Fun Monday

Quirky Lisa (Lisa's Chaos) is today's Hostess with the mostess quirks. She used the following instructions to enlighten us about today's topic:

A quirk is defined as a peculiarity of action, behavior, or personality; mannerism. We are all unique individuals, having quirks that help make us who we are. I would like to know what your quirks are. Confess to one, confess to ten, you decide. Just come back Monday ready to spill the beans, the rest of the world may look at you like you are from Mars, but you‘re among friends here. We won’t laugh, in fact that eccentricity just may endear you to us more.

Well ...I'm being as quirky as Swampwitch today. I'm sorta following the rules, and sorta not.

Instead of hearing about my boring quirkiness, you are being treated to an old story about a quirky cat.

* * * *

Daggett was a cat with very odd behavior.

I like to think she channeled my monthly mood swings. But, her excuse may be that her head was slightly injured in a closing automatic garage door as a kitten.

She often sat at the highest point of anything or any place she could climb - which was pretty much everything. With her ears back and her back arched, she appeared to be ready to pounce. It was a formidable pose. We called it her vulture impersonation.

Her favorite citadel was the top shelf next to the garage door. There she could victimize anyone who planned to pass through the doorway into the house. Mind you, the immediate family would swat back and not let her get the upper paw. However, the occasional guest that ventured to the garage refrigerator balked - then yelled. We rescued the feckless who assumed she was a vicious predator.

(Sneaking beneath lawn chairs to test the pliability of her claws was another unacceptable quirk especially because she experimented on hanging bum. But that is another story)

Some years ago, the elderly couple who shared our back fence was very eccentric and the woman was cranky. She was not happy to have children in the neighborhood.

For instance…one day she moved her sprinkles close to the fence so that the water splashed on Karmyn as she played on the swing set.

“If that water is hitting you,” she instructed Karmyn, “you can go inside and play.”

Another time she yelled to me across the fence that the kids threw rotten apples in her yard. I asked the typical questions; who, what, when, and where? In her fingers she held up a scrawny dried up old apple that probably dropped from another old crow’s grip. Lord knows how many cherries the birds lose in our yard on the steal from Bill’s garden.

“I’ll tell them to be aware of your yard,” I responded with much skepticism.

Although we never said it to her face, privately we nicknamed her B#tchy B.

Not long after the apple incident I walked into the back yard to weed flowers.

“Help me! Help me!” I heard B#tchy B calling over the fence.

I looked the direction of her voice and peered through the fence.

There was Daggett, straddling the top of the woman’s head - claw clinging on for dear life. B#tchy B turned her eyes towards me but remained motionless.

“If I backed up to the fence” she asked in the sweetest voice ever heard coming from the difficult woman’s mouth, “do you think you could lift your cat off my head.”

“I think I can do that!” was my solemn faced reply.

Slowly she moved closer as I stepped up on a board and stretched my arms for the grab.

I pulled the cat gently up and away without any apparent damage

“Thanks.” Her tone remained subdued.

“And you are very welcome,” was my reply.

I turned towards the house, hid the smirk on my face and muffled the belly laughs that already boiled into my chest.

Walking away and out of hearing range I scratched the crazy cat’s neck and whispered into her ear:

“I’m beginning to think that you’re a keeper!”

* * * * *

Now scat over to Lisa's. It's not to late to join the fun.

(fyi: Daggett was named after the pet robot dog in the original 1978 Battlestar Galactica series.)