Ode to Ollie

When we got Ollie from the Animal Shelter, they were having a buy one get one free deal. Two cats are better than one, so we wandered through the place, trying to decide who to adopt. Violet picked us first, and after a lot of searching, Ollie picked Rachel.

You’ve heard the old adage “You always get what you pay for,” and this couldn’t be more true for sweet dumb-dumb Ollie. He was the free one. He is the goofiest, silliest, most loveable dork of a cat we have ever known.

World, meet Ollie.

Can I jump to the house roof?

Maybe I can get on the roof this way?

I’m just gonna wait here.

I can haz tequila?

Gardening makes me pooped out.

Hold me like dis. My back likes the stretch.

Why you wake me up?

Dad’s leg is cuddly for nap time.

Why are you pointing that box at me?

My comfy chair.

Nap time.

Caesar, you watch out for mom while I look for my presents.

This water tastes like dog drool.

Bugs are cuddly for napping.

I see you, Mr. Squirrel.

Halp. My claws are stuck in the rug.

No, I don’t know how that tomato ended up on the floor.

 
I like jalapeno peppers. They are fun to play with.

Go away, he’s my daddy.

So if I fall outta the tree again, you catch this time, ok?
(Ollie has a habit of falling out of this tree and landing on people’s heads.)

I can has dog cookie?

Zzzzzzzz…

Ratilda, our new… pet?

A couple weeks ago, I was taking pictures of Ollie on the roof of our carriage house. He was more interested than usual in the jasmine bush, which he is sniffing here in this photo. Later that night we realized there was something good to be sniffed in that spot.
See the suet feeder cage hanging from the eaves, just behind and under Ollie?

That evening, when the pooch was let out to go check his pee-mail, that suet feeder was swinging back and forth wildly.
No wind. Huh, that’s odd.

After posting my curiosity on Facebook, my Midwestern friends suggested a raccoon or a nocturnal squirrel.
(I thought it might be a possum. Surely nutria can’t climb, right?)
I grabbed the camera and watched. Here’s the carriage house at night.
What’s that on the suet feeder?

Oh my goodness, it’s a rat!

This is the best I could do with the camera, being nighttime, and I couldn’t get very close.
After our little fiasco with getting a hamster (in 2006) our household is now very familiar with rodent gender identification, and this suet- eating rat is a girl.

We names her Ratilda.

She will not become an indoor pet. I promise.
Sorry, Frank and Rachel, but you cannot change my mind on this one.

Our lease prohibits feeding stray animals, and if we are caught placing food outside, it will be considered a pet and we will have to pay a deposit for it. On the other hand, bird feeders are allowed, and I love having bird feeders outside my kitchen windows. The birds haven’t been too interested in either of the suet feeders this year, and the suet cakes are about a year old, so I really don’t care who eats it at this point. But I suppose since we are feeding a rat, it would be amusing to consider Ratilda our pet.
Just until I can get some D-Con into Ratilda’s suet, anyway.

So what’s the dealio with the swinging suet? I stepped to the the edge of the deck steps to get a better picture and she jumped from the suet to the jasmine.

  

Then she scampered up the trellis into the rain gutter, ran to the downspout, and disappeared.
Aha! She lives in the city storm drains.

Ratilda came back every night and ate the suet until it was down to a thin wafer at the bottom of the cage. Her acrobatics on the suet feeder amused us, but she gave up on hanging upside down, fighting to eat the last little bit, and hasn’t come back.
Time to untangle the feeder from the jasmine and move it to a more bird-friendly spot. With a fresh (and D-Con free) suet cake.

Ollie’s New Cat Toy

The other day, I had a plate full of tomatoes from the garden.

The next day, a whole bunch of cherry and pear tomatoes were ready.

I also plucked two red jalapenos off Frank’s plant. (Aren’t these colors beautiful?)

I had to run up to visit Frank at the hospital that afternoon, so I put all the tomatoes and both red peppers on a plate to wait for me to get back and do something with them.

