A cat by any other name; Oh deer me; We (Scrooge and I) come a wassailing

"Cats have it all - admiration, an endless sleep, and company only when they want it."

AUBURN, Maine — This holiday season the Blasi family made a momentous decision to change the cat’s name — or at least use several other aliases.

The resolution will affect the household for the coming year. We debated and debated — for five agonizing minutes — at the kitchen table over a bowl of hot punch. After all the haggling, we agreed to a new name for a cat that never ever stops talking.

We will be in court on Monday to make it official after we file papers with several lawyers. The cat will also be summoned by several aliases depending our our moods and how much this hairball bothers me when I am filing a damn story at the kitchen table.

My wonderful, beautiful wife named the cat “Cindy Lou Who,” the sweet kid from Whoville in “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.”  Every time I hear Grinch, I think of a nonsense-filled Washington, D.C. occupied by Li'l Abner and his hillbilly friends.

Terri has also called the Cat — Diva — which has several definitions, including “a self-important person who is temperamental and difficult to please.”

In this case, it is a cat and it owns our hearts — and she knows it. It screeches when it demands to be fed and wanders the house, bellowing “Hello.” It really does sound like that.

The cat, which we bought from an animal shelter the past March, is a drama queen — and we are convinced “Diva” is appropriate. She wakes us out of a sound sleep in the dead of night with her ear-piercing, unbearable screech. She is miserable until she has her morning, stinky food, much like I feel when I suck down my first of cup of coffee.

Diva never stops talking and screeching — and it can be intolerable until you give in and crack open another can of smelly cat food. This is a cat with a hair-trigger temper that will take a swipe at you when she’s having a moment— and there are many.

She’ll steel your chair because Diva is a rascal and an assassin, who knocked off several mice and screamed at the top of her lungs after she committed the bloody deeds.

And so Diva will be the cat’s name — along with several aliases.

To be honest, I don’t think the cat gives a damn so long as it eats — just like a Scrooge acquaintance — who wouldn’t attend “The Old Screw’s” funeral unless he was also fed.

Oh deer me!

I was hustling back from a University of Maine at Farmington men’s basketball game that I covered a couple of Friday’s ago in Farmington.

It was a dark and cold night, my friends. Everybody was at home enjoying their wood stoves while I kept my eyes on a lonely stretch of road in search of danger.

I had to file a story, because that’s what reporters do.

I raced around a hair-pin turn on a hill at about 50 mph on dangerous Route 4 in Livermore when a giant buck leaped in front of my Rondo Kia. 

I had a three-second window to decide if I wanted to live or die on a dimly-lit country road on a freezing Friday night.

I skidded, veered a bit to the right, hit the gas pedal and slammed in the deer’s ass. I hit it hard and it limped off into the woods. I drove off to call it in. I accelerated to lift the hood to prevent the deer from crashing through the window.

I heard the glass cover on the left-front headlight shatter after the impact, which could be heard for miles. I limped home with one headlight and a fear that there were other deer lurking on the side of road ready to pounce on other unsuspecting drivers.

I needed to file my story because that’s what reporters do.

I also needed a stiff drink because that’s what this reporter required after dodging the Grim Reaper.

The Old Screw warmed my heart

I have read just about everything that Charles Dickens published over his lifetime, but I never sat down with “A Christmas Carol.”

I’ve watched several movies called a “Christmas Carol” or “Scrooge.”

So I promised myself that I would read the Dickens’ story about angry old man — like Henry F. Potter — who despises the world and tries to make Bedford Falls a hellhole for young George Bailey.

There’s a real-life versions of Scrooge or Potter in our nation’s capital.

I was enthralled as Dickens took us through Ebenezer’s tumultuous life — with three diligent spirits who slapped around the miser along the way.

He certainly had it coming to him.

The short story is spectacular, especially the way Dickens reveals his characters through sharp dialogue. The book has certainly withstood the test of time, just like Philip Van Doren Stern’s short story, “The Greatest Gift,” which we all know as “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

Dickens and Van Doren Stern had it right when they penned two ageless stories about miserly, selfish old men whose only concern is themselves and the bottom line.

Sound familiar?

But “The Old Screw” figured it out in the end when he said: “I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach!”

I leave you with Scrooge’s epiphany and bid you all a happy holiday.

Our new cat is out of the bag and AWOL

Editor's note: We just discovered our Cindy-Lou Who just knocked of a mouse in my basement. Cindy maybe terrified of us —even though we are kind and gentle — but she has no problem taking a rat out for a walk. He is a mouser with no remorse and our Luco Brazzi. Don Corleone would be proud of his solider.

"In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this."

                                                                                                                                     — Terry Pratchett

AUBURN, Maine — No cat will ever replace Tabby — a one-of-a-kind fur ball that was fearless, sometimes ruthless but always demonstrated its kindness — except to other cats.

I miss his antics and odd sense of humor. His untimely death still smarts. Tabby owned my wife’s heart and it eventually stole mine. But Terri also knew that another feline would be the only way to fill that void of emptiness in house that was suddenly quiet.

So we went shopping for a new cat at the local animal shelter. Our second pick went to a five-year-old cat who appeared to enjoy our company.

So we thought!

We headed for home with a cat that was terrified and meowed in sadness.

As soon as we opened the door to the cat carrier in the house, it bolted toward my son’s bedroom where it stationed itself against the wall under his bed. We peered at it and tried to coax the little bugger out from its hideout.

The cat was stubborn and gave a look like: "Back off, you knuckleheads."

Cindy-Lou Who, its new name, wouldn’t budge. Not even enticing, yummy treats could extricate the terrified cat from self-imprisonment under my son's bed.

But cats know how to pull a disappearing act and will use any orifice in an old home to hide from the ones who love them most.

Over the next few days, it found the open door to the dreaded downstairs and disappeared into the damp, cellar darkness like a fugitive hiding in plain sight from the long arm of the law.

We thought we would never see Cindy-Lou Who again.

For the next week or two or three, Terri would stalk Cindy-Lou like a bounty hunter. All she wanted was to do was give the cat a loving hug and lure it from the dark side.

This cat went AWOL and had the stealth of a B-1 bomber. It didn’t want to be found. If you believe in reincarnation, then this cat was like the great magician Houdini.

But our cat discovered the closets around the top floor of the house to conceal itself. It even once started griping about the lack of treats in its bowl in the middle of the night.

It is getting braver and perhaps it is “working its way back to us, babe,” just like the song by The Four Seasons — except without Frank Valli and his trademark pompadour cut.

It has been three weeks since its disappearing act, but you can hear the scoundrel sneaking around the night like a bobcat. 

One evening, the “In Search Of” team, and that would be us, went downstairs to pay our new cat a visit. 

“I just don’t where he is,” a frustrated Terri said. 

I looked down and then up and there was our deserter sitting on a beam and laughing his ass off at his masters.

“Terri, please look up,” I said to my befuddle wife.

“Why,” she said. “Oh my god, she is above our heads.”

We pleaded with our runaway to have heart and join the family. The cat just meowed away and began looking for an escape route.

It has been nearly a month, but Cindy-Lou Who refuses to watch TV with us or cuddle up on the coach.

But we are still working on her and time is on our side to win over the elusive Cindy-Lou, who is somewhere hiding in Whoville.