Da Buddies Eclectic (being the second post in Da Buddies Eclectic blog)

"I sing da buddies eclectic,
The armies of those I love entwine my legs and snuggle up to me,
They will not let me off till I go pet them, respond to them,
And play with  them, and charge them full with the kibble of the bowl."

(Sorry, couldn't resist a little nod to Walt Whitman in the title of the blog, and then that just sort of developed naturally from it.)

So, it's a rainy, dreary day in Asheville, North Carolina, and most of the buddies are asleep.  All except for Reggie, who desperately wants to go out on the uncovered front porch.  So Sean takes him out there, figuring that, like Otto, Reggie will come high-tailing it back in the house once he realizes it's wet and cold out there.  Strangely, he doesn't.  He's so happy to be on the porch that he apparently couldn't care less that he's also getting soaked.  So, Sean had to bring him back in.  


Funny thing about our cats--they understand a lot of words, for cats.  Otto, for example, used to know the difference between the term "front porch" and "back porch," when we lived in a house that had both.  Wanda understands the words "night-night," as part of a bedtime ritual that Sean used to do with her, where he would say the words and then turn off the light.  Wanda would respond right back with these sharp, barking chirps--two in quick succession--that sounded exactly like she was saying "night-night" right back to him.


The other morning, Otto wandered bleary-eyed into the bathroom at 6-something in the morning to protest at me loudly for getting out of bed and disturbing his snuggle time.  I told him that I couldn't snuggle right now (work was beckoning), but that we could snuggle again tonight.  He didn't seem satisfied, and kept yowling at me, until I made the suggestion that maybe "Big Buddy" (Sean) would snuggle with him for a while.  At which point Otto stopped yowling, turned back to the bedroom, and jumped immediately up on the bed to snuggle with Sean.  Coincidence?  I think not...


Of course, the words with the most voice recognition for them are the ones related to food.  "Shakey treats" are a big one (the kitty treats that come in a bag or a small cylinder), as is "kitty mush" or just "mush," which is a small taste of some kind of canned cat food--usually Wellness or Evo.  The whole "kitty mush" ritual is yet another post for another day, because that's a whole story in and of itself.  Suffice it to say that there are expected routines (which are anything but routine) and a song that goes along with the treat, sung to the tune of "The Mickey Mouse Club" theme song, for those of you out there in the blogosphere old enough to remember how that goes.  


The point being that our cats really do seem to understand us, and we can mostly understand them.  That's how it usually goes with a relationship among equals.  Which is exactly what we feel like we have with our buddies, and best I can tell, the way they feel about us as well.