Do you remember the great comic strip, Calvin and Hobbes, by Bill Watterson? It ran from 1985 to 1995 and captured to perfection the essence of a little boy and his stuffed tiger. I had a stuffed panda bear when I was a little boy—a condition that hasn’t changed, since Darleen claims I still have the emotional development of a seven year old, and I still have the bear—and I speak from experience when I say Watterson’s genius was his ability to recreate the intricate richness of a little boy’s life with an imaginary playmate. I was reminded of Hobbes, the stuffed tiger, when Darleen rescued a pounce of kittens. (A “pounce,” by the way, is the correct term for a congregation of kittens, and is about as perfect as any word can be.)
There were nine kittens from two different litters left at an abandoned house down the road from us. Six of them were too old and too wild to ever be properly domesticated, but we were able to get them neutered and to place them with people who needed or wanted barn cats. The other three we kept. They came from a mother whom we also rescued and named Grace (because she once was lost, but now was found) and the kittens we obviously named Faith, Hope, and Charity. Faith and Hope are normal bouncy, pouncy kittens, but Charity…
All cats have incredibly rich and vivid imaginations. In fact, they are probably the creative fiction writers of the animal world. (I base this on the fact that Darleen frequently tells me—usually with a heavy sign, sometimes accompanied by a rolling of the eyes, sometimes with outright annoyance—that I have a rich and vivid imagination, especially when it comes to things like balancing the checkbook.) They invent games amongst themselves and individually with their stuffed toys, a sort of mirror image of Calvin and his tiger. But Charity takes this creativity a step further. I would call her a demented homicidal psycho jungle cat except that she’s as loving and affection as she can be.
All three of the kittens play games with their stuffed toy mice, games where the mice attempt to escape or, variously, to attack, an event which causes extraordinary feats of athleticism and courage. But Charity doesn’t even need a toy. She’ll be lying quietly on the floor, ostensibly dozing, and all of sudden unseen monsters from hell will start creeping up the hallway and Charity’s tail will turn into a bottle brush, her back will arch like a Halloween cartoon, and she’ll start dancing down the hall, either in flight or in attack depending, I suppose, on the invincibility of the monster. Sometimes these monsters are so dangerous and terrifying that she’ll go right from dozing to frantic flight, and good luck to you if you happen to be between her and the bed she wishes to hide under.
Her most extraordinary routine is a game of her own devising that she plays under the kitchen bar-counter where we eat our meals. There is apparently something there, where I always sit, that must be caught, but that has supernatural powers of evasion. She crouches down, staring intently at the…thing…on the floor. Her tail lashes, then the hindquarters engage with the little wriggle cats do before they attack, and then comes the pounce, high and arching, coming down with a whap of the front paws. But whatever it is invariably escapes and, quicker than thought she’s after it, leaping into the air, whapping her front paws against the counter, down on the floor again, but it races past her and she spins, striking out with a single paw and, almost before the strike is complete, she’s leaping into the air again, sometimes doing complete back flips in her frantic efforts to catch…the thing. Whatever this…thing…might be, it never goes anywhere, but Charity never catches it either, and the game may continue for five minutes at a time.
At least, I think it’s a game, a sort of Calvin and Hobbes kind of imaginary game. I hope it is. I’m beginning to get a little nervous about sitting there.
Et voilà, encore quelques chats qui vont être heureux dans la famille Parker !!! Lorsque je vivais encore chez mes parents, j’avais un chat « Mickette ». J’adorais la pendre sur mes genoux, la caresser et entendre son ronronnement. Un jour, je ne sais pas ce qui m’a pris (j’étais petite) j’ai vu son oreille près de ma bouche et je l’ai croquée
La pauvre petite bête…….. elle a été aussi surprise que moi et ne m’a même pas griffée. C’était vraiment un gentil chat, certainement plus gentille que moi……
Quelques dizaines d’années après, lorsque je vois des chats, je m’en veux encore…… et je vous le jure, je ne croquerai jamais plus l’oreille d’un chat….. ils n’aiment pas ça et moi non plus………
Anita
JP I love rescue kitties. Our Ginger has been with us almost 14 years now. He was left in an empty apartment and I fought to get him. I even argued with Gerald (hubby) lol. Ginger is the light of all our lives and yet I too relate it to Calvin and Hobbs and that is both a favorite of mine and Gerald’s. I once did a speech called Who is smarter my cat or my husband. I ended up being the first Muslim lady to win the speech contest and well Ginger won too!! Ginger looks like the picture you put up but he is orange and white!
Tena French Halifax, NS Canada
Jameson,
Until I’d read this post, I’d never fully realized the very real imagination of cats. I’d always thought of them as merely playful. (Growing up, we had a dog.) However, I have observed that startle and streak behavior in my neighbors’ cats…and they really do take off. They must be visualizing something in their noggins, or possibly cats can see things in dimensions invisible to us humans.
I came late to Calvin & Hobbes and have received the strip daily by email for the last several years. And you’re right, it’s a study in imagination. And Hobbes is Calvin’s truest best friend.
Instead of a tiger, I had an old-fashioned Teddy bear, quite old now because he was also my father’s bear when he was very young. My bear still sits on my bureau, though, being in semi-retirement, he doesn’t get out and around the way he once did.. He was always my friend, companion, and observer–and still is.
Many thanks for activating my imagination about all this!
