Suburban Wild Kingdom

            I don’t know how many times I’ve said “I’m not an animal person” but I’m going to say it one more time in hopes that the self-fulfilling prophecy effect will kick in and someday I won’t actually be surrounded by unwanted animals.  The only thing I really have against them,  other than the fleas, parasites, fur, hair and poo, is that I just don’t feel the need to bring anything else into my  home that needs to be taken care of and requires "Cleanup on aisle 6."

  

            So of course we have Lucy, the cat Eli brought home several years ago.   

Lucy surveying her domain from the top of the laundry cupboards.

 She’s relatively unobtrusive with the exception of a couple of bad habits – the main one being her slash and kill tendencies.  She considers our wooded backyard her own personal smorgasbord of rabbit warrens, bird feeders and adorable Disney woodland creatures put there for her gastronomic benefit.  Honestly, if I weren’t so often confronted with her carnage, it wouldn’t bother me so much, but she’s an unrepentant attention slut, so after she decapitates the fluffy baby bunnies and rips off the redbird wings, she has to grandstand and deposit them on my screened porch for me to stumble over and scream.   

Her attitude could use some work, too, as she’s very demanding.  I don’t mind her sleeping at the foot of my bed at night, considering she keeps my feet warm, but apparently her schedule is chock-full, necessitating an early start around 4:30 a.m.  First on her agenda is herding me bleary-eyed to the bathroom to turn on the bathtub spigot so she can have a refreshing drink. Unfortunately, the girl can’t hold her drink, and once she gets going she is ready to party.  And the party is outside.  I do NOT want to stagger downstairs at 4:30 a.m. to let her outside, but if I don’t, she stands at the side of my bed and meows… belligerently, loudly, impatiently, with attitude and dramatic inflection that leaves no doubt that she is TICKED OFF I am not complying with her requests RIGHT NOW.  

I can get this brand of abuse from my human children, so I’m not keen to take it from four-footed ones.  

            However, Lucy’s been looking pretty good lately, especially since my husband brought home Hugo, - a big macho name for a little snot-spot of a dog.  My husband and I have had several mature, adult conversations about the pros and cons of owning a dog, and we agreed that we didn’t ever need another dog, because they cost money to maintain the shots and flea meds, and they need someone to walk them and care for them, and we’re too old to go chasing a puppy around, etc. and he nodded wisely and agreed and then brought home the dog.  
  

The dog is not very bright, or he would realize that relaxing on my heirloom quilts does not endear him to me.  He appears to have some gender issues, because he has a definite thing for my high heels and will go to great lengths to extract them from my closet.  He’s peed on the couch and my umbrella and in the middle of my area rugs (located on a sea of hardwood floors that would have been much easier to clean).  His only redeeming feature is he loves Eli and will sit on his lap all day. This makes Eli unbelievably happy, so for the moment I’m not making a serious effort to “lose” him.  (Especially since I found out the vet micro chipped him.) 

Hugo enjoying a nap on my grandmother's hand-pieced string quilt.

             And just to make sure that I never really sleep at night, my 11 year-old is the proud owner of a Siberian Hamster.  How the heck he got all the way from Siberia to my house is a mystery, but I am absolutely PHOBIC about rodents and don’t even like to cross the threshold of his room.  Most of the time, I can just block out the knowledge that it exists, but lately I’ve been hearing this weird whirring noise and I finally traced it to the hamster’s cage.  He has a wheel thingie and he’s running on it.  He’s running really fast and hard.  I think he’s practicing for his getaway when he will run straight to my bedroom and induce an acute myocardial infarction in my animal hating heart.

         So the dog antagonizes the cat and eats her food, the cat hisses and climbs the furniture, the hamster is training for a 5K and in the midst of the unrelieved fun comes a tap-tap-tapping at my door. Last year a cardinal spent months pecking at my dining room window.   I put colored paper in the window to block his reflection, but he just moved to a new window (and considering about 15 windows span the front of my house, I gave that up real quick).  He was so loud Eli complained he couldn’t hear the TV over the noise.  Well, ol’ Red is back and now he’s pecking at the sidelight windows by the front door and he is SO LOUD he’s waking me up in the morning.  He faithfully shows up, pecks for a couple of hours, then goes away  - probably to take a couple Excedrin for his aching beak, but he comes back EVERY SINGLE DAY.  

 He’s become such a fixture I was even inspired to pen a poetic tribute to him: 

 

Once upon a morning early, I awoke and it made me surly,

As I lay there, almost napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my old front door.

 “Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice;

Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore —

 “ ’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door —

But twas only this poor redbird,  tapping, tapping…nothing more.

And the Redbird, sometimes flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting

On the chair outside my door;

And his eyes have all the seeming of a redbird that is dreaming,

Of his partner in the window right outside my old front door.

Will he stop it?  Nevermore!

My apologies, Edgar.

            Alas, it would seem that I have not yet atoned for whatever horrific thing I did in a past life, as a couple of weeks ago when I went out to warm up Eli’s van for church, I found this on the hood.  Really?