Sunday, February 5, 2012

The Problem with ...

Naming your two cats (who are brothers from the same litter and look almost identical) 'Purrington A. Purrington' and 'Purrington B. Purrington,' is that it becomes almost impossible to determine 'Which One is A' and 'Which One is B.'

Although, the same problem would arisen if I had named them, say, Frank and Dave. Or Tom and Jerry. Or 'The One Who Likes to His Stomach Rubbed Constantly' and 'The One Who Wants to be Chased Around the House Constantly.'

Ultimately, the real question in life is ... "Who's on First?"

Don't you agree?

4 comments:

  1. Yes and Yes. We have 10 cats, all easily distinguishable (even Eddie and his smaller lookalike Eddie, Jr.) except in the dark, which becomes an issue because most of them wander the house at night making noise and trodding on you when you're trying to sleep. When I finally fall asleep -- totally exhausted from being awake so long -- I occasionally wake up with little cat scratches, left by a cat or cats trying to wake me. I never know which one(s). Curtis

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  2. Ten cats. Oh my. I've been considering getting a third cat, but as a single woman of "a certain age" ... the very last thing I need is a reputation as the local "cat woman." Plus my cats are limited to being indoors. They really don't mind at all and don't seem to want to go out even when I invite them to sit on the porch with me. To them, the windows around the house provide unending entertainment in terms of squirrels, birds, visiting neighbor cats, falling leaves, snowflakes, what have you --- and absolutely no risk of being hurt or run over. :-)

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  3. Our cats are indoor creatures also. Actually, most of them started off as outdoor cats -- ferals -- in and around Tuxedo there's a lot of animal abandonment. They're all lovely and most of them are extremely friendly and social. We have a big house in PA and they're very happy along with the two dogs, two birds and two fish. I've heard the "cat woman" trepidation expressed before and completely understand it. There must be a basis for it and it isn't a reputation I would wish to have either, although we are clearly the local cat people. My advice to you, which you didn't ask for and don't need, I expect, is that two cats are in many ways easier than one, three is no more work than two, four begins scaling up the degree of difficulty (slightly), the arc inflects perceptibly at five, and above five is a lot of work. It's entirely do-able, but I couldn't recommend it to everybody, although the cats are obviously worth it and we arrived at this number because of a situation we faced that we felt was intolerable. (We also supported cats who didn't wish to come in who lived in Orvis insulated doghouses on our terrace in Tuxedo and in our garage. Sadly, our outdoor ferals eventually passed away (old age; they were with us a long time) and last summer, our first catless terrace summer, found our vegetable garden ruined by the other outdoor animals, who I like, but I was sorry about the vegetables. I did find the Kathleen Parker article and thought it was good. I think that by the time the election rolls around things will look somewhat different all around in ways that are impossible to predict now. I don't know whether you saw the recent tv interview where Romney discussed his wife's health problems (first cancer, then an ALS scare that turned out to be the onset of MS), but it brought something out of him that caused the "mask" Ms. Parker speaks about to relax a LOT. It was touching and extremely normal and affecting. I can't imagine what it would be like to need to maintain a public persona all the time. Curtis

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  4. Ouch, and here I thought four felines was pushing it.

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