Master of the house presides over restless menagerie
This past weekend I spent some time flying solo around our place as my wife was off to Florida, filling the role of “granny-nanny” to our Baby Sadie as her mother helped to coordinate a charity event at the Magic Kingdom. At five months post-birth, neither Sadie nor Charlotte would do well apart for four days straight, so Kristin volunteered to tag along and keep the little one entertained while her mommy and daddy did their work.
In the meantime I took a 24-hour shift with the grandsons here in Ohio. Trust me there are plenty of stories to tell from that adventure, but today’s topic falls instead to what happens in the minds of our pets when their “mother” vanishes for several days.
I’ve written before about Kristin’s strained relationship with my cat Moses, who absolutely lives to torment the work-at-home artist. Truthfully, I’ve never seen anything like it. He literally thrives on driving her nuts day in and day out, and she pretty much despises him for it. Still, because I regard the tiger-striped troublemaker as “my feline child,” she has little choice but to live with his nonsense.
It’s interesting but not surprising that in Kristin’s absence, Moses has been a perfect little gentleman — no knocking over easels, no spilling of paint brush rinse water, not even a single moment of bouncing off the walls. Heck, the cat hasn’t even walked through her studio the entire time she’s been gone. I’m certain there’s going to be hell to pay once she arrives home and sits down to work again. Cats are vengeful beasts.
Frankie, on the other hand, is beside himself with grief over his missing momma. I can try to explain the situation all I want to the heartbroken hound, but for as smart as we make him out to be, there’s nothing between those floppy ears capable of processing the concept that even though Momma is not here now, she’ll be back in just a couple days.
He’s likely convinced she’s finally had it with his cookie stealing, deer chasing and cat poop eating and has therefore flown the coop for good. As such, he lays around the house like a throw rug, rising only to half-heartedly process his kibble and water all four corners of the garden fence.
Our second cat Binx seems to neither know nor care that Kristin is gone. Our “indoor feral,” she’d be content to never see another human, so long as her food bowl was replenished on a daily basis.
As presiding resident beast master, I have encountered only one strange difficulty with the pets during Kristin’s absence — I’m being forced out of my own bed. Even though Moses and Frankie have gained all the mattress real estate normally occupied by their mother, neither is willing to fill her space. Instead, they both crowd directly on top of me in an attempt to gather the same thermal advantage as sleeping between two humans.
Cat on my chest, dog on my legs, I’m more or less pinned in place until the crack of dawn when Frankie wakes me with a heavy paw-slap to the chest. He may be grieving, but he still insists breakfast be served well before the rest of the world is ready to rise!
Kristin and John Lorson would love to hear from you. Write Drawing Laughter, P.O. Box 170, Fredericksburg, OH 44627, or email John at jlorson@alonovus.com.