Tag Archives: life with Sparky

Life with Sparky: Catch?

Sparky picks up one of his toys, shakes it, and jumps on my lap.

“What do you want, Sparky?” I ask.

After a while he take his toy and leaves.

Another day, Sparky brings a toy to my lap once more. I chat with him and ignore the toy. He gives up and jumps down with his toy.

It happens again.

Sparky brings me one of the mouse toys I bought for him. I pick it up and shake it, making the bell ring.

Sparky watches.

I toss the mouse toy across the room.

Sparky leaps from my lap and chases the toy. He picks it up and drags it back to me, dropping it on my lap.

So I pick it up and and toss it across the floor in another direction.

Sparky chases after it, wherever I toss it, and brings it back to me.

Sometimes he drops it and watches it fall on the floor. He stares at the mouse until I bend over and pick it up.

It finally hits me (yes, I’m a little slow). Sparky likes to play Catch!!!

Who ever heard of a cat playing catch? Dogs play catch, not cats!

He’s brought me that mouse or another every day since then. It’s become one of his favorite games.

Catch. With a cat. Who would have thought?

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Life with Sparky: Attack

It’s evening.

I’ve been writing for a few hours. Quietly lost in my mind.

Sparky has slept on my feet for the last hour, keeping them warm.

Suddenly, he wakes up and starts to bats around the back of my hands.

I’m sprinting. Trying to write as many words as I can in 20 minutes.

He doesn’t think I need to be writing. He thinks I should play with him. He bats at me, then turns toward my foot stretched out on the footrest of my easy chair.

He starts chewing on it!

Sparky! Leave me alone.

I push him away and continue to type words into my computer. I’m trying to get lots of words written. There are people I write with who can write twice as many words as I can in 20 minutes. I’m trying to keep up.

My foot is attacked again. Claws and teeth out.

Sparky! Stop!

I push him away again.

He thinks it is a game. He attacks my feet, I push him away. Sometimes he spins away backward, usually landing on his feet. He knows I will push him off, but he comes back for more.

He sits on the footrest and pokes his head beneath the blanket I’m using in an attempt to hide my feet from him. His claws poke me!

Sparky! Not now! I’m writing.

I guess attacking my feet is better than walking across my computer, pushing on keys and changing a manuscript I’m trying to prepare for publication. Nothing like odd letters showing up in the middle of the book because the cat decided he needed to walk across the keyboard.

I’ve had it. He won’t leave me alone.

“Where is that spray bottle?”

I filled a bottle with water when Sparky attacked a small grandson yesterday.

My husband picks it up and sprays the cat. Water doesn’t hurt him. It is a warning.

He stares at us.
Washes his face.
And walks away.

I’m no fun to attack when I spray him.

We’ll see if he attacks me tomorrow.

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Life with Sparky: Little Things

Little things have become more difficult since Sparky came to live in our home with us.
Things like walking down a hall without being tripped,
searching for something that fell on the floor,
or putting clean sheets on the bed.

Each week as I tug the sheets off the bed to wash them, Sparky is right there with me,
examining each sheet,
wondering why it is moving,
and racing to catch the drooping ends as I carry them to the washing machine.

He’s curious.
He’s spunky.
He’s feisty.

I get that.

But when I return later, with clean sheets to stretch across the mattress, it is a different story.

Sparky loves dark places.

When I toss the sheet up so I can pull the corners around the corners of the mattress, there is a lump in the middle, chasing after the loose ends.

Sparky crawls under each sheet as I try to spread it flat across the bed.

Then comes the quilts. He lies on the top sheet and lets me spread the warm quilt and the bedspread quilt over him, leaving a nice lump on my otherwise smooth bed.

He’ll slide out from under the quilts in time to chase the edges of the pillow cases while I stuff pillows into them.

At last, the bed is made. It looks smooth and ready for me.
It must look good to Sparky, too. He’s laying in the middle of it.

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Life with Sparky: What Happened to My Clean Floor?

The red dot moves slowly past. Sparky watches as it leaps onto the sofa.

He crouches.

The dot sweeps back to his toes, then off it dances around the room. It bounces up onto the back of the sofa.

He explodes from his crouch leaping and bounding up and across the back, following the dot.

He catches it.
And somehow it slides away from his grasp

He tears after it again.
It eludes his grasp until he plops on the floor, seemingly uninterested.
Until it dances near his nose, his toes, his tail! And he is off, chasing it again.

Thanks to friends who read my blog and made the suggestion, we purchased a red dot laser light. We can now play with him without being scratched and he gets some running in.

My house looks like a 2-year-old lives here again!

Scraps and bits of things I’d never leave on the floor before now lie in wait for Sparky to attack.

Soon after he came to live with us, a stuffed rabbit made its way out of the guest bedroom into the living room. It had been waiting for a granddaughter to return and love on it. Cuddled and tortured, it became one of Sparky’s best friends.

And then the seam split and part of the stuffing came out.

Now the poor bunny waits behind a closet door where Sparky can’t get to it. I need to sew the seam back together.

A strip of paper tied to a length of yarn is a favorite toy, especially when grandchildren come to visit. They drag it around behind them and Sparky chases them. When they are not here, he finds the yarn and wraps up in it.

Yarn!

My bedroom had yarn strung from one end to the other when he found three balls of yarn. It is tangled in a tie and a strap I detached from a purse and left on the floor. When I attempt to untangle the yarn, Sparky is in the middle of it once more.

Like all other cats of all sizes, Sparky loves boxes. His favorite place to play and hide, however, is inside a paper bag. It rattles and makes a noise when he runs into it. It is dark and safe. He can hide there waiting for someone to pass by to be attacked. He plays with them long after they are shredded.

Sparky is smart. He has searched through the toys I have in another room, waiting for grandchildren to come play with them. He has claimed toys from the toy basket: a straw, a stuffed lizard, a plastic man, a piece of string, a big Lego block, anything he can get his paws or his teeth into to carry.

He found two small stuffed animals he loves to play with. One is a little cat, the other is a dog. I think it is fitting that he plays with and attacks the dog.

One morning, I sat writing in my chair. Sparky played with a stuffed animal, the paper tied to yarn, and an elastic.

All of a sudden, he raced past my feet, growling! He ran behind the chairs and around to play with his toys. Away he ran again past me. He stopped to rest. Then, up he jumped and he ran past me at top speed, growling. I think he carried the dog in his mouth.

Where did that big growl come from? He has a loud purr, but I’ve never heard him growl before. He must have decided he’s a big cat again, chasing his prey!

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