The next morning, one of the peppers was missing. It was later discovered on the floor in the hallway. I thought that was odd, but picked it up and put it back on the plate.

An hour later, one of the tomatoes had rolled off the plate and onto the floor.

At lunchtime, I wandered into the kitchen and saw Ollie on the counter, tossing the tomato and pilfering the pepper … again.

“Whut?”

I sat quietly with a book until there was a commotion in the hallway. It was Ollie and the red jalapeno.

The fun ended up in the bathroom…

… and due to cat teeth marks and the fact that it was batted around on the bathroom floor means that this poor pepper will not be eaten by humans.

I’m not sure where the pepper is at this moment, but right now Ollie is very interested in something under the couch.

Forced Cuddling, a tutorial by Ollie

When Frank was on chemo last winter, (the chemo pump is the black thing he wears on the strap) he would lounge on the couch with his laptop and surf the internet.

Ollie, our doofus cat, knew Frank was an easy target for forced cuddling.

Ollie’s method is simple. Walk across your target’s human’s chest. When you come across an area that is even slightly horizontal (anything less than 90 degrees will work), lean in until your body flops onto a soft surface.

In this case it was too easy, since Frank was already reclined on the couch.

Don’t worry about sliding or rolling off the human. An arm will always come out and catch you from falling onto the floor. Also, don’t worry if the arm is busy doing something else, (Frank’s computer mouse is in his hand in the top picture) because the human will always put your needs and safety first.

Love Fest

This morning, I walked into Rachel’s bedroom to discover a little head-and-ears-cleaning love fest in progress on her bed.

I guess Ollie could get at Violet’s head and ears better from this angle.
(He’s the black and white dork; Violet is our clingy and very bossy black cat.)

I can haz bubbl?

Ollie was doing some bird watching from inside our back porch. It was so gorgeous outside I wanted to go out on the deck and take advantage of the sun. 

Of course, this scares away the birds - their feeders are really close to the house - so I grabbed some bubbles and entertained Ollie while I worked on my burn.

(I don't tan; I pink!)

Back Porch

In the afternoon, the sun peeks around the side of the house and lights up the back yard and back porch.

We hung bird feeders outside the back porch windows to entertain the cats. They're both indoor cats, but Violet loves to talk to the birds when they get close to the windows. Ollie stays quiet, but is totally enchanted.

Here is Ollie, watching one of the birds take flight from the bird feeder.
Do you see the bird?

I wondered why my plant was flat...

Then I discovered Ollie on top of the plant.

Snoring.

Is it canine or feline? No.

We were sitting in the living room when there was the sound of a herd of elephants charging up the stairs followed by a ruckus in the hall and a few crashes in my bedroom.

Without turning around, I asked, "Was that canine or feline?"

Rachel replied, "That was Felinicus Dooficus."

Oh. Ollie is upstairs.

Baba

Pretzel boy is snoozing, originally uploaded by Adventures of Pam & Frank.

Yesterday I was harassing Caesar and Ollie. Caesar doesn't like it when the cats tough him because it usually involves claws and Caesar's tender bald belly... Not a great warm fuzzy combination.

So as I'm harassing the two, Frank tells me to be nice to his Baba.

Baba?

"Yes," he says. "That's what I call Ollie."
(Remember, Frank is the Deaf guy...)

"Why Baba?" I ask

"You know," he says with a twinkle in his eye. "Ollie Baba."

... I smacked my forehead as I walked away from the weirdo.

... he just wanted a bottle of water...

"...he just wanted a bottle of water...", originally uploaded by passitonplates.

"...he just wanted a bottle of water..."

Ollie looks so comfy, doesn't he?

Remember - he was the free one.

Sleeping Ollie

Ollie, originally uploaded by Adventures of Pam & Frank.

As long as he has a comfy place to sleep, Ollie doesn't care what position he's in.

He's on a comfy bed and he's gonna go to sleep, dammit.

He's such a dork.

When we got Ollie and Violet, the Humane Society had a buy one get one free sale on cats. We keep reminding each other that he was the free one.

You get what you pay for.