of my cage. Hooray!! But wait, she's handing me off to someone. She's leaving. I'm carried away into the vet's office. Frances! Frances! Don't leave me! What's happening? What did I do?

What procedures will they put me through this time? The last time they knocked me out and did something awfully invasive. The cat in the cage next to mine explained that I would no longer be able to have kittens and I thought, "h'mm, that doesn't sound too bad. I've had so many kittens." What could they do to me now?

I've been here for six days now. Nothing much has happened to me. They poked me with a needle once. They feed me. Someone will stop by every once in a while and give me a pat and call me a good kitty. Often, they will mispronounce my name. It's Smuf! It rhymes with puff or tough. It's not smoof or smurf. Oh, poor me. I can't take this. How long will it go on for? Day after day in a little cage. Stuffed in a room full of other kitties. Some sick and recovering. Some healthy and just hanging out like me. What's going to happen to me? Will someone new adopt me? Will I have to get used to a new person and a new home? Will I ever have a home again or will I just hang out in this cage forever? I miss having a home that I could rule. So many windows to sit in. So many chairs and soft places to choose from when I wanted to lay down. I could move about when I wanted to. I even miss Frances. Will I ever see her again?

What should I do if I do see her again? Should I be happy? Or should I be very mad at her? H'mm, I can't decide. We'll see. We'll see. Ah, in the meantime I guess I'll just try to make myself as comfortable as possible and see if I can take a nap and have some pleasant dreams. Dream about something nice. About chasing a mouse. About running free.

- Posted by Smuf at 09:29 PM

Well you'll be happy to learn that Frances finally did return and I finally was able to leave the vet's office. Hooray! I was worried for a while. It had been such a long time. I want to thank all of you who were concerned about my welfare and sent me an email to cheer me along. And thank you to a couple of the friendly cats that shared my dark times with me back at the vet's office. You know who you are. I hope you also have a chance to return to happier times.

So Frances finally came to pick me up. She said something to me in the ride back in the car. Her voice sounded apologetic, but I can't say I understand yet exactly what happened. When we got home there was someone new there. Someone a little bit like Frances, but even older. Naturally when I met her I wanted to jump on to her lap. I was certain that she would want to meet me and spend some time with me. She pushed me away. Unbelievable. How could she resist me?

A few hours later, she went to sleep and it was just Frances and me left downstairs. I jumped on her lap and was my most affectionate self. Rubbing my nose up against hers, we were friends again. I felt better. Life was good again.

I tried over the course of several days to jump on this new person's lap and every time she did something like pulling out a pillow to block me. Finally I just gave up.

So what now. I'm home. Frances is home. I'm locked out of one of my favorite rooms because of this new person who seems to have taken up residence. Won't let me on the bed. Oh well, it's still better than the vet.

After a number of days, the new person packed up her belongings, these people need so many things to be happy, and she drove away with Frances. Frances returned alone. Truly back to normal now.

- Posted by Smuf at 10:35 PM

I suppose a lot of you have been quite worried. The last time I managed to make an entry in my web log, I had been captured and sent off to the veterinarian with no consciousness of if I would ever return. I was just getting used to my new place. Being the only cat, living in the big city and then whoosh, the rug was pulled out from under me, and I'm hanging out in a cage in a room full of other cats, worried that this was to be my fate, never to have my own home again. The people in that place were nice. But nothing compares with having your own personal human, whose life revolves around you and thinks about nothing but your happiness.

I want to thank everyone who sent notes of concern and encouragement. I greatly appreciated them. And for those of you who didn't write, I know that you were worried and so now I just want to assure everyone that I'm okay and I'm back home. I've been back for a long time actually. For months! My confinement only lasted about a week, although it felt much longer and of course you can imagine that the negative effects took a while to wear off.

When Frances finally picked me up and brought me home there was a visitor at the house. An older Frances. She was very funny. She wouldn't let me sit on her lap or anything. When I tried to come close, she blocked my way with a pillow. Frances spent a lot of her time trying to make the older Frances happy and so I don't think I quite received the home-coming that I deserved. But I survived. Oh, there's so much to tell you about. All of this happened in the summer, back in July.

In August, Frances spent many hours painting. That was fun. Watching paint dry. I know some people find this boring, but not me. A lot of paint didn't quite make it to the walls and landed on the floor. One day, I was right in the path of a big glop of paint as it came falling to the floor. "Since when did I sign up for a game of paint ball?" I asked Frances. But she didn't get the joke. As usual, she's not the brightest bulb.

