It’s been a big week for Sinatra.
Sinatra, my blue eyed mostly Siamese, does not think of himself as being named after a jazz/big band singer and movie star. He believes “Sinatra” means: “tamer of small, fluttering things, He-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, Lord High Executioner of birds, mice and other living things, and Owner of all dirt he surveys.”
After a great many attempts, Sinatra has finally overcome the challenges of climbing the magnolia tree that sits just outside the kitchen sliding glass doors in the inner courtyard at the front of my house.
He got all the way to the top and from there was able to follow a limb onto the roof.
Once positioned there, he screamed at me:
“Look! Look! Look! Daddy, LOOK!”
I looked.
He was on the roof.
He climbed down off the roof after examining the spoor of the various squirrels and birds who had been there before him.
I say he climbed down, but that’s not entirely accurate. He sort of slid down clumsily, but I didn’t mention that to him.
I gave him his now traditional treat: six drops of milk in a blue saucer.
He was on top of the world, Ma, top of the world.
Then, the oil tank blew up.
The very next time he was out of doors, he learned that there are other felines in the world.
Those of you who’ve been reading this blog long enough know that there was a time when a neighborhood cat I called Tuxedo because it’s black and white had a litter of kittens last year and that the litter charmed me (and a certain young woman of my acquaintence) by lining up on the window sill outside my bedroom.
Those kittens are now more than a year old.
Sinatra is not quite six months old.
After the victory over the magnolia, Tuxedo and one of her last year’s litter happened to wander into my yard as they have sometimes done over the past year.
They have the idea that my back yard is their hunting ground for little brown birds, at which they mostly just yeowel.
To Sinatra, this was a revelation.
There are OTHER cats in the world.
HIS world.
HIS yard.
HIS sanctum sanctorum.
Oh, my.
He was by the sliding glass doors at my kitchen table and they were a good 40 feet away at the other end of the house.
He hunkered down as if it were a nuclear attack drill.
They paid him no attention whatsoever, except for a single glance that sent him skeedaddling towards me and the doorway.
I’m afraid that I did not do a very good job of explaining to him about the other felines and, even had I done so, he was so shaken that he was in no mood to listen.
Since then, there has been a new Sinatra.
This new Sinatra is practicing “The Pounce”.
My feet and shoes have been repeatedly pounced; sometimes three or four times just between the bedroom and the kitchen.
My ankles have been pounced, as have my pant cuffs.
The ficus tree in my office has been overturned three times now by The Pounce.
A cassette tape, gone wild in its box next to the black music machine, has been pounced and tamed all over the living room floor. The tape has been pulled off its spool and bitten into at least four pieces.
Every shoelace in my closet has been pounced and tamed.
Toilet paper is pounced and tamed into small bits, evenly spread in all three bathrooms.
A dryer sheet is in tatters on the kitchen floor.
Scarves are pounced, as are bathrobe ties.
The lumps at the end of the bed under the covers have been repeatedly pounced after lights out.
Why do those pounces after lights out get you thrown off the bed, Daddy?
Sinatra has also taken to speed.
I’m not sure he’s into NASCAR since he’s never seen such a thing in my house, but, for any reason and/or no reason whatsoever, he will gallop away at hyperspeed, a white and black streak of uninterrupted cat that stretches from the kitchen table to the living room couch.
He can go at full speed down the hallway towards the bedroom and be sitting at his leisure on the bed before I get to the entryway.
He’s learned to speed into the television room, bounce off the ottoman onto the back of the couch and from there into the window behind the blue curtains in a single, zen-like bound, the thought and the deed all the same thing.
Zip he goes behind the living room curtains, only to pounce the curtain pulls and dash from there onto my office chair, rip a piece off the Chinese jade and carom off the ficus and then attack my ankle, all while I’ve only taken the five steps from the sink to the washer/dryer area.
I finally figured out this spurt of energetic pouncing and zipping and taming.
He’s training for the big fight.
He’s preparing to defend his territory.
They may be bigger cats, but it’s HIS yard.
He’s getting into shape.
He’s honing his skills.
He’s going to be a contender.
He’s quite proud of his accomplishments.
He jumps up onto my lap, generally when I’m wearing black and can be duly covered with white shedding — have I mentioned it’s the newest in decor and fashion? — and demands to be paid attention.
He’s going to be the next heavyweight champeeeen of the world.
Except, I’m not thinking about his upcoming bout with Tuxedo or her litter.
I’m thinking “snip, snip”, if you catch my drift.
Isn’t that just like a God? You think you are doing exactly what you should be doing and what will be pleasing to the master of your universe, and the next thing you know, you’re castrated.
Fixed? I’m not broken, daddy.
Know how to make God laugh?
Tell Him YOUR plans.