Tom Norris
Palm Beach County, Florida
Thank you for those images,you write it so I can clearly see the cat going crazy. Now I know what my cat is doing when she is going crazy and not playing with her toy mouse. Although she does it at 3am alot of the time
. Glad to know im not alone with the crazy cat issue
I would be kinda nervous sitting there, too…..
I think it is great,that you gave those cats a new home.by the way,which one is in the picture?
I only have a dog.But since I work fulltime and my son is in school from 8:00 am-15:30 everyday……sometimes I already feel bad for the one we have,since he’s alone so much…..but he is used to ist by now I guess ( at least I hope so!).I would love to have a lot more animals,but that wouldn’t be fair to them now,would it?
Did you know,that since about a year ago, they show reruns of simon&simon over here?In german and in english,too.It’s nice to hear your ‘real’ voice and not the german translators voice.
Did you ever get to hear ‘ your’ german voice?Just wondering……
Once again thanks for having such a kind heart for animals,they do need all the help they can get .
Andrea
Gawd, how I loved “Calvin And Hobbes”–I think I cried when I heard the cartoonist retired. My ma was always sending me this strip in the mail, usually with the comment “Remember when?”. Apparently, she seemed to think I was a lot like Calvin as a kid…..Very, very few of my toys survived my savage, barbaric childhood. None of the Stuffed Animals did–I really don’t want to say here what ended up happening to most of them….. But I now have LOTS of new toys, when, as a sort-of-adult, I can more fully appreciate them! In an era where most adults get addicted to things like drugs, alchohol, prostitution, gambling, etc., I am addicted to realistic plastic animal toys–I can’t resist them! I think it may be a throwback behaviour to caveman fetishes with ivory, stone, or wooden animal figurines, so it may be genetic…..And cats playing, and animal imaginations–something most modern laboratory scientists would patronizingly deny–because, of course, they have not had the slightest bit of actual experience observing animals in anything but cold, sterile, unnatural, miserable laboratory settings. I had a little mutt(my “teen-age years dog”) that disdained to play with toys after puppyhood–but she was quite the huntress. She knew the word “squirrel” backward and forward–you could not say “squirrel” without her jumping up ready for action, even from a dead sleep! Her FAVORITE prey! So one day, I made her a sock toy(old socks stuffed in one big sock, with the end knotted, leaving a dangling “tail”), and threw it, calling out “SQUIRREL!” She was on it in a second–obviously understood in a second it wasn’t a REAL squirrel, but ever afterwards, was fanatical about that(and ONLY that) toy! She always treated it just as she would a real squirrel! Now, if that isn’t animal imagination, I don’t know what is……L.B.
We have a bunch of feral cats running around our neighborhood. Some of them got into the garage through a broken door. Even when a new board was put up they knocked down. I think the same cats go under a small wooden stair we have out the back door. I called the animal shelter and they do not come get cats. If, we bring them in they will take them. I said “Well, they are feral cats how are we going to catch them?”
The man suggested a company that could do this or we could get a cage and catch them ourselves. Well, as you probably can guess we didn’t do any of this . So the cats are still out there.
My husband doesn’t balance the checkbook I do. The reason I do this is because he is worse at it then I am. When I say balance what I really mean is I attempt to balance the checkbook. Now, we have online banking and I have set-up a lot of bills for automatic payment. I also get alerts on my smart phone if the balance is low. I got an alert yesterday and looked at it and actually taught the following things; wow I am really far off in my ledger and how did that happen? Yes, I am that person. I had to go online and recheck everything. It seems I forgot to write quite a few things down and had to make a lot corrections at which point the amounts were still off. No, I could find the mistake and gave up. Now at this point I taught I don’t think I should be taking care of the checkbook, but even after all this I knew I was still better at it then my husband. Because I tried this before and he would not or could not do it. No, he would loss the bills, forget to pay the bills, forget to mail the bills and so on. Balance the checkbook?, no he wouldn’t do that. So I decided, really I had to do it myself.
We did have a black and white tabby cat when we were children. I think that this cat must have been diabolical. One day I was outside playing and the cat came out. At that time there was no fence between our yard and the neighbor’s yard. The neighbors had some kind of dog that was tied up to a post with a leash. Of course as soon as the cat came out the dogs starts barking and jumping up and down and pulling on the leash. The cat walks right over to where the dog can see him and stops a couple of feet in front of the dog. Now, the dog goes really crazy and barks and jumps and just about chocked itself to try to get to the cat. That cat did not hiss or arch its back. The cat sat down and watched the dog try to chock itself on the leash. Even though I was a kid, I know that that cat had to be doing that on purpose. I think the cat might have finally got bored and left. I just couldn’t believe it.
JP,
Thanks for this amusing story from your cats and for the cat rescue.You gave the kitten beautiful names.Many people say they would like to be reborn as a cat in the next life.Cats are wonderful creatures of elegance, pride and grace.Cats have this marvelous indifference to the rest of the world.A cat does what she wants,whether this is meaningless, dangerous, stupid or ridiculous.A cat that just wallows in all her grace,sits with her half closed eyes on a comfortable cushion, jump up at any moment,run through the living room,forgets the braking on the floor and collide with the wall—she will not be ashamed of it.She will not look around if anyone has watched her,not hide and not sneak, head down, as inconspicuously as possible out of the room.She will only look surprised and in the next moment the cat hunts again after a shadow.
Dogs have masters, cats have staff
Have a nice weekend.
Manuela
http://youtu.be/EKvNqe8cKU4
Maybe, this short cartoon on YouTube called “The box-Simeon’s cat” will help a little today.