Make Room!

..for the cutest cat in the world! that's my battlecry nowadays as i commandeer several sections of grace's room, swiftly converting them into mini-rooms with a swish of a tail.

my first real estate acquisition was a shelf in grace's humongougiganticjustplainhuge book corner. that girl just has too many books! so i chose one shelf, squeezed myself in, and exaggeratedly displayed discomfort at the literary clutter surrounding me. my predictable human cleared the space, and put my favorite cat-shaped mat and a small pillow in. that became my abode for several months. as an added bonus, the walls are delicious! yes, i lick wood, much to my human's dismay.

but i must say dah-ling, it gets tiresome after a while.

so i opted for a window perch. grace put a seat pillow on top of several crates. a room with a view of chickens and brown birds. who could ask for more?

but the lack of walls and a roof soon became unnerving. thankfully, i discovered another prime piece of estate: the lower part of the tv cabinet. with sly glances and tail swishing, i demanded that grace make the place fit for a feline inhabitant. a crinkly sleeping mat and a pillow were all i needed. sometimes, my human partly closes the cabinet door and i revel in the privacy.

my human probably doesn't notice that i now own majority of the room (after all, i also get to sleep on the middle of the bed, while she stays at the edge). poor grace! if only she knew: Monopoly has always been one of my favorite games.

Fantastic Four

july 9 2007, i reached the fabulous age of four.

a birthday is supposed to be a day of cheer. but, as wicked wicked fate would have it, my birthday fell on my VetDay. my otherwise invisible eyebrows surfaced as i was disgustingly dewormed. they got blood from me too, to check my silly liver. to top it all off, grace kept taking pictures! yeah, let's immortalize the humiliation why don't we.

grace tried to make amends later with --i must admit--sumptuous gifts. there were soft sticks, chicken morsels, kitty sushi, and my favorite, trays labeled GOURMET food. after the fancy feast, my human adorned our room's door with a birthday card from my Vet. then she hugged and sniffkissed me.

ok, ok, it was fun. but for my fifth, there better be a party.



p.s. i now weigh ten pounds.

Can't Fight this Pilling

so goes the song of one of my numerous namesakes, (o)reo speedwagon. (fine, it's really 'can't fight this feeling')

boy, do i feel like yowling that tune every time it's time to take the pill.

no i am not trying to avoid getting pregnant. it's these silly pills i have to take for my silly liver that won't get well.

it all starts when i see grace preparing nasty tools: the small scissors, a spoon to hold the broken pieces of tablet, one of my tiny towels, and that bottled bitterness called liv.

once i see even just one of those, i break into a run. and the merry chase begins. as there are two of them (grace is always assisted by my friend Baby), i eventually get cornered.

but, being a feline of superior intelligence, i have developed ways not just to prolong their agony with wildly-aiming-for-any-body-part scratches, but also to delay the passage of The Pill into my system.

technique no 1 , i call The Hyperactive Tongue. this simply entails constantly moving my tongue while they try to put the pill in my mouth. end result: pill ends up on the seat or on the floor or on grace's lap. anywhere but the back of my mouth.

technique no 2 is called Look Like Keanu Reeves. i adopt an expressionless expression and pretend that The Pill, ladies and gentlemen, has been swallowed. but it is in fact just hidden in the recesses of my teeth. once grace has expressed satisfaction and put me down, i will spit The Pill out on the floor.

the thing i haven't developed for technique no 2 to succeed is patience. they always catch me spitting it out because i just can't wait to get that bitterness away from my tastebuds. we start the struggle again and i eventually lose.

but at least i'm fighting the pilling.

Meeting Judas

i made a new friend. and he betrayed me. all in one day.

it all happened in the Evil Place. you know the one i'm talking about. that place with the cold steel table, yapping chuychuys and humans with dubious intent.

when we got there, my carrier was opened and a hand shot in. i immediately hissed and tried to do damage. the door closed, and i could hear the screws being unbolted. ah, they were going to take the lid off and attack me from above. an old trick.

what i didn't expect was a tall stranger suddenly lunging for my nape. the new scent of this unknown human distracted me, and i failed to freeze my neck muscles. hence, he succeeded in petrifying me.

then...he cuddled me! much to my surprise (and Grace's), i didn't find it to be an unpleasant experience. i don't know if it was because i just finished being in heat, or because i could smell the cat in him (he apparently lived with a cat too), but i just lay in his arms, and behaved quite nicely. i think i even fell asleep a bit.

the human they called The Veterinarian took a long time coming, and that lulled me into thinking that maybe this was a harmless visit. that maybe, i was really here to make a new human friend.

but no. after about an hour, TV came. that's when i learned that i shouldn't have trusted the cuddling stranger. he was one of 'em vet assistants!

in the midst of all the struggling as they pricked me with all sorts of foul-smelling chemicals and gagged me with a bitter pill, all i could think about was how betrayed i felt. never again!

Wet a Minute

i started the new year with a splash.

yes, ladies and gents. after more than three years of capitalizing on grace's hesitation to subject me to such humiliation, i was finally given a bath.

the shame! the sheer ignominy! such disgrace! and by disgrace i mean THIS GRACE! my human who pretended she cared about me! who cleverly manipulated me for more than three years into thinking she understood me! how can she give me, the ultimate self-cleaning machine, a BATH!

fine, she did make the water warm, not appalingly cold. and she did soothe me with continuous "it's okay Oreo, it's okay". and she did get me some kind of special shampoo and a brand new pink towel.

still, she deserved all those scratches on her back. hahaha (that's a really evil laugh, just in case you couldn't tell) she looked like she scourged herself.

she retaliated by saying that wet, i didn't look very much like myself and that for a few minutes, i wasn't the cutest cat in the world.

and she wonders why i don't like taking baths. hmpf.

