TheLifeOfMadge

Morning furr-ends, both human and kitties alike.

I hope you are all well. I do have a tail to tell. In fact I have 2. Oh yes a ghostly tail….

How quickly our lives can change. One minute you are queen of the night and the next… Well, you are still queen of the night but it comes with exceptions.

In my last blog I mentioned my little tumble in the garden. Well the good news is I have fully recovered and am back out patrolling the greens and alleyways that are close to home. I never lean towards wandering too far just in case of emergencies. You know the things that can happen mid stroll. That sudden pang of needing a snack or missing out on the Tuna back home. A new toy entering the house or guests arriving that you can manipulate into sorting out extra dreamies.

I have now been in my furr-ever home for just over a year. I like it. There is always food readily available, cuddles (when I want them), and lots of sleeping places. It’s warm and the staff look after me. So why change all that?.. That was the question I found myself asking just over 6 weeks ago when the rules of the game changed.

I was putting my sore paw through its paces chasing that damn red light that appears now and again when I noticed the bathroom door was shut AND my litter tray had been moved to the kitchen door. Was there some decorating being done?.. One of my favourite places to ponder the time away was on the bathroom window ledge. Why was that all of a sudden out of bounds?.. I marched straight up to furry dad ( I’m furry, he’s my dad ), and demanded an explanation. When I say demanded I gave him the old head bump tail swish combo and then followed that up with a questioning meow. He just shrugged as if to say you best ask furry Ma.

It felt like one of those awkward father daughter moments when she brings home her first boyfriend, except that I’ve already been a mother and other than a tuxie by the name of Meg (RIP) they had never been parents so if there was a problem he could have just come out with it, not that I would have understood of course. I may have gauged the direction of the topic from the tone of voice,which at least would have given me the heads up.

As always, when fronted with a question of importance, dad had gone with the simple and less complicated option. Removing himself from the equation just confused me all the more. I mean what the hell was happening here. For the next week or so there was more bathroom secrecy. Doors were opened and closed when I was away from the proximity. I was becoming a little paranoid if truth be told. What made the skullduggery even more intriguing was the use of hooman coding. I honed in as any decent and curious ( don’t say it ) cat would to the hooman conversations and one word consistently cropped up… Bets!

At first I was worried that furry D might have a gambling problem. The bathroom is a fair size but I couldn’t see him running card schools in there or setting up a roulette wheel in the shower. Plus the marble they use for roulette wouldn’t last 5 seconds if I got near it. The thought of playing on a roulette wheel sounds like good fun.

While my curiosity levels had rose my panic buttons had all been pressed and then pushed again for good measure. An empty cat basket lay dormant on the floor by the stairs. My paw however was on the mend and I didn’t recall any discussions being had about my returning to the vet for more humiliating checks. No way was I going back there. So why did they have the basket out?

The endless confusion didn’t stop there either. My food bowls had been moved. I always got used to eating facing away from all the kitchen noise but now my eating vessels were facing a westerly direction. I’d been moved 90 degrees. This is where things became a tad more sinister however. Something ghostly was a paw! … It’s obvious from any of my pictures I’m a classy and graceful tortie specimen. I wouldn’t say I’m a big eater really ,maybe 5 or 6 dips into my food bowls per day plus snacks. Small amounts several times.

Cats normally have a sixth sense and I could feel something wasn’t right. So you can imagine my turmoil when even stranger happenings oppurred. I’d be having a nibble at my food first thing, but then upon my return one hour later the majority of my food had vanished. Not only was there a ghostly presence moving my bowls, this phantom menace was stealing my food. That my kitties is where I draw the line. It continued to happen. I believed that Furry Ma could see my torture, because by way of consolation she then placed another 2 bowls onto the floor to counteract my missing food. Nothing changed. My food levels were diminishing every time I left the room. It wasn’t just the 1 bowl either, it was attacking all 4. One seriously hungry gannet of a ghost!!

I was being allowed access all areas less and less, I was almost being pushed to go out, which with my wonky leg wasn’t bad news for me but even so… I was in rehab, what if I needed a pick up or open door procedures?

Then it hit me like a cat on a zip wire ( I’ve never seen a cat on a zip wire, but similar to a cat cagooling a roulette table, visually it could be paw-sum!… )… I was being dumped. My furr-ever home was just a charade. They pretended to love me but the harsh reality was I wasn’t good enough. My low self esteem plunged to rock bottom. I hid upstairs hoping against hope this wasn’t happening to me again. I loved it here and I thought a headbump was for life, not just for 11 months of speculative kitty marauding.

After a quick four or five hour power knap I conceded, that I’d lost. More importantly though I was hungry and could whiff the allure of a cheeky dreamy or 3. I was thinking that maybe they were trying to lure me into a false sense of security. You can’t outcun a master of all things cunning. I went down the stairs in a stealth like manner. Treats were upon the bottom step. Easy work. However it wasn’t the easiness of the snack finding mission that surprised me. The cage baskety thing had also been moved.

The basket was near to the back door, but that wasn’t the pasadoble’ here, no no my furry friends… The plastic casing had something in it, and it was moving!.. Obviously it was time for an inspection, albeit of a careful nature with whiskers at the ready for a swift exit if necessary. Straight jump up through the table and chairs, immediate right, over the coffee table and under the bottom step of the staircase, back through it and up the stairs. Exit strategy sorted. Yep, I could just go round the objects and straight up the stairs but where’s the fun in that!

I got my sniffers up close and personal. I was taken aback by what was laid in the basket. It was a tiny little kitten. Nowhere near as elegant looking as me obviously ( like I said my self esteem was very low ). Black and white in colour, actually she was quite cute. So I was being replaced by a younger model then eh? … Furry Ma ( I’m furry,she’s my mum ), came and sat next to me and gave me a nice rubdown. Gently under the collar, back of the neck.

“Madge” she said, mainly because thats my name and she’s quite clever like that, “meet your little sister Betsy. She’ll be staying with us providing you two get on, but you take priority as being first here… If you aren’t a happy cat, then Lil Betsy goes back”…..

Now don’t get me wrong, I could see that Lil Betsy was going to be more than a pawfull. There would be times when we fight and argue. For now though, I’m bigger so short term I win those battles. Long term maybe a little quiet company would be nice… If I could teach the little raggamuffin in the ways of Madge all would be well, and I quite like the sound of being a big sister.. Madge’n’Bets has a nice ring to it.  I didn’t know what was ahead of me, and things were certainly not going to be dull around here, but for now I was a truly happy cat!

See Ya Soon

Madge ( ‘n’ Bets ) xxx

PS. When a cats self esteem gets to its lowest ebb its worth pointing out that we still feel ( or on reflection we KNOW ) that we are far superior to all other animals or beings.