Scrappy Doodle

...or the case of the disappearing/reappearing cat.

Ok, so I'm going to post something personal today...all you big important people from NASW or NYU or Columbia or USA.gov or Senate.gov be sure to show up today so I can be really embarrassed...

Most of my loyal readers remember all the cat trauma I've had over the past year so I won't rehash that. When I took most of them to the pound I kept my Georgie and Minnie. I have to tell you a bit about Minnie's history so you will understand Scrappy Doodle's story.

A couple of years ago some kids came to the house and told the boy that some other kids were torturing this kitten and that he needed to do something about it. Why the boy, you ask? Ahem, because he is the son of the "cat lady" and would certainly know what to do about it. The boy goes running out of the house on a mission to save the tortured kitten, because if the truth be told, I became the cat lady because he attracts every animal known to man. You all know "cat lady" is a euphemism for "indiscriminate animal collector" right?

Minnie fit in the palm of my hand and boy was she angry. We had, I think, five cats at the time. She systematically proceeded to whip every one of them with her little bad self. Even Tiger, who was my dog killer. The Tiger/Minnie saga is a story for another day :) Georgie, Scrappy Doodle and Rosebud (boo boo) were born in this house and had every right to it. Minnie was adopted, grudgingly.

Now, I love Minnie, but she sure does make it hard sometimes. She has good habits that I love. For example she's very clean. So much so that she cleans up after everyone else. If they forget to cover their poop in the cat box, she goes in there and covers it for them. She keeps the sand that they kick out close to the box. I've even seen her drag the covers back up on the bed with her teeth trying to make it up because we are slobs and don't do it. She never throws up and she doesn't get fleas. She waits patiently for big old hog George to eat and then eats his leftovers. She cleans every skillet of leftover bacon grease which keeps her coat very shiny and healthy looking. If there is a strange cat or dog in our yard she will have a fit until she can go out to run it off.

This is where we get to Scrappy. The first cat she ran off was Rosebud. Rosebud was our ninja cat and was very aloof and independent. When Minnie went after her she just said f-this and went off to find herself another place to live and has not been back. We know boo boo is ok and have not worried about her. Even if she's living out in the world all alone, she's ok because she prefers it that way. Scrappy on the other hand was hard to run off. They went at it for months. Even Tiger hated Scrappy, so she had two against one. Then we had all the other cats/kittens and I guess she just figured she better go find another place to live like Boo Boo did, but she would always come back and hang around just to irritate Minnie :)

Doodle was fine as long as it was summer and warm but, you see, it was getting cold and being the stalker she was, she knew the population of cats had dwindled. So she decided the time had come to make her appearance back at the old home place.

Thanksgiving week Minnie started having a fit, going around to every window and hissing and trying to get out. There was no calming her. She had to go out right then or she would surely die. :) So, if you have ever had cats you know there would be no peace until Minnie was out of the house. We let her out. She went straight for Scrappy and there was such a ruckus the boy had to go out to see what was going on. Of coarse he comes back in all excited and says "Mom, Scrappy's back" "Nu uh" "She is too, look" Ok, so I take a closer look and sure enough it's Scrappy. Dangit. She's been gone for a year and a half at least and looks like death warmed over. She had definitely been living outside because she was covered in leaf particles, spiderwebs and other unknown substances and the very tip end of her tail was frostbitten. I just thank God she was one of the one's I had fixed or I'm sure she would have had a string of kittens with her.

Scrappy always tickled me. She was the runt of the litter and as is usually true of runts, she was the toughest. We thought she would die for a week or so but when she finally recovered from being laid on in gestation by big old george, she was the first one out of the box to go exploring. She was the first one to find the cat box and the feeder. She was the first one to make it up on my bed and she was the first to go outside and the first to jump off the roof. Fearless is what we should have named her.

So it's been about six weeks now and while they still fight if they get too close to each other, Scrappy and Minnie have sort of agreed to coexist.

The only problem now is her return has awaken the sleeping giant George. He now thinks, since Scrappy can go out because she goes out and does her business and comes back in, he should be allowed to also go out. No, George, you don't know what it means to just go out and do your business. You think you have to go over and visit the trap lady and we can't have that. So as I'm typing this I have a wailing, pissed off sleeping giant mad at me, going from room to room, window to window, hollering, wanting to know why he can't go out....all the while Scrappy is sleeping peacefully in the boy's room :)