Weekend with Teacher-man

      That's me with Teacher-man's son.

CHECK US OUT!

Matching coats. Kid's got style.

      If you're wondering if cats sweat, stuffed ones do. But you don't whine about a little wet fur to someone who's trying to help you out.

      I would've spent the entire weekend under here.

If I'm not with some kid I live in this crate!

I really do not want to be a crate cat.

I mean, look at this place The Boy took me!

I could barely breath!

The animals

the pink

the red

The animals all lined up

for

MILES AND MILES

and 

at the end

like a rainbow's pot of gold

under a pink

hanging heart

C A N D Y ! !

      Dogs have nothing on us stuffed cats in the olfactory department, and I knew from the aroma permeating this pink and red animal place that something here was AMAZING!

      What was lying wait in those little boxes made me so deliriously happy. Sitting in The Boy's lap as he unwrapped the box. The brown broken-off chunks gliding past my face; the deliquesce I almost tasted from the smell alone. 

******

      I was just about to empty the dishwasher - Teacher-man insinuated I wasn't doing my part, when 

The Girl saved me.

      She showed me:

FISH

Taught me VIOLIN
(Even better than my piano virtuosity)

And introduced me to a miniature 

version of The Boy.

      I'm pretty proud of the ZOO we built. Complete with parking lot. You don't see that quality work from the average four-year-old.

      On the way back to classroom, Teacher-man did take me to one cool place. 

      W.W.T.B?

Not all cats are like me

Not all cats are like me.
      Fire-Haired girl introduced me to Midnight.

The blackest cat ever

Invisible Midnight
when lights are out

Quiet as I

 It didn't take the Black One long to warm up to me.

      We're staring down a medium sized murid. Not a real one. A real one? Are you kidding? 

I'd be all over that!    

      No, this is a fake one on a string, on a pole. The people dance it around and Midnight pounces as if it were real. I tell him it's fake; they're duping him. He pays no attention. Goes on one imbecilic rampage after another.

      That's not the only other cat I met!

                                                                            

FIREHEART of THUNDERCLAN

STONEFUR

CINDERPELT

      Cats so valiant, so intrepid, the sensation of blood pulsing almost ran through my fur. 

ROYAL, CAT of the CRATE

The only cat left to attack the wild dog pack!

      And the WORDS. Oh, the words. 

The Fire-Haired girl read 

to me for hours. 

I begged 

with every hair I have 

that she never stop. 

She made the words melodious. 

Sang to me for hours.

     

      I faked sleep for her sake. Keyed up from the reading, I tossed and turned and finally made my way to take some notes, before collapsing at her side. 

      I had found the perfect place. 

AND THEN... I BUNGLED the whole thing.

      Who would want a cat that gets his nose st--- well, you can see. One of the big people was late to work. Fire-Haired girl was late to classroom. I was stuck, okay?!

      The whole way back to classroom I asked myself who would leave something like that around? This was not my fault.

      

      I spent the rest of the day here.

      I think maybe Fire-Haired girl is accurate. Teacher-man does not treat me the best.

                       

3:37

January 23, 2013

 
      Not that I knew what to expect. Teacher-man lugs me back to the classroom in the Royal rice bag. The Royal bag is stuffed in a crate which, if I can read upside down, and I think I can after years in a cabinet with books, glares with white letters---
             

      Schroeder 

             Milk Company, Inc.

            ST. Paul, MN 55113

      Then he leaves me on the floor wedged into the crate all day. Shoved in there.

For HOURS! 

   
      Finally. At 3:37 he hands me to a girl I don't even know.

YES, that's me.

                      I'm inspecting the tile. This tile is in very nice shape.

      The girl is VERY NICE! She holds me all the way outside. Let me tell you the things meeting out there were huge. And YELLOW. 

      That girl's arms was the safest place to be. It was like the classroom 

                                                                                           EXPLODED there were so many kids. 

      She carries me all the way home. 

      Ah, safety. The warmth pouring out and colliding with the cold outside is so apparent I can almost feel it. Then she says something like, "Hey Reggie, or hey Roger," and tosses me to her brother. I didn't get the kid's name exactly 'cause I was whirling through the air. She disappears and this little guy plays football with me for 47 minutes. 