Chicken Feed

chickens are slow.

i realized it this morning, when i chased a hen to the point of palpitations (of her heart, not mine). the hen belonged to grace's brother, and i've been eyeing it for quite sometime now.

i must say, i had high hopes. since it also had feathers like my beloved brown Mayas, and could lift off to a considerable height by flapping its wings, i was looking forward to a merry chase.

alas! i don't know if she lost her head because of my intimidating gait (hence the term, running around like a headless chicken), but when i started running after it, the silly hen just kept running around in circles!

it would have been over in seconds (a merry Kentucky Fried Christmas to me), but my human kept saying "no, oreo, no." somehow, the domesticated part of me kept me in slow motion whenever Grace said no. sigh.

so she escaped. but not after being cornered twice and being driven inside the house (a forbidden area for chickens, but not for The Fabulous Feline of the House).

note to self: demote chickens in my "Creatures to Chase" list.

I've Got Mail!

i got a surprise from (of all people) the postman. a brown envelope addressed to me! it said Oreo Cheesecake, c/o Grace (hard-to-pronounce surname here). then some stuff that grace said was our exact location. it had a stamp and all!

well, fancy a cat getting mail when Yowling Relays would have done just as nicely.

of course, i didn't have a clue what it could be. it apparently came from Ortigas & Company. hmm did i buy stocks and just forgot all about it?

grace refused to let me tear it open with my claws. she carefully pried the seal loose (i think she was just showing off her opposable thumbs again).

it was a mysterious, crisp, official-looking document ( i say official-looking because it had paw prints all over). here's what it said:
This is to certify that Oreo Cheesecake (Domestic Cat),
loved and cared for by Grace (hard-to-pronounce surname here)
was Blessed on this 1st Day of October, 2006
by Rev. Fr. Pedro Enrique L. Rabonza IV
of Sta. Rosa de Lima Parish

it's from that day i was scared that i was going to the vet but ended up lining up with so many chuychuys of different sizes and shapes and colors and smells and getting sprinkled with water by the strange human in a housedress!

well. this may not buy any tuna, but i'll take this over a stock certificate any day.

Up Up and Away

the noisy man is back in the house, banging away with an interesting variety of playthings.

fine. they're tools, not playthings.

today he knocked off the ceiling near the kitchen. it was fascinating! apparently there's a secret world hidden up there. naturally, i took it upon myself to explore. faster than grace could say: OREO SPEEDWAGON! i had jumped up up and away.

it was really dark in that space between the ceiling and the roof. it was quite warm too. there were a lot of mysterious crisscrossing cables, unidentifiable objects and All the Dust in the World.

i saw a flash of light, and i knew then that my minutes were numbered. grace had called in all backup personnel, and the noisy man was actually knocking another hole somewhere farther in an attempt to find my exact location.

as i am inclined to do, i think i put something in my mouth while contemplating on whether or not to heed the frantic calls from grace and the rest of her family. either that, or the heat, darkness and altitude got to me.

whatever the cause, i threw up shortly after i got down. perhaps it was also all the tuna that they used to entice me to finally put my exploration to an end. for now.

ps. as i sleepily settled for a much-delayed nap, grace attempted to subject me to an interrogation. apparently, after my adventure in the ceiling, all power in the second floor fizzled out.

i say, innocent until proven guilty. a cat's got rights too you know.

Blessing in Disguise

yesterday, after finishing my fresh fish sunday treat, i saw grace cleaning my carrier. not a good sign.

i couldn't quite put my paw on it, but somehow, it didn't feel like she was preparing to take me to hell. (see previous entry , Journey to Evil). she even put my cushion inside the carrier.

i decided not to take my chances. mixed signals or not, i wasn't going to give her an easy time. by the time we were in a cab, her shirt was full of shedded hair and claw marks.

we arrived somewhere different. it didn't look like the vet's office at all. for one thing, the place was huge. there were lots of people and creatures like chuy chuy ( i didn't know chuy chuy came in a variety of sizes, shapes and smells). there was one old rabbit, and just one other fabulous feline aside from me. i was, of course, tremendously cuter.

we just sat there for a long time. i was shivering with anticipation, and wary of the chuy chuys that came sniffing.

after what seemed like forever, grace started trying to get me out of my carrier. no way jose!!! there was a bit of a struggle, but she had Baby's help, so i ended up on grace's arms.

what a surprise it was! no cold table. no nasty needles. no vets and assistants to maim. we just fell in line along with the chuy chuys and their humans. at the end of the line, there was a man wearing something that looked like a dress. he proceeded to startle me by whisking water on my head. Baby was supposed to take a pic of the action, but she fumbled. a pity, the photo would have come in handy if i decided to file a harassment suit.

that apparently, was what all the fuss was about. grace kept saying that i was now a 'blessed kittycat' and that she was happy.

we went home, where i gleefully ran to get my second helping of fish for the day. now that's what i call a blessing.

I Believe in Yesterday

guess whose birthday it was yesterday?

despite the lack of hoopla, i did get some nice pats from grace's family and greetings all around. some even wished me a happy birthday via text and YM. grace says she has yet to buy me a gift. for the meantime, she just smothered me with hugs.

it pays to be cute.