Company

Martha, the boy cat here. It has been a very interesting week. We had company. Gramma was all excited and said that her girls were coming. I had no idea of the excitement that was about to descend upon us!

Gramma got up early and did not take time to play with me. I thought that was odd. She always likes to go out to the gardens in the morning. She lets me go along and she pulls some weeds and picks some fruit and vegetables. She likes to start sprinklers, too.

Sprinklers are fun. I am not afraid of water. Oscar says it would be useless to have a fear of water in Gramma's world. She insists on bathing all of us. Oscar told me that he tried growling and biting at Gramma. She was not impressed by his show of force and reminded him that she was not afraid to bite him back. He said that this was very true. She did bite him. Wall-E says the same thing happened to him. She only bit them once and they never bit her again. I hope she doesn't bite me .......

But, back to the gardens. Gramma lets me ride to different gardens with her on the golf cart. She will let me play while she takes a look at the plants and places the sprinklers just so. Sometimes she will yank a couple of weeds out of the ground. I have heard her say that it doesn't count unless you get the root. She counts them. I hear her count to ten, then she will turn the water on. Gramma says that if she pulls ten weeds out of each garden every day that she should be able to get ahead of those weeds soon. It doesn't look like she is winning if you ask me.

So this morning last week, she fed me and gave me fresh water, then told me to stay out of her way. That was rude, don't you think? She stayed in the kitchen and cooked all morning. She mopped the floors and changed my litter box and all the while she was watching the clock on the wall. Papa was in and out and would ask if she had talked to someone she called Jeffrey. She told him that the plane had landed.

I was so confused. What is a plane, what is landed and who is this Jeffrey? I tried climbing up Gramma's leg with my claws. It is a new trick I recently learned to do in a tree. She did not seem to appreciate my new ability. She called it shenanigans. I thought it was climbing. Maybe it is called something different when you do it on a person's leg. I felt kind of bad, cause I made blood come onto her skin. Oscar and Wall-E licked it off. I thought it was very kind of them to tend to Gramma's owies, but she kept saying, "Stop licking me!" to them. I just can't figure this woman out.

She went outside and said she was going to set the sprinklers. I thought it must be time for our morning play, but she used her foot to push me back into the store! Rude!

All of a sudden there were people in the store! Big people and little people and Gramma was hugging all of them. Little voices were calling out to Gramma. The dogs were barking and then Papa joined in and the hugs continued. Finally Gramma noticed me and introduced me to all these people. Jeffrey is Gramma's son. Diane is Jeff's wife and Gramma Barb is Diane's mother. Got all that? Cause I was confused. Then there were three little girls. Maya is the oldest. She was more interested in Wall-E than me, if you can believe that. Poor girl is lacking in taste, Wall-E was all nice to her and told her he was not fond of me either.

Jada is next. Jada likes to dance. She was going to a competition. She liked me okay, but she was busy with other things. She was petting the dogs, too.

This is Zara. She is crazy about me. My kind of girl. She could not keep her hands off me. She held me and played with me the whole entire day. I lingered under the dinner table while they ate and got some very interesting crumbs. I think I like this whole company thing.

I am still not sure who is who. I just focused on the ones who wanted to partake of my charm. I think that maybe Zara and I bonded. Oscar tells me that there are cats at Zara's house. Big cats. Bigger than me. I am not afraid of these big cats. I am very strong and can climb.

Wall-E says that he would enjoy seeing me put in my place by these big cats. He admitted that he was scared of them. Oscar says that Wall-E should be nicer to me, since I have claws. Oscar is not afraid of anything, well, except Gramma. Must have something to do with her biting him. I am not afraid of Gramma. Okay, maybe just a little. She does feed me, you know.