You know, remarked the cat, if you get rid of those crates you’ll have more room in the house.

Me: But then where does R___ sleep when she gets home? The puppy needs a crate.

MaeMae (cat): I’m sorry… get… home?

Me: C’mon, you know she’s coming back. She’ll be with us until February, when she goes to college.

MaeMae: Why the hell would you take her back?

Me: Excuse me? She’s in heat, so she had to go to the guide dog facility for boarding. She’s coming home probably this week.

MaeMae: (feline expletive… I don’t pretend to be able to translate, but trust me, with that intonation, it wasn’t anything polite) why would you take that beast back? I mean, having dogs are a pain, but that one is seriously wrong.

Me, puzzled: There’s nothing wrong with R___!

MaeMae: She. Jumps. On. My. Head.

Me: You know she doesn’t mean any harm. She just wants to play.

MaeMae: Play? PLAY?? You try having something six times your body weight land on your cranium and see how playful YOU feel. Play, my ass.

Mmmm. Point taken, actually. We’re hoping R___ will calm down now she’s… ah… matured. Miss M did, it was a HUGE relief after she went through her heat. Then she got fixed and life improved by leaps and bounds.

But then, it wasn’t me she was leaping on.

Although, yeah, sometimes it was. And with R___, she’s learning to actually leap with some accuracy. Poor old girl, she’s so jealous of MaeMae sleeping on our bed while she’s in her crate. For the most part she puts up with it, but shortly before she went in to the facility, she was roaming around before crating up.

In one graceful leap, she cleared my supine figure, did a quarter turn and folded herself between Beloved and me like the dying swan in a ballet, gentle sigh included.

Oh hell no. I love this pup (mostly) but puppies in training are NOT allowed on the furniture.

But on the other hand, the look of peace in her eyes as she relaxed into the squashy mattress between her two people was something the Great Masters would’ve painted into the face of the Madonna.

If the Madonna was a yellow lab.

Which of course she wasn’t, but… oh, never mind.

I can’t. I just can’t ooof the dog off the bed when she looks like that.

Thankfully, my relationship with Beloved is amazing in part because when I’m weak, she’s strong, and vice versa. She wrapped her arms around the beast, and with a firm twist of her waist, turned and deposited the dog on the floor.

The look of betrayal as she cleared Beloved’s body was devestating. Normally I don’t worry so much about how the pup feels when it comes to following the rules – no snacking off plates, no running free off leash, and no getting on the furniture (the manual is a good 300 pages, there’s a few more regulations than that, but those are somma the biggies).

The rules are there for good reason, so we follow them (to the best of our ability). Okay, there’s the occasion that I don’t quite make it to the dropped shred of cheese before ole iron guts gets to it. We keep working on the counter surfing, and let’s face it, loose leash walking is a challenge for just about everyone.

But she so desperately wanted to sleep on the bed. And I wanted her to. But the mission is more important, so off to the crate she went. Sigh.

MaeMae is a pain in the backside lately… not sure if it’s because she’s missing the dog or what, not that she’d admit it, but jeesh.

She acts like she wants to play, then she draws blood when you oblige.

I attempted to get her to chase a braided cord (see below) when she was in a mood.

She did one better on the axiom related to domesticated animals’ wonky tummy (never vomit on tile if there is carpet nearby)… it sounded like she burped but then we realized she’d hoiked four breakfasts, two dinners and an unidentifiable creature’s remnants on the down comforter, covered only by a thin cotton duvet.

Cooking fat. (Swap the first letters then pronounce it with a bad imitation of the dialect of an intoxicated Scottish farmer. You’ll get it.)

Anyway, I’m playing catch up since I’ve been chided for not doing sufficient blog posts.

Rosie came home on Thursday, and MaeMae is PISSED. She hissed at Granny three times (she’s lucky she didn’t see the wrong side of Granny’s shoe) and she’s moodier than a teenage girl.

We were sitting outside in the back garden enjoying the evening and MaeMae was up on the bank (we have a bank in our back garden that goes up a good three stories and it’s quite steep… and has gophers/ground squirrels, little bastards).

MaeMae was up there, sulking, as R___ was on the lawn, when the cat suddenly started sprinting/skulking up to the edge of the bank.

Beloved: I think she’s after a gopher.

Me: Oh, god. I hate that.

Granny: Go get it, cat!!

R_____: What doing

MaeMae: Would you clowns all SHUT UP?!!

She pounced. Yeah, right. She’s not gonna catch a…

Holy shit.

She came down the bank holding a gopher as she would a kitten.

Me: Aw shit, is she gonna kill it?

Beloved: That’s a funny way to carry prey.

Granny: Bye bye gopher

R____: What doing

MaeMae: Shuff uhh dammi

She dropped the unfortunate creature. Dazed, the poor little sucker looked around.

MaeMae: You see? YOU SEE? Oh, my GOD.

Me: MaeMae, don’t play with it.

MaeMae, indignant: Why not? I deserve SOME fun in my life. Considering you’re inflicting that half-wit on me, I should be able to do something over which I have control.

With that, she bopped it on the head.

Gopher: stop it, MaeMae.

Me: um… what?

With an exasperated sigh, the gopher started climbing back up the hill.

Granny: What are you DOING? Get the bloody rodent!

MaeMae sat there, watching the pest ascending the hill.

I don’t know what is worse, watching your cat dismember a bird or seeing it gaze on its gopher buddy as he gets away. Seriously, cat. I do not want to watch you torture a creature, but those little bastards have made the lawn treacherous to traverse. For a small patch of grass, there’s a startling number of cave-ins and it’s about as flat as the ocean during a hurricane.

She chased after the gopher. Finally.

Me: okay, I can’t watch a bloodbath. I’m going insi….

MaeMae caught up with him and again popped him one on the head. Without claws. Just… boop.

He glared at her and disappeared into his hole. WTF??

MaeMae then spent a half hour attempting to go in the hole after him. She managed to get her head and half a shoulder in there, but the holes are made for small guinea-pig sized critters, not an eight pound cat.

Didn’t stop her from trying. I don’t know if she wants to go live with them or what.