The Cat-o-larium

(Yes, Ma Self, this ones about you again. You are just such an easy target. ☺ )

This past week I got the chance to kill two birds with one stone and visit the ‘rents in Baltimore while seeing a customer in Philly. (I won’t mention the fact that Ma Self and I were partying it up at Denny’s (yes, you heard me right, Denny’s) until about one in the morning the night I had to drive to Philly but oh well).

When I visit my parents I stay at my moms’ house with her and her two cats – Lucy (Luc-i-fur) and Bob. I am deathly allergic to cats of course – but this doesn’t stop Ma Self from contemplating a third cat at the same time that she is apologizing to me for the fact that “Lucy” seems to prefer to sleep on my bed. “I mean that is where she finds herself the most comfortable”. The cats don’t get along (I use that term lightly) and the third cat is somehow meant to alleviate the situation. At least that is what Ma Self’s kitty psychiatrist tells her.

Both Luc-i-fur and Uncle Bob are pure-breads. (Yeah, I didn’t know they made pure-bread cats either.) She paid the big bucks for them (more then Myles) but I guess if you are going for the hypoallergenic kitty one has to be prepared to spend big. (A hypoallergenic cat is about as real to me as the ‘seamless’ integration between Lotus Connections and Lotus Quickr but I digress.) Lucy came first and she was cute as a kitten but in true cat fashion she now refuses to speak to anyone except for Pa Self. With Lucy Ma Self had grandiose plans for a “scratching palm”. This would be a multi-story structure that would be wrapped in brown rope (for the scratching) and topped with some fake palm leaves (for the palm part). Ma Self lost interest in that project shortly thereafter and so in her living room now just stands a “scratching trunk”.

Next came Bob, the bane of Lucy’s existence. Bob demanded more then “just a tree trunk”. Bob longed to be one with the birds and the squirrels. So Ma Self tried to train him to stay in the fenced in backyard, like one would a dog. But seeing that cats can climb trees and generally have little regard for rules, Bob would scurry away and stroll back home around dinnertime after the rest of us spent a frantic afternoon searching for the Gucci of all cats. As a result Ma Self decided she would fence in her deck and create what I now refer to as the “cat-o-larium”.

So here it is, the finished product. Note how um, curious my dad is. He is trying to think of something nice to say I think. Oh and that is Bob in the background. He likes it so I guess it was all worth it. Ma Self did say though that this is seasonal. That when it rains, is windy, snows – basically not 75 degrees and sunny, the whole contraption collapses. Guess its time to go back to the scratching palm.

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