is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.

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Instincts of the Modern Housecat.

even though Thurgood the Cat has never been fed snacks out of a plastic pouch, for some reason he comes a-running with the fervor of a snack-seeking cat every time gus or i rustles a bag of dried cherries or corn chips or the like. however, i suppose we must bear in mind that Thurgood lived with someone else for the first year or so of his life, so maybe he was all snack-pouched up during that goldenfur age and still remembers it despite his inability to remember that he will never be allowed to sleep between my feet, even if he was kicked off the bed less than a minute ago for trying to sleep between my feet.

that could also explain why, even though both the rhombus and hans blix never ate canned catfood (until they got old and ill), they would still come a-running every time I touched a can opener to a can. maybe, since both of them had had lives elsewhere before I brought them home, they had already tasted of the fruits of the can in their deep dark kitty pasts, and were able to remember the sweetness of that canned meat more clearly than any constant directive from me that cats don't sit on the dinner table. so maybe cats don't have snack-pouch and can-opener responses wired into their brains.

but this one remains mysterious to me. the rhombus HATED vacuum cleaners with a vexation i've seldom witnessed even in the most ferocious of animals (you know, on a nature show or something). most cats hate vacuum cleaners, of course. when i adopted the rhombus i had been catless for about a year and so i had a fur-free home. the rhombus was a maine coon so he had a LOT of hair. lots and lots of hair that he delighted in leaving everywhere. he considered it his job and so the vacuum cleaner of course was his sworn enemy, since its appearance meant he had to start all over with the fur deposits.

but here's what's unexplained. i had to buy a vacuum cleaner after i adopted the rhombus because the little half-ass thing i had before was no match for the fur of a maine coon cat. so my dad, on some occasion, very nicely bought me a fancy suction-ful hepa-filtered allergen-fighting Grown Up Vacuum Cleaner. Man, could it suck hard and long.

ok, here's what's unexplained. i had to put the vacuum cleaner together. but as soon as i opened the box and took out the different parts--parts which did not look at all like a vacuum cleaner when they were disassembled--the rhombus right away started fur-puffing and hissing and rolling back his ears and getting in scary attack stance. he did this towards the random pieces of plastic laying on the floor of the kitchen getting ready to be turned into his mortal enemy. my question is: how did he know? i mean, everyone who met him acknowledged that he was more intelligent that your average cat (in fact he often outsmarted heidi when she tried to chase him down the hallway by rebounding off of a wall and shooting back in the opposite direction leaving her hurtling away from instead of towards him... which is exactly why she liked chasing him, so maybe he didn't really thoroughly outsmart her, since ignoring her would have worked better, but you get my drift). but, like, how did he know? did he know how to read, such the the white box marked Hoover Upright Vacuum with HEPA Filter was what drew the response? Or do vacuum cleaners have a special cat-angering smell? It's all very mysterious to me, to this day.

9:07 p.m. - September 20, 2008
RZ - 2008-09-21 02:41:31
I think he was just very smart.
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js - 2008-09-22 14:28:17
Another of my favorite stories of the rhombus has to do with RZ trying to brush his teeth, by which I mean RZ trying to brush the teeth of a cat. Everyone meant well. Both were determined. One prevailed.
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