Cat Tales....so NCC

This post was inspired by Elizabeth's recent post at Chronicles of Cardigan.

I haven't had cats in my life in quite a while. It's not that I don't like them, it's just I'd rather not deal with some of their more annoying behaviors. The dogs provide me with plenty of those without adding cat quirks.

Way back in 1980 and '81 (yes, eons ago!), I lived in New Orleans for a spell. What a fabulous place, I truly loved my time there. While living there, a couple of stray kittens made their way into my life. They were beautiful domestic longhairs, one all white and one a rusty black. They were named to reflect their birthplace, Cajun and Jazz, respectively. Of course, when I moved back to the East Coast, they came along. I settled in an apartment near Annapolis, MD (another great location!) that backed up to a golf course. There was a small strip of trees between the apartment property and the golf course fairway. With all the open ground, my cats soon became indoor/outdoor cats. Cajun developed the funniest little habit that always made me smile. However, I am not so sure the golfers were smiling. He would position himself in the little strip of trees and just hang out. When a golf ball would land out in the middle of the green, he would fly out from his hiding spot, and start to bat the ball around! He'd really have a good go at it, moving the little ball well off from where it landed. When the golfers arrived, he would zoom off back to the trees. I saw him do this on numerous occasions, so it was definitely a game to him. Hopefully none of the golfers took their games so seriously that they failed to see the humor in the situation.

A few years later, I was living in another apartment, this time in Virginia. This one backed up to a large wooded park. I was on the ground floor, and the cats came and went through the sliding glass doors of the patio. By this time, I had first Cardi Dylan as well. The area just behind my apartment was a nice grassy strip that made a perfect place to play frisbee. Dylan and I would go out there, leaving the door wide open. That way the cats could come and go as they pleased. One day I was out tossing the frisbee, standing a bit of a distance from my patio. The cats were hanging out inside. Around the far end of the building came a free-ranging Lab with no owner in sight. He was just moseying around, headed in my direction. I wasn't too worried as Dylan wasn't a fighter. The Lab had to pass my open patio door on his way to visit Dylan and I guess that was just too much of an invitation to resist. He veered through the open door before I had even had a moment to react. Before I could even reach the patio, he came HAULING back out of the door, yelping in fright, with two cats painfully attached to his back! They let go after a few paces, still spitting mad, but satisfied they had defended their territory. I imagine that Lab thought twice before exploring another open door.