Fun for ten, but 47? I'm exhausted.

                                                                                             

      After football, I am one busy cat.

   Playing with baby (she was just scooped up, and
thank you very much--P-U!)

 

    Feeding the baby. FEEDING THE BABY! Do you see that smile on my face. This kid was cute! The food was green, but the kid was cute.
















This next thing the people had me do I'm not too happy about.

      It's not the reading. Reading I love. All the beautiful letters all together in some spots and separated in others. And pictures of all kinds of things. It's not the reading. Do you see who I am reading to? 

                                                                                                          He didn't touch me, don't worry.

AHHHHH!!

      Okay, so that should be the end right? Home with Teacher-man? No. Home with the nice girl, with the football playing brother? No.

      She brings me back to Classroom. Isn't that just nuts? 

      She hands me to Teacher-man, and he gives me to another girl! It all happens so fast. I can barley hear anything as I whiz through classroom. She whisks me off toward the 

cupboard!

      Luckily, I spend the entire day here.

      This girl is very careful with me too, except for the desk closing on my nose.

      Then at 3:37. She swoops me and...

      What is going on?

I shut my 

eyes bouncing along on 

her back.
Peeking and hoping to be 

great distances 

from the 

BIG YELLOWs.

    

   

      I straighten my whiskers. I'm an ADVENTURER. Whatever is destined, I am ready. 

      This is nothing like life in that cupboard.

     

Day 1 (well, really day 4592)

A Cat's Adventure                                                                                                          January 22, 2013

      I've been in this cupboard for years. Look at all this junk. See the boxes I'm wedged between? Auction items. All that stuff gets to go to someone's house permanently. Every auction for twelve and a half years I've been left in here. Not good enough? I don't know. Maybe he has something against cats. But he chose me, right? All those years ago. Here, I've been, pushed to the right, pushed to the left. Maybe I've been a project in the planning for twelve and a half years.
      I was just sick of waiting so I pawed my way to the front, stuck my head out.
      To see what would happen.

      Teacher-man bit.

      Check it out.

      Okay, I know this doesn't look so great. I'm sitting in an old rice bag. Royal though, hmmmm... 

But, I'm not in the cupboard. You see? What's a week or two more after waiting twelve and a half years before I finally get introduced to the kids? Actually it's been

twelve years, 7 months, two days and an hour or two

I'm not that specific. 

      Mostly I was stuck looking at the bottom of this table. I tried at night to move. Like when I pushed my way to the front of that cupboard, but no luck. 

      Out of the Cupboard Syndrome, I'm guessing. 

      

      Stuck where they put me. I listen really well though. The girl likes reading, and plays a mean violin and the boys like to hide. The big one hid right here with me, pushed the chair aside and tucked himself right up next to me. Didn't say a thing. Barely noticed me. Scared a jump and screech out of the girl as she passed by. Highlight of my time under the table.

      Teacher-man came and went 17 days, 4 hours--that's counting from the time he came home! Then finally I meet the kids. 

      I can't let all of my emotions show, you understand. I have to play

cool,

low key,

on the

down

low.

No one wants a desperate cat. Especially a stuffed one.

      It pays off big time! 

      

      That's right, helping the big boy with his work. Uh, huh! That's me intelligent and Royal cat.

      Ahem, I can't believe they put this picture in.

      So my breath stank! Yeahh? Yours would too. How many years did I spend cooped up in that cupboard? 

      The boy? He had nothing to do with it. "I'm not brushing that cat's teeth!" is what he said. Sort of cold if you ask me. Telling someone their breath stinks and then not helping.

      "I'll brush his teeth," the girl said. But then, she let me 

BRUSH MY OWN! 

       

      How cool is that? I am so fastidious! Then, then, she encourages me...

      Yup, that's me. Chopsticks it wasn't!

      Teacher-man gives me to the youngest boy. 

      He's not in the picture with me because he kept saying, "No picture," whenever anyone came within ten feet of him with a phone or a camera. Two year olds boil the English language down to it's barest essentials.

      Now I'm in the rice bag again. Facing down this time, if you're trying to picture me. All I can see are people's feet as they pass. But no one's passing now. The house is dark, the fish tank gurgles, and the ice maker just dropped a new load of ice.

      What will tomorrow bring?