I guess I’ve learned that you really do not own cats. You only borrow their affection and time every so often. In spite of all of that, I’ve grown very fond of our cats. “Mellow Yellow,” a small, male Orange Tabby, recently underwent the knife for neutering and also was given the medicine and shots he will need to stay healthy. He was only subdued in his activities for about half a day. And it wasn’t long before he was wrestling and ambushing his older sibling in all parts of the house and yard.
We’re learning that cats are very particular about what they eat, and that can change from day to day. (You would think that former starving cats would be less particular, but that is not the case.) So my wife goes through this cat food roulette to try to get the boys to eat what she puts in front of them. It is an amazing guessing game.
The young, male cats normally spend the night closed in on the back porch, but we find they are not happy with that. The other night we allowed them to go outside for the night and our sleep was interrupted when a thunderstorm rolled through the area with lightning, thunder and rain. We opened the back door and the young cats, who normally love the outdoors, could not wait to get back inside. (They were also hungry.) So, after a three o’clock feeding, all of us finally managed to get some sleep.
The youngest amongst them, “Mellow,” likes to spend some time on my lap. But the other male, “Magic,” who is a beautiful, black cat, has grown so that he would barely fit there. So he likes to spend his time on the sofa being petted by my wife.
“Orange Crush,” the female Orange Tabby we call “O.C.,” is calming down tremendously since arriving at our house. She was either beaten or mal-treated in some way and is still afraid of her own shadow. But I am allowed, now, to feed and pet her, which is a long way from where she was when she came to us.
Watching these cats play, stalking bugs and birds, and in general living their lives in and about our property, is indeed a blessing. Frankly, we just love these little guys. Maybe it’s age, maybe it’s circumstance, or maybe I’ve always been a closet cat lover. But “O.C.,” “Magic,” and “Mellow,” have changed our perspective, and our worry rate, with the amount of love given and received.
We’ll keep you posted.
Ronn Mott, a longtime radio personality in Terre Haute, writes commentaries for the Tribune-Star. His pieces are published online Tuesday and Thursday on Tribstar.com, and in the print and online editions on Saturday.
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RONN MOTT: Cat Report
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At lunch the other day with Terry Tevlin (First Financial Bank), I bumped into Dale Mahurin. I hadn’t talked to Dale in a long time and inquired about his wife, Julie Henricks.
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RONN MOTT: Remembering Pat Summerall
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I was watching a segment on the History Channel the other night while I waited for the end of “The Big Bang Theory” and a show I had seen before. It was “Sex in History.” And the two segments I watched were about Ben Franklin and Howard Hughes.
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