Stray Kitty Update

Stray Kitty is now called Mimi La Boheme around our house. She is still mad at Mommy for taking her to the vet and has not been seen since that day. However, she makes her presence known by stealing into the Garden Room at night and eating prodigious amounts of the cat food that Mommy leaves out for her. There is no way that she is still a slim, seven-pound Stray Kitty.

My fans have been understandably concerned that Mimi might have little kitties of her own one day. Do not fear. Planned Pethood was careful to check that Mimi had been spayed. She was obviously some body's pet before she adopted her bohemian ways -- her warm feelings for humans, her good manners, and her reliance on cat food is sure proof.

Free Will

Setting: The front room, a summer day.

Roomba: Help! I am stuck under the sofa again!

Penelope: Every day you get stuck under there. Why don’t you just avoid it and then you can finish your job without having to cry for help?

Roomba: But I’m programmed to go this way. Everything I do is on a program. You know that yourself. When you see me coming, you know that I don’t slow down or try to go around you, so you move out of my way.

Duncan: Not always. Sometimes when I am in a deep sleep you bump into me and then you turn away.

Penelope: This is true. When Mommy wants you to go in a different direction, sometimes she will stand in your way so that when you run into her toes you will turn.

Roomba: But that’s also part of my program. I was made to sweep the floors no matter what obstacle was put in my way. My tenacity has no parallel. My makers just didn’t factor in the problem of the low-sitting sleeper sofa.

Stray Kitty: Looking in from the window. Poor Roomba! Poor dogs in the house! You don’t have the freedom that I have! You are slaves, and I am not.

Duncan: That’s not entirely true, Stray Kitty. The Lady Who Dotes bought Little Dog with money when she was a puppy, so she is a slave. But I, like you, was a stray. I ran away from the first Guy Who Fed Me and found this new one. I liked the new one better, so I stayed. I did it by choice.

Penelope: I stay by choice! I am charming and all the people love me so I could go with whomever I choose! Big Dog, sometimes you treat me like I’m such a puppy.

Roomba: You are all mistaken. Don’t you know that you have programs just like I have? You are carbon-based so programs are encoded in your DNA, while mine is on my silicon microchip. But they still function the same way.

Stray Kitty: I am not “programmed,” Roomba.

Roomba: But you are! Don’t you get hungry? Don’t you get sleepy? Don’t you want affection? Don’t all of these things happen like clockwork? When you see a mouse, you chase it, just like when Duncan sees you he chases you.

Duncan: I can’t help it.

Stray Kitty: But you don’t follow the exact direction that you are programmed to, Roomba. Like the dogs said, you make allowances for obstacles, at least. It’s just like when I am in a yard with a fence, I climb the fence and can move out on the open road.

Penelope: I would like to be able to do that, but I do not climb like you, Stray Kitty. Dogs don’t do that.

Roomba: Dogs are not programmed to do that. Neither are they constructed to do that. Just like me -- I am not constructed to handle word processing. I have no keyboard. The computer up there on the desk has no vacuum. It is not constructed to clean the floors.

Stray Kitty: You say all of this, Roomba, from your position stuck under the sofa. For my part, I am going to demonstrate my freedom by saying goodbye and finding a sunbeam to lie in. She starts to leave.

Roomba: At least I know where my next meal comes from, Stray Kitty. I’ll get it when I go back to my power source in the kitchen.

Stray Kitty: No, I don’t know where the next mouse is, or if a neighbor will leave food for me on the porch. This is true. It is also true that I don’t know what other cats I’ll meet tonight, and if they will want to fight or how I will make out if we do fight. But my life has a flavor that none of yours has. I’m like that girl in the opera. I live la vie boheme. You Roomba, dogs, are slaves to bourgeois entitlement. Here in your comfortable home, you limit yourselves.

Duncan: I have always wanted to light out for the territory ahead. I did that once and I came upon the Guy Who Feeds Me. I did it another time and after three days the Guy Who Feeds Me found me. I did it a third time and got hit by a car.

Penelope: I am a princess.

Roomba: I am still stuck.

Stray Kitty: Au revoir! She runs away.

Duncan: Jumping at the window screen. Oh! I always do that when she runs!

Stray Kitty

There is a stray kitty who lives in our yard. Her name is Stray Kitty. Sometimes she lives in the shed, sometimes she lives in the Virginia Creeper, sometimes she lives between the fence and the garage.

Stray Kitty is a little calico with one yellow eye that sees and one pink eye that has been horribly scratched. She comes to our garden room to drink from our water bowl.

The other day she sat on the rug in the garden room, looked up at the back door, and started mewling. She ran away when Mommy took out the recycling.

She doesn't like it when Duncan and I are in the yard. That is when she hides. Duncan likes to chase her and I would like to play with her.

She wants to make friends with Mommy, though. Stray Kitty was in the garden room again this morning. Later, when Duncan and I were in the house and Mommy was gardening, Stray Kitty followed Mommy through the yard. Then, when Mommy was pulling weeds, Stray Kitty walked up to her and started brushing up against her and purring. Apparently, she was a very sweet kitty, because Mommy came in the house and said, "Dogs, we have a responsibility."

Now, the only responsibility I have is to chase things out of the yard, so I was jealous of the milk that Mommy poured into a bowl and brought out to Stray Kitty. Mommy never pours milk into a bowl for me. Neither does Mommy open up a can of tuna and present it to me to eat. But she did both for Stray Kitty, who ate right out of her hand.

I wasn't all that jealous of the crate, though. I didn't begrudge Stray Kitty the time she spent locked up, even if it was for a ride in the car. Stray Kitty was not as devious as I am when Mommy tries to crate me. She didn't even put up a fight, or show her claws. She only uttered a few meows of protest.

She had clearly been in a crate before. She had also clearly been for a ride in a car and for an examination at the vet before, because she didn't protest one bit. Instead, she played and purred and was on her best behavior. At least that is what Mommy said, because I didn't get to go.

When she had been checked over and given her shots and after Mommy made an appointment for an operation to have the bad eye removed, she came home. Mommy let her out of her crate in the back yard and she disappeared into one of her hiding places.

We have not seen her all day. But Mommy and the Big Guy are sure she'll be back for breakfast. As much as she likes to be free, Stray Kitty is not a self-sufficient Kitty.

Do not worry, fans. I, Poppy, have not been demoted to second fiddle to a kitty. The Big Guy is allergic to cats and as he would like to breathe, Stray Kitty can't become part of the family.

Mommy will catch (if that is what you can call it) her again on Tuesday and take her for her operation. Then Stray Kitty will have to stay in our garden room until she's done with her antibiotics. Meanwhile, the kind vets at Planned Pethood Plus will be helping Mommy and the Big Guy find Stray Kitty a home.