Blog Dis

Like most, I suppose, we regard ourselves as being clever and highly intelligent people, for the most part, in any event. I mean to say there are few if any people who would introduce themselves to you, to bluntly declare, "I'm a dullard and I have no brain." Not only do most people regard themselves as being smart but they will recite specific instances to you of how they had applied these brains, to further prove they're above the regular average Joe who's still learning how to pull the tab from the Coke can without cutting his fingers.

Ah, yes, fingers. Fingers are good. Fingers are ideal for fingering out things, like people and the past. Like I did all those years ago when I observed a small tumor on the bridge of the nose of my female kitty Nutmeg, aka Nutters, Nut of Love, the Nuttiest Nutters. The size of the tumor had become reduced from Monday to Wednesday and I was plagued worrying about her state of health because she was family. She had the cutest little ways about her, such as her silent meow that melted every man's heart who stepped into my place. My Nutmeg, not surprisingly, was a hussy, you could say a slutty kitty bcus any man that came into my apartment was greeted by her. She'd run out of my bedroom and throw herself at his feet, to shamelessly offer her belly for a rub. But look at me! Here I'm getting carried away. The point of this diatribe is to state that I eventually fingered it out all by myself, what may have caused the tumor to grow - creamy, delicious, frothy cool whip. My female kitty developed an allergy to coconut oil, the essential ingredient in cool whip.

Nutmeg lived to the ripe age of 14 years. And every weekend, after a long week of work, I would indulge on Saturday and Sunday mornings with one glorious ritual in my life, whereby after consuming a delicious breakfast I'd heartily inhale espressos, three to be exact, until my brain was wired, after which I'd tackle various duties such as pulling my apartment together and to complete food preparation for the work week to come. Nutmeg enjoyed this ritual with great relish, licking the excess cool whip that spilled down the sides of my espresso cup. She absolutely loved the stuff and I can't blame her because, after all, I was the culprit who introduced her to it. Why? Because humans are stupid creatures, even when we figure out things, or finger them out, despite also believing that we're right or very clever. Knowing myself reasonably well, my attitude at that time was logical: kitties live such short lives that I wanted her to enjoy whatever pleasures life had to offer her, before she trotted off to kitty-heaven. I indulged my kitties, in fact, because Nutmeg had a brother named Brando. I indulged both of them stupidly and foolishly, this I know now, but that's what pet owners do with pets; we spoil them rotten and treat them like our children. And as we all know, children don't know any better so it's left up to the adult to behave like one. You'd think, right?

But because I surmised that the cool whip was the root cause for her developing an allergy, owing to her breaking out into fits of sneezing after a good licking session, when I denied her cool whip, she knew something had changed, and this left her feeling angry. Then my sweet little girl wasn't the sweetie-pie and she'd jump up on my wall unit and begin to knock things over to get my attention. Kitties are not stupid. Don't believe for a moment they don't understand when you speak to them. Apparently, cats when tested have shown to comprehend a wide range of human language; they just choose to ignore us. I figured out this reality pretty quick, or rather I fingered it out.

Take for example, Haagen-Dazs chocolate chocolate-chip ice-cream. I rarely indulge in ice-cream made from dairy but when I do, this is the only brand I'll eat because the quality of the cream speaks for itself. My male kitty, Brando, could be comatose asleep, not having moved in hours. We spent a lot of quality time with one another and I observed their habits, in the same manner that they knew mine. I would get up to go to the kitchen, and quietly open the freezer drawer to pull out the ice-cream, only to turn around and see Brando perched on the counter, behind me, not having made one single sound when he had jumped up. I mean not a tick of noise. Nothing. I didn't hear him come into the kitchen or land on the counter. He was supposedly racked out asleep, but he knew when Haagen-Dazs was being served, and he wasn't going to be denied. I remember one time while both were being checked out by my vet, I casually mentioned how much he loves chocolate ice-cream and my vet nearly had heart attack, looking at me in horror. "How long have you been giving him ice-cream? Do you know chocolate can kill him?"

I didn't hesitate. And I wasn't about to begin lying to my vet about how I cared for my kitties. "Oh, only since he was six weeks old." My vet was aghast. Brando outlived Nutmeg. He lived for 16 years. Reaching the age of 16 is considered special for cats because they're regarded as seniors when they're at age eleven. They both had a great life. I treated them like they were royal cats, according to one male friend.

I shall end on this note - life! We live it while we're alive. Our pets also get to live the best kind of life, more so if they have a caring human to wait on them, to spoil them, to feed them top quality food, and occasionally to allow them to indulge in sin-foods, no different than how we as people indulge. The rest we all finger out as we go along.

Nutmeg (L); Brand (R). I miss my little fur-balls. I've never replaced them with new kitties. Instead, and for the last ten plus years, I've babysat kitties belonging to others, being able to devote my attention to one at a time, and this has given me my kitty fix since their deaths.

Just look at their pleading eyes. Would you deny her cool whip and him ice-cream? I think not. RIP fur-balls.