Well, I'll try to sum things up a bit. As the months have passed, it's gotten colder and darker. Frances is taking a class besides going to her stupid job. She spends hours in front of her computer and one night a week she doesn't get home till very late. It's very annoying for me.

I also haven't told you about the cat that hangs around outside. It's black and white. I do believe it's a common outdoor cat with no home. When I look through the back windows, sometimes I can see this cat hiding out in the bushes. One day Frances and I discovered him sitting on the porch railing looking through the window and staring at us. I do my best to scare him away. I know that Frances is secretly feeding him. She thinks I don't know. She's worried that I'll get mad at her. That Frances.

Oh yes, some of her friends visited during October. I liked them. It was fun to see them all and I think they were quite nice. Frances likes them. But they were very loud all of them together and I found myself wanting to retreat to my secret hiding space, the box on the top shelf in the closet.

Now everything is quiet again. I find myself getting more adjusted and happy with this quiet life. I remember late one night waking up around 3 a.m. I found myself to be so happy, I just started to purr. There was no good reason for it. Something about the way the room felt. How I was sitting in a nice warm, comfortable place. The darkness and quiet was soothing and I was just happy. I feel so much better now.

- Posted by Smuf at 11:34 AM

Hello, everyone. I haven't had much to report lately. I have been just enjoying myself. Wandering around from the bed upstairs down to the couch downstairs back up to the little couch upstairs to the comfy chair downstairs. With interruptions of course to visit my cat box, each some food, drink out of the toilet occasionally, (I don't know why I enjoy doing that so much) and then there's running around batting about my numerous furry mice that hang out on the floor downstairs.

One might say, pretty boring. How can I have pretensions of being a literary being? What great insights do I have to share with the world? Why it's precisely because I have so much time to contemplate that my inner thoughts are so valuable. Why you, my much esteemed reader, are probably skimming through these words right at the moment because your car is crying out for an oil change, your refrigerator needs to be defrosted and if you don't take a moment to pay your bills your electricity will be shut off. It's true isn't it?

Okay here's me. I'm looking out the window. I see that the sun is finally beginning to shine for a longer time during the day. I notice that when Frances finally returns home, there is a light that follows her through the door and enters the house. When I look out the window I notice that the birds who are outside are a little smaller than the giant crows that have been haunting the area for the past months. I hear their songs and I recognize them one from the other. My heart aches as I long so much to be free and running outside in the melting snow, getting my paws soaked and muddy, smelling the hints of grass and plants that are struggling to wake from the dark coldness.

My heart aches I tell you to be out there. And you, you. Perhaps you enjoy a little walk outside. Perhaps you don't even bother to go out there because you have to go work your second job at the discount retail store. The lights in that store are 40 feet overhead and electric. The music goes on and on and you only notice that it was playing when you finally reach the end of your shift.

My heart aches to be outside. But I live from moment to moment and I enjoy going upstairs and curling up in the sun on a comfortable piece of furniture. I enjoy being patted on my head by Frances and I forget about my aching heart until the next day.

- Posted by Smuf at 1:30 PM

Something has changed and Frances seems to have a lot more free time. For a while there, she was just sitting at her computer or going to work always with that focused look on her face. I had to meow and jump on her lap just to get her to notice my presence.

But as I said, something has changed. And Frances is looking around the house and saying it's a mess. She's unhappy about the spilled materials around my private bathroom area. It seems like one project is leading to another and she is lost to the mess of the house. She didn't seem to mind before.

Today she was spending time in the kitchen and pulling out that machine she refers to as the vacuum just wasn't enough. I walked in to see her lying on the floor peering underneath the refrigerator with a flashlight. Of course since she was at my level, I walked over and bit her hair. She screamed and jumped.

Something about a mousetrap underneath the refrigerator. I guess the previous owners must have had a problem with mice, and they didn't have me to help them. Frances told me that she was afraid what she would find besides the trap. But after about five minutes and coming up with just some clumps of dust and dirt, she gave up.

Next she was peering under the stove. Again with her long stick, she tried to get whatever was back there. I could tell she was surprised by what she saw. But I knew, yes there were at least three of my play mice and a few of my plastic soccer balls that make a big racket when I bat them around. After a few more minutes, all Frances had been able to retrieve was one wadded up piece of tin foil with scotch tape on it. Defeated once again.

