It`s almost 7 a.m. this bleak cloudy Monday morning. By this time I`m used to seeing the warm sun making its way to my face as I sit at my working computer table. This morning though, it`s bleakness has me concentrating instead on a small greyish cat with a white spot on its face that sits, and at times lays in front of the open door of the house across the street of our home. The cat does not scratch at the screen of the open front door indicating he wants out. It just lays there looking at the passing cars and people going by.
Our street is a four lane busy area and the house across from me is clear of any brush or trees, so I can see that the guy who lives there alone is also an early riser. By the time I sit at my computer after my morning shower, he has his front door open. So his small cat can see outside to a world and the squirrels that play and hunt for food right before it`s eyes.
My family has lived here for over thirty years and one thing I learned in that time is that folks around here keep to themselves and rarely communicate with each other. To each his own, as some say. The guy across the street is a perfect example. He has lived across the wide street from me for several years and we have never shared even a hand wave or hello in that time. Past winters as I can remember, he used to walk his German Shepard dog out of the house and onto the sidewalk for its morning stroll. I felt some admiration and respect for the guy for his obvious love for his pets.
This past winter though, the handsome German Shepard was not around. I wish I knew what happened to that dog. But like I said, I would not know how to ask if we have never talked. Today though my thoughts and attention or on the cat.
You see, I need a cat. Like now. And I come before you folks seeking advise about the attitude the guy you see here in this picture will take if I bring a cat into our home where this Grey Parrot has enjoyed being King for years.
I DON`T KNOW ABOUT YOU DUDE, BUT I HATE MOUSIES TO PIECES
To avoid being rude let me give you a bit of background about myself and what led me to write this piece and who I am as a member here.
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I`ve written over a hundred diaries here as a writer and some may have seen or read parts of issues you will see today. Please feel free to click on my profile so you may see how far I came to have my voice heard and take a seat among you. I have been Awol and absent for sometime but I have learned folks here are forgiving souls.
Like many times before I come here with some questions. Although I have strayed away from writing diaries, I learned long ago that Daily Kos is where I can resolve problems.
Now I don`t know, nor would I speculate if the guy across the street has this cat to protect him, from what? Mice. I doubt it.
But that is my reason that I need a cat.
I would like to tell you how this bird made it into my home to sit as our pet. There are some very interesting implications into what having a pet has meant to me and my wife over the years. You see, my wife and I just celebrated ?????, our eighty-fifth birthdays a few short weeks ago. Yes, 85 years old.
My lovely daughter grew up loving animals whom I have mentioned several times in past diaries. She taught my granddaughter when they lived in the upper flat of our duplex home about pets. She encouraged her to study to become a Veterinary.
There were two (2) dogs living upstairs that my daughter kept as pets. Rico was a midnight black Labrador that barked so loud that neighbors sometimes complained.
Rico was not only loud he was a bully. Sam was a Golden Retriever. Also Labrador. These were pure blooded breed that my daughter spent a small fortune to have due to her love of animals as pets. I would sometimes have to go upstairs and break up a fights and beatings Rico was giving Sam, a dog so timid and afraid of Rico. Sam`s thing was catching squirrels in our yard and he was good at it.
Then came the time when my daughter bought her own home in the burbs and felt bad leaving her two old folks parents alone in this monumental duplex. She figured that by leaving her dogs with us we would not feel unprotected. That was a huge mistake. You see, pets die. When Sam passed away I decided to get rid of Rico so I could not see Rico die also.
So my wife and I were now alone in this house. My daughter, bless her heart, I believe felt that we needed companionship to keep us busy, so she brought home this large bird cage and told us that soon we would have companionship. She brought the African Grey Parrot you see above.
Now if you agree that leaving her dogs Rico and Sam to keep us protected was a mistake, you perhaps may agree that bringing a Parrot for companionship was a disaster.
Parrots are nasty eaters. Kikki sprinkled the floor in our dinning room area with seeds and other food where the cage was placed by my daughter. Seeds and fruits fall off the Parrot`s claws and bounce off the cage`s bar onto the floor. And this my friends, brought the small fast moving critter that I caught sight off with the corner of my eye. For a home where pure blooded pets have lived for so long this new arrival has me pulling my hair in anger.
As I look at the small cat behind the screen door across the street I wonder if it would be a mistake to bring a cat to live in our home. One thing I am quite certain about is that a cat is a predator for the fast moving critter I glanced at in our dinning room hanging around the spoils dropped on the floor by the Parrot. If someone suggested that getting rid of the Parrot would solve my problem let me assure you that my wife and daughter would never permit that route.
Kikki, the Parrot is another pure bred pet that a lot of money was spent so that my wife and I were not alone and something to keep our minds occupied.
When I say “a home where pure blooded pets lived” evidence of that bring back my comment that my daughter wanted my granddaughter to study to become a Veterinarian.
When she was still a baby in the program Kindgarten, she was spending a lot of time looking at pictures of animals and told me she would grow up to be a very special Veterinarian with a hospital that would only treat animals.
THIS IS MY BABY VETERINARIAN WITH TWO OF HER EARLY PETS AND COMPANIONS IN CHILDHOOD
Imagine how much money my daughter spent to buy these pets for my granddaughter. Elmo was her favorite patient and this cockapoo parrot would only talk to her, laugh very loud using my baby`s voice and would go outside in the patio as seen here with no fear of the bird flying away. Now the Pup you see here was named Gio, short for Giovanni and was a pure bred Boxer that to my baby`s pain, had his ears clipped later on in his life to become King in this home, with ears straight up and and standing up like a true King. Well no, Gio could no laugh like Elmo but my baby had no problem understanding every move the pup made.
This is how much she loved animals. To this day, even though her dream of being a Veterinarian never happened, she kept her dream alive by treating human beings of their pain by following in my daughter`s footsteps.
My daughter, as I have mentioned in one of my diaries graduated from the University of Marquette here in Milwaukee with a degree in the Science of Nursing. In the Veterans hospital she works in the operating room treating our wounded and old warriors.
My granddaughter did not become a veterinary and chose instead to follow in her mother`s footsteps and today treats the sick and wounded at her job in a hospital. So when Gio suffered a cancerous death, she had the dog cremated and has the ashes in a jar by her bed.
Finally, I struggle with the question I bring forth here. A cat would be committing suicide if it dared to be near Kikki. Blood has been drawn from my hands and arms by the claws of this bird when I get distracted and go into the cage to clean it. Kikki can crack open a walnut with its strong beak so I am at a loss about bringing a cat into our home.
To leave the critter roam unattended under the cage feasting on Kikki`s spoils, and even perhaps the critter inviting neighbors to join in the feast in not an option. so if someone here has some advise to share please do. I will appreciate it and if indeed I write again I will not forget you.
