"Cats have it all - admiration, an endless sleep, and company only when they want it."
— Rod McKuen
AUBURN, Maine — If you don’t acknowledge our cat in the morning, you do so at your own peril.
Cindy-Lou is our wake-up call and there is no snooze button to silence our noisy tenant when our girl is up and about raising hell.
She runs around, meowing: “Get your sorry asses out of bed.” She needs to be stroked and hugged because this fur ball won’t take no for an answer from a pair of bleary-eyed adults.
You will never make it to the coffee pot because Cindy Lou will stand between you and your first cup of Joe. Feeding her first is the only priority or you will be tripping over this rambunctious beast before brewing that magic, dark stuff that gives us all a lift each morning.
You see, Cindy-Lou has a lot to say for a cat that was adopted from an animal shelter. She has been with us for a year, and six weeks of that was spent wooing and cajoling the frightened cat to leave the basement for the comforts of a warm couch. Then we spent another week re-enacting the movie, “The King and I,” while humming along to one of the featured tunes: “Getting to know you.”
This is by far the most vocal feline we have ever taken under our wing. She screams for attention and her ear-piercing rants will bend your ear. She’s like a rooster that cackles at first light.
We lost our beloved Tabby, who I categorize as a stealthy feline, last March. Tabby didn’t say much, and when humans tried to talk to it, Tabby gave you that Robert De Niro look in the movie “Taxi Driver: “Are you talking to me! Stop talking to me!”
Cindy, though, is one demanding cat that refuses to be ignored, but I have grown used to her endearing snarls and occasional swipes from her sharp claws.
She fearlessly stands her ground except when I pull out the vacuum to clean the house. Her eyes widen with fear and she bolts downstairs and into the deepest recesses of our damp basement, waiting for me to put that god damn machine away.
Her reaction to the vacuum puts a wide grin on my face, and that smile also appears when we pelt the picture window with snowballs. Cindy-Lou leaps from the recliner and heads for cover, screaming: “Incoming!”
But I found another way to occupy an indoor cat with a lot of time on its paws.
I call it Cat-TV, which is live, daily programming from our front yard. We have two bird feeders for seed and one for suet. The feeders sway in front of the picture window, tantalizing Cindy-Lou, who spends hours sitting in a recliner next to the window and daydreaming of the day when she dispatches one of our feathered friends.
After serving Cindy-Lou her meal, I draw the shades and watch the cat seat itself just in time to gawk at a handful of birds dining in the morning sun.
Cindy will do this for a couple of hours, allowing me to enjoy my coffee in peace before I begin punching out a story for the Lewiston Sun Journal sports section.
Did you know that cats chatter with delight when their prey is just within paw’s reach? The chatter becomes louder as a variety of birds gorge on my feeders.
Cindy crouches in the recliner to keep a low profile to watch blue jays, woodpeckers and chickadees pick at the Blasi’s home-cooking. Large cardinals really draw Cindy’s attention.
Her eyes never leave the window as sparrows belly up to the window feeder. The birds are now within striking distance of Cindy-Lou, which is ready to pounce. She leaps from the chair, but the window acts as a barrier, and she bumps her head off the glass as a sparrow flies away to the protection of hedges surrounding the front lawn.
The chickadees are the most audacious birds that have learned to ignore the cat during a lunch break.
So I continue to invest in bird food for a cat that is just waiting for the moment to bag a robin or woodpecker.
But she stands a better chance of knocking off a hapless mouse that made the fatal mistake of wondering into our home.