Frances was discouraged and tired and unhappy. The house was still a mess. Perhaps a bit more of a mess with the rugs tossed around in piles and that mop and bucket standing out near the front hall. Yes, how discouraging indeed! To be defeated in the simple task of cleaning!!

Let me give you a little bit of my cat wisdom. I don't worry about cleaning. I attend to my personal self of course, but otherwise my philosophy is that someone else will clean it up and if they don't, why it really must not be that dirty.

Poor Frances, I think she should relax and take a nap.

- Posted by Smuf at 4:37 PM

So, what's going on with me? I've been pretty quiet lately. Not for a lack of something going on. I've been doing more than looking out the window and napping. I've had many moments of deep incisive thought. I've had brilliant clear visions. I've had moments of great enjoyment, occurrences and activities proceeded left and right. I just forgot to write about them. Yes.

Today, though, finally today there was something great enough to move me to the keyboard. I sat in Gary's box! "Who's Gary?", you say, and rightly enough because I haven't mentioned him before. And actually, I guess you could say that Gary's pretty big news.

Frances and I have been pretty happy. I would sit on her lap and meet her at the door every evening when she returned from that job of hers. But there were a few problems. I got bored every once in a while and would act out a little, knocking the remote control for the TV on the floor, that sort of thing.

One Saturday morning, Frances went out into the world to go out and get those bags full of stuff. Food, paper products, miscellaneous shiny things and she returned with Gary. He was pretty little. If I remember correctly, I think that Frances said he was only three months old.

I was suspicious right away. Frances kept Gary out of my path for a while. He spent his first hours here out on the porch. Then he was allowed in the spare bedroom. Then Frances put him somewhere else and put me in the bedroom so I could get to know him by his scent. H'mmm. I wasn't sure.

For the first few nights, Frances kept Gary in the guest room. I think she was afraid of what I might do.

Then one day Frances came home from work. I met her at the door, but was not purring as usual. I just made this little clicking sound. I could tell, Frances thought I was mad at her. How could I tell her I wasn't feeling well? In a few days she figured it out. It was so obvious.

I sat motionless. I didn't eat. Me, Smuf, I wasn't hungry!!! My breathing was labored. Frances took me to the vet. The doctor who looked me over didn't seem very smart. He seemed like a nice guy, but he didn't have any ideas but told Frances to take me to the emergency vet if I didn't get any better.

We came home together and I felt just awful. By now little Gary had the run of the house. But he didn't run. He sat right next to me. I probably had three or four really bad days where I didn't move. He could have teased me. No, Gary, sat by me all that time. When Frances had to leave the house he stayed by me.

It was then during my delirium that I decided that I had a friend in Gary -- that I loved him!!!

Of course when I recovered, well I wasn't feeling that crazy about him. Well, okay I'd have to stop and lick his head when I saw him, but, well we still had to settle up our territory, but he was my friend, we were friends.

I've been really happy having Gary around. We hang out all day sometime in our separate corners, sometime together. We chase each other around. He does this thing where he runs behind the bathroom door and sticks his paw out underneath and I lunge for it. It's great fun.

He's kind of quirky. He likes to eat newspaper and he has this little stiff piece of paper that he loves. He carries it around the house in his mouth and stops to play with it. But after all he's just a kid.

There's something else funny that he does. I don't remember if I've mentioned this before but Frances has this mess of papers in the house that she is always trying to clear up. As part of the process she put this plastic bin full of papers on the kitchen counter. Gary has taken to sitting in the bin while Frances stands by the counter working at her computer. It doesn't seem very comfortable to me. He rests his head on a brown paper bag with AA batteries inside.

So now perhaps you understand my story. Tonight I was feeling quirky myself. So I jumped on the kitchen counter and sat in Gary's box. I didn't lie down, there wasn't room for me. I just sat there, for about five minutes.

This annoyed Gary to no end. He jumped on the counter and started chewing on yesterday's newspaper that was sitting there too.

But I jumped out. We're all happy now sitting in the living room. There's a cold wind outside and of course it's dark, but there are enough comfortable soft places for all of us to sit. Yes, we're very happy.

- Posted by Smuf at 9:13 PM