Spider Hunting For Dummies

Today!  For the startling price of just $19.95, you can have your very own copy of The Cat’s Guide To Spider Hunting For Dummies!  This is the newest thing out on the market for those kitties who just can’t seem to “bag that spider”.  You will learn the easy way to see and then catch that spider that has been just out of your reach!  There are plenty of techniques to use like….

1.  Call out to your person to alert him/her of the spider.

2.  Show the spider to your person by staring at a spot on the ceiling until they look up.

3.  Indicate with you head that there is a spider and vocalize it to your person.

4.  Walk around in circles on the floor or counter top calling “spider, spider, spider”.

5.  Stand on two feet and paw at the ceiling without losing your balance

6.  Techniques to catch the spider by jumping up in the air when it comes down from the ceiling.

7.  How to play with the spider without killing it.

8.  Why crippling the spider can make it walk in circles and keep it from getting away.

9.  How to bring the spider to your person as a gift.

And, much much more!  These techniques will help in so many ways.  Spiders will be falling from the ceiling simply for you to catch them.  You will be amazed at the sizes and types of spiders you can catch and play with.  And, not to mention how grateful your person will be for your expertise in catching and releasing.  They will scream with delight when you deposit that spider in front of them as a gift.

So call today…1-800-get-spdr.  Have your person’s credit card ready. 

The best is yet to come…for the payment of additional postage, you will also get Catch That Lizzard For Dummies and How To Make The Human Look….  The first 500 callers will get the option of doubling their order at no additional cost.  So, Hurry!  Call Now!  We have our operators on hand!  Meow, Miau, Yowl, Purr, Hiss….We speak all dialects of Cat.  Call Now!!!!

Playing Marco Polo

There is a game, I never played when I was a kid, called Marco Polo.  Evidently a person is blindfolded and is set out to “find” others.  The blindfolded person yells Marco and the hiders yell Polo.  The idea is to have the blindfolded person follow your voice but not to find you.

Well, McGyver has decided that he has his own version of this game.  He is not blindfolded.  Kinda hard to blindfold a cat anyway.  MoJoe and I do not hide…He can see us.  But, he still calls out like he is blindfolded and lost.  I am not sure why this game is such fun to him.  Maybe he just likes hearing his voice.  Or, maybe he wants to make sure we haven’t left him alone.

MoJoe and I, as I stated above, don’t hide.  We are in plain sight.  The apartment is only 600 square feet.  So there are few places for me to hide.  Mojoe can do a better job of hiding than I can.  And, often McGyver is right in front of us when he starts calling for us.  (Those of you who have cats, know the type of calling I am speaking about.  The kind where the cat sounds like he is lost or scared or in some type of danger.)

I really don’t mind this game so much during the day.  It’s only at night that I obect to the playing.  Often, I have just gotten into good REM and am nice and snuggly in my bed when the calling, or catterwalling, starts.  This goes on for a few minutes until he is satisfied that he has “found” us and all is well with the world again.

McGyver also does this in the mornings when he wants me to get up and feed him.  I guess he has decided unless he wakes me, often just a few minutes before the alarm goes off, that I will not get up in time to feed him much less make it to work.  If that does not work, he walks over me several times.  He has an uncanny knack for finding just the right spot to hit my bladder, ensuring that I will have to get up to go to the bathroom.  And, well, “since your’re up….”

McGyver has also developed a liking for q-tips.  Not only does he take them out of the bathroom garbage can, he tries to get them out of my glass apothecary jar on my bathroom counter.  He cannot quiet understand why he can see them but he can’t touch them.  He pushes the jar all over the counter.  I have a fear that he will push it off the countertop and it will break.  So, I have tried to develop diversions for him.

You would think the q-tip is a prized possession.  Even as I write this, McGyver is sleeping on the floor with his beloved and treasured q-tip right beside him.  Most of the cotton tips has been removed but it can still function as a wonderful toy.

There is another fascination of both cats….sticking there heads into any clothing opening on me they can find.  Meaning, if I am on the couch, they try to stick their heads up my shirt sleeves.  Or if they walk by me and see the opening of my pants leg, they try to stuff their heads up my leg.  Not quite sure why they do that.  Makes for some funny moments though.

What’s Behind The Curtain

Maybe you remember that phrase from “Let’s Make A Deal”.  Maybe you remember it from “The WizardOf Oz”.  Either way, you are bound to think about something being concealed behind a curtain.  In this case, at the Carter apartment, the curtain mentioned above is a shower curtain. 

This curtain performs a number of tasks.  The one important to me is the fact that it can be used when I take my morning shower.  It performs it’s function in a satisfactory manner.  It keeps the water from the shower inside the tub and not outside in my bathroom.  It also conceals my body from anyone who might venture into the bathroom when said shower is in use.

