Cat House Sitting

It is absurd to be writing this today, because I am on the last five days of a six-week house-sitting stint. I am living at Peaceable's neighbor's house -- 40 steps from front door to front door (have to walk around the snow drifts, or it would be fewer). They are in Italy, at an enviable writers-retreat at Bellagio, overlooking Lake Como. (I don't know the name of the place they are staying, but from her brief glowing email descriptions, this is similar). Mrs. Neighbor won the month-long retreat for her writing or her teaching (I can't remember which -- she wins a lot of prizes). These last two weeks, their college-aged daughters are with them and they are touring the country.

In the meantime, I am watching their cats. Another title for this blog post could be, More Cats I Have Slept With.  Anyone who thinks cats don't have personalities, hasn't spent any time with a cat. All three of these cats are much nicer than my two, accepting and even-tempered.

Moo is the dominant cat of the family, a few months older than the other two.  She is a Leader of the Band, and in temperament a lot like Fred. Moo is suffering cabin fever -- but the winter weather is not breaking, and every frigid night she takes one step out onto the concrete, then turns around in the doorway growling and hissing, and attacks her sisters.

Vince comes next in the pecking order.  Vince, a Maine Coon, was a timid kitten, but large for her age (Maine Coons tend to run large, and have all that fur to pluff them out further) -- hence, the name for a Mafioso tough guy, which she has totally not lived up to.  (She was thought to be male when they brought her home -- she's still referred to as "he" by the family, but she looks so like long-dead Maine Coons Maude and Natasha that she's definitely a she to me.) She is a Secret Admirer -- doesn't like to be held, but generally sits nearby for easy petting.

Hazel is bottom of the hierarchy. She mostly lives upstairs, and if allowed outside, scrambles immediately to the graveyard of birds and chipmunks under Peaceable's porch (graveyard to small birds and rodents, nirvana to carnivores).  She is sweet-tempered and loving -- a Sidekick.

On Thursday, I move back to Peaceable's house.  I won't promise to write another blog entry in the next weeks, but maybe I will.