Look! The tree is dancing!!

Fluffenella and Scampers, my two baby kitties who, along with two brothers and a sister who have moved on to new owners, were born on 07/07/07. That makes THIS their very first Christmas. If stress really can kill, it may be my last.

Kittens are pretty demented to begin with, but just bring a tree into the house and watch what happens. It isn't pretty. The only decorations left on the tree are alive, furry, and peek out of the branches. I can't tell you how delighted they are that I set up a tree just for them. And the ornaments? Just too much fun! Knocking them off the tree, chasing them around the room, batting them under the furniture, shredding the garlands to bits - just too damn cool, from a kitten's perspective, anyway. Even Hobbes, who is almost three and should know better, has gotten into the act. Our poor tree- Hobbes is a big boy and the tree sags dramatically wherever he has chosen to nest. Sigh.

It could have been worse. We opted for a down-sized Christmas this year due to Dave's travel schedule and our going to San Diego for Thanksgiving. Those two things completely put the kibosh on the over-the-top extravaganza that is normally Christmas in our household. Dave usually pulls the 3,000 boxes of decorations out of the attic and spends the Friday and Saturday following Turkey Day setting up the tree while I decorate the rest of the house- and the porch- and anything that isn't moving. Think Macy's without the restraint and that's our house at Christmas.

But this year, I bought a small (6') pre-lit tree and bought inexpensive, unbreakable ornaments for it. For the FIRST TIME IN ALMOST 40 YEARS, I did not have to move a single piece of furniture out of the living room to make room for the tree. That's the upside. The downside is that the tree was rather wan looking to begin with, and now, after being gleefully ravaged by wild beasts, looks lopsided, disheveled and terribly sad. (Think Charlie Brown's Christmas branch with a glandular condition).

Still, I have gotten some cute pictures of kitties in the tree and the ornaments I bought take a lickin' and keep on tickin'. At least the kitties are not devastating our huge, move-the-couch-out-of-the-livingroom tree or destroying my beautiful collection of breakable ornaments. (Think Rockefeller Center or the White House, only gaudier).

Well, I must close now. The tree is moving... again. I wonder where it will end up this time. I think they are aiming it toward the kitchen.

Merry Christmas to all!

No more college for cats!

For as long as I can remember, there have always been Motlow cats. (No, that is not the name of the teams- they are the Bucks and the Lady Bucks, which, if you think about that last one, is an oxymoron of epic proportions). The Motlow cats are a population of feral and semi-feral cats that have lived off the detritus of a concentrated mass of humans for generations. The cats are a part of the Motlow history and heritage.


Granted, they have not always been a positive part of history and heritage. I am a cat-lover, as readers of this blog may have guessed, but even I have had ambivalent feelings about the cats from time to time. Especially after one of them had a litter of kittens on the roof, and each baby fell to its death, one after another, over the course of several days. The up-side to the cats is, even though the college is nestled in the woods and sits on the edge of pastures, there are no mice to speak of. Score one for the cats. And it a pleasant thing to see the sweet creatures lurking about. They scurry away from all but a handful of people, and seem as harmless to Motlow as are the ducks of the Peabody Hotel in Memphis to that august edifice.


Several of the good women who work for Motlow have "adopted" some of the cats, which is to say they feed them and provide them with water. A couple of the good women spend their breaks with the cats, who allow themselves to be petted and cossetted. Score another one for the cats- stroking cats alleviates stress, and Motlow is a stressful place to work.


Some time ago some one of these good women took it upon herself to capture all the cats and take them to a vet to be neutered. There have been no cascading kitties since that time.


But now the college has decided that the cats, rather than controlling vermin, are, in fact, vermin themselves and has ordered them to be trapped like skunks and removed from the campus. Where are they being removed TO, you may ask? Well, that's the question, isn't it?The pound won't take them, and neither will the Humane Society.


They better be removed more than three miles away, because removing cats from the campus- one cat at a time, mostly- has been tried before, and they tend to come back. One made a three mile trek to get back. Maybe his new "owner" shouldn't have named him William Wallace. At the first opportunity, he regained his FREEDOM!!! (The cat was not drawn and quartered for it, though).


At least not that time.


I know about the cat round-up because good hearted people have been calling to see if I would adopt a cat. I wish I could. My house, sadly, has a four cat maximum (as life with Binx and her babies has shown). I provided a few names of folks who might want a cat, but people who love cats generally already HAVE cats- notice the plural- so the good women probably have an uphill battle on their hands.


What a lovely Christmas present to the staff, faculty and students of Motlow. The end of a tradition, the dismay of kind-hearted people, and a bitter and sour end to the semester of 2007. Hope the college isn't phobic about squirrels... or birds... or students.


Merry Christmas, y'all, and if you want a feral cat, let me know.