When not used in the shower function, however, this curtain becomes a marvelous thing.  It is transformed into a thing of wonder that can conceal any number of things.  Namely, two rather furry and adventurous cats.  They have made numerous games that can start with the above title phrase.

Once I get out of the shower and close the curtain, it becomes the kitties’ territory.  They get behind it and drink the water from the shower off the walls.  I really don’t know why that do that since I provide them with plenty of fresh water in their dish in the kitchen.  Regardless, as soon as I exit the shower, both kitties hope up behind the curtain and begin lapping away. 

After they tire of drinking from the wall, they begin the game of jump from behind the curtain.  The involves one cat being on the outside and one being on the inside of the shower curtain.  The one on the outside had to act surprised and terrified when the one on the inside jumps from behing the curtain to form an attack.  Then both of them have to roll and tumble across the bathroom floor spilling out the door into the hallway where one of the boys makes a getaway.

Other times, the kitty behind the curtain simply sits behind the curtain.  His tail is almos always hanging out from under the hem of the curtain.  This game requires that either I or the other kitty make scratching noises on the outside of the curtain just above the kitty’s head.  The concealed one then jumps up and attacks the unseen scratcher with a fury. 

Still other times, the one concealed will wait behind the curtain until someone nears his tail, which I am assuming he is using like bait.  (You have seen those fish that have that dangly thingy on their heads that they use as bait to catch other fish?  Well this is similar to what the kitty behind the curtain does.)  The tail, most always just the tip, will wag ever so slightly until it attracts the attention of the one on the outside of the curtain.  If the tail is touched in any way, the concealed kitty slips a paw out from under the cutain, claws at the ready to grab whatever or whoever is touching it.  Thi is a very favorite game of both of the boys.

Sometimes the cutain is used for hide and seek.  This is another favorite of the boys.  One will go and hide.  The other will seek.  They start out by calling out to the hidden one much like we did when we were children and played the same game.  After looking all the obvious places, the seeker will then go into the bathroom and look behind the curtain.  There he finds the hider.  Then a game of tag ensues with the the hider trying to make it back to home without being tagged.  This game too often ends up with a tussle that spills out of the bathroom into the hallway.  Other times, it results in a race for home, one trying not to be tagged and the other trying to tag him.

These games are often sources of great amusement for me.  However, when they occur in the middle of the night or early in the morning, before it is time for me to rise, I am less that amused.  Especially when the chase involves jumping on the bed and racing over my sleeping body.  Or when the calling starts.  At night, I think the game is more like Marco Polo than hide and seek. 

Regardless of the game, the ending is the same.  There is always some type of tussle and chase.  Some times, one is more serious than the other with his intentions of the game.  That is when the ears go back and the claws come out.  At that point, I have a front row seat for a WFC (Worl Federal of Cats) bout.  The caterwalling starts, the smacks start getting traded back and forth.  The taunting words, spoken with hisses and growls are traded.  You get the idea.

And, what’s behind your curtain?

Being Ridden By The Hag

I guess you are going to have to be from the Carolina Lowcountry to understand this one.  I have been for several months now, ridden by a Hag.  What, you may ask, does that mean?  Well, I will try to explain.

Coming from the Lowcountry, I have been blessed with knowing a lot about the folklore from that area.  My grandfather and one of my great uncles were very good about telling us stories when we were children about ghosts or hags (which are evil spirits). 

Hags are these horrible creatures that go around at night trying to find their way in to houses to distrub the sleep of humans.  Being ridden by a Hag means that you do not have restful sleep.  You end up having horrible dreams and feel more tired when you wake than when you laid down the night before.

Hags like to come into your house after the lights are out and they leave in the early morning before sunrise.  Before they can come into your house, they have to slip out of their skin, which they leave outside the door to slip back into when they leave.  If they find a good victim, they will come back night after night after night.

For months now, I have been a good victim.  I have had many dreams.  I wake up exhausted and I drag around all day.  The only good sleep I get is the sleep on the couch before I actually go to bed and turn out the lights.  My dreams range from people taking things from me, people tresspassing, violence (I dreamed that my soon to be ex tried to kill me), car wrecks, falling, hanging off mountains, buildings. etc…  I cannot describe some of the dreams…they just simply frightened me.  Some were actually about being lost.  Whatever they were, they wore me out figuratively and literally.

There are very few ways to stop Hags.  You can paint around your windows and doors with blue paint.  Hags cannot cross over the color blue.  Or you can put salt around your doors and windows.  Since I live in an apartment, I can do neither of these. 

So, I have had to resort to another way…I pray everytime I wake up.  This calms me down enough to go back to sleep only to have the dreams again. 

Of course, I know that my unconcscious mind is trying to tell my conscious self something.  I have to figure out what it is.  Then the dreams will go away.