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| My buddy Bo |
Wouldn’t you know it? I slept all day yesterday, and today – my first day back at work since before Christmas – I overslept. I got to the office at about 9:30 and discovered, along with most of my colleagues, that a large number of our reports were bombing because, when we switched over to 2011, the lack of data in the databases was causing division by zero errors.
This actually made the day go a lot faster. I enjoy fixing problems a lot more than writing the stupid reports in the first place. Before I knew it, it was 5:30 this afternoon.
I had some baked chicken and mashed potatoes for lunch. I’m pretty sure I was okay with the chicken. Upon reflection, however, I’m guessing that the mashed potatoes were probably made with milk or butter or both. Frickin’ No Dairy January. If I don’t know dairy’s IN something, how am I supposed to avoid it?
Eh, bien. After I got home, I practiced the horn for a while, then settled in to watch some more episodes of 30 Rock. I’m just about done with what’s available on Netflix, so I guess I’m going to have to find the show on real television now if I want to see the 4th season.
The suggestion for today’s “Post A Day” topic was to “…write about something that makes you smile.” I’m sorry, but that’s just incredibly gay (no pun intended), and I’m not going to do it. Actually, maybe I am. I’ve decided that my little boy cat, Bo, needs to be properly introduced. Maybe his sister Boo will get the same treatment at some point (she does have some pretty interesting mannerisms), but today it’s all about Bo.
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| Betsy Jones is one of Bo’s favorite people |
I got Bo in the middle of August, 2003, shortly after Jenny and I officially separated. He was named after Bo Moore, a college quarterback I knew who liked to scramble around, although the name on his adoption papers was something like “Bennie.” My name for him is infinitely better. His birthday, as far as either of us is concerned, is July 4th, 2003.
Bo is a long-haired mutt with a strong streak of Maine Coon in him. The primary reason that I got the little guy was that, when Jenny moved out, she took our kitten, Bailey, with her; which left my older cat, Maya, without any playmates. As it turned out, Maya died on the music room floor about a week after Bo came home, so perhaps I shouldn’t have bothered.
No, I didn’t kill her. She was old. She died one day while I was at work.
I’m not sure if Maya’s death had anything to do with it, but Bo has been the archetypal scaredy-cat for most of his life. I can’t help but imagine what went through his tiny little brain when he was ripped from a happy place with lots of other kittens, brought to what was at the time a basically empty house (Jenny got all the furniture, too) to be company for a cat who was old enough to be his 3rd great grandmother (and who hated him every second she lived with him); and then, one day, he probably scampered downstairs and found the old goat lying dead on the floor.
Think about it. How’d you like it if you found found granny keeled over in the kitchen when you were 2 years old, and you were trapped in the house with a dead body all day?
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| We are not happy about something. |
Anyway, Bo has always been afraid of strangers. If the doorbell rings or if there’s a knock on the door, he’ll stop whatever he’s doing and tear through the house to get to his safe place – behind the washing machine. I don’t know how he managed to find that place, but it has always been his refuge. He’s become incredibly adept at opening the folding louvre doors in front of the washer and dryer in order to make his amazing escapes.
Over the last 5 years or so, I’ve had a series of renters in my house. Most of them never saw Bo at all until they’d lived in the house for about two weeks. One of them had been here for more than a month before she ever caught more than a glimpse of him. Once he’s gotten used to them, however, he generally tolerates them, and apparently even approaches them for comfort or food if I’m away on vacation for any length of time.
With me and a select few, however, Bo is a major cuddle machine. He doesn’t purr a lot, and when he does it isn’t loud; but his happiness when he’s holding down a lap or stealing half of the bed is so apparent that purring is not necessary. Once he decides that a person isn’t going to kill him, he’s the sweetest cat I’ve ever known.
Somehow, he never forgets the people he likes. Even if they don’t come around more than once or twice a year, he remembers them and (after initially running to hide from the front door opening) he’ll allow himself to be picked up, petted, brushed, cuddled and generally spoiled by them when they appear. Jenny is one of his favorite people. On the few occasions that she’s come over to feed the cats when I’m out of town, I’m told that he’s all over her.
Betsy Jones is another of his girlfriends. Over the last couple of years, she’s been at the house maybe 12 times, and I’m convinced that if I were to die when she was here, Bo wouldn’t even notice. He’d just let her spoil him rotten and only later wonder what happened to the big guy who usually pets him.
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| Nothing like a few layers of sweatshirt on a cool day |
He’s also an accomplished fetch-cat, though VERY few people other than me have seen him at his best. His best is pretty amazing, too. I can throw a ball out of my bedroom and across the landing so that it lands somewhere downstairs (and bounces all over the place), and Bo will rocket down the stairs, track it down, hurtle back UP the stairs, and deposit the ball back on my bed within a matter of seconds. When he was younger, he’d do this continually until he was panting like a dog in August, so I scaled it back a bit. Now that he’s mellowed with age, he doesn’t play as much, but I still wake up occasionally to find three or four of his favorite toys lying on my bed – he brings them to me in the hope that I’ll throw them.
When I’m not around – or not in the mood to throw things for him – it’s not a problem. He’s become quite good at throwing his toys by himself. I’m not making this up. And I’m not talking about the typical cat “throw” that amounts to pushing a toy around the floor. Bo will get his claws into a toy mouse and hurl the thing across the room – immediately chasing after it in order to throw it somewhere else. It’s really an amazing thing to watch (I haven’t managed to get a good video of this yet).
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| Chillin’ with Dad on the couch. |
For whatever reason, he doesn’t like to drink water like a normal critter. My cats have two water fountains and a bowl of water in various spots around the house. Bo’s preferred method of drinking is to slap his paw in the water, splashing it all over the place, and then lick the water off of his paw. He has learned that I don’t like this, however, and will grudgingly hunker down and drink like a normal animal when he hears my yell, “Just Drink It!” It’s one of two phrases that he does seem actually to understand, the other being “Bedtime!”
When it’s his turn to sleep on the bed (he and Boo do not get along, and they seem to have worked out some sort of schedule for this honor), he’s generally found sleeping as close to my pillow as he can be without actually being on my face, and I learned when he was just a baby that he falls asleep very happily if I hold one of his paws.
If it’s cold, or if he’s just feeling a bit insecure, he will not hesitate to make his way under the blankets and snore contentedly for hours.
And that’s my buddy Bo.
TWD