When the “t-shirt of death” covers her, she thinks she’s invisible. We will ask each other, “Where is Tee? I don’t see Tee”, and she will remain immobile. But let one of us touch her underneath that “t-shirt of death”, and she comes alive, often drawing blood from whoever dared challenge the “t-shirt of death”.

Why do cats do what they do? These crazy cats make cat people out of us!

Then I heard a little thump as little TeeTramp jumped on the bed. She came over to me purring and rubbed her sweet face against mine. Still purring, she curled in a little ball and slept on my chest for a while and then moved against my legs where she stayed until morning.

Out of all the nights he’d been gone, this was the first night she’d slept with me. I don’t think it was a coincidence that she showed up that night. Her presence comforted me, and I went back to sleep and slept all night.

One of the funniest things they do I call the Door Dance. The doors of our home are full length glass. When one is outside and the other inside, we hear a scraping sound and growling. They have just performed the dance. I have never understood if they are really fighting or just notifying their humans the other cat wants in. I clean the glass often and sometimes come home from work to find paw prints smeared across the panes.

The two cats did this for about a year but recently, I’ve noticed they’ve stopped. They stopped as suddenly as they started. Does anyone understand the mind of a cat?

Then one cold winter night, she stayed in. During the night we heard a gosh awful howl, and it was Miss Kitty. It sounded so pitiful and heartbreaking. We jumped up and ran to where she was. She acted surprised, like “why are you waking me up?”. My husband and I decided she was dreaming and had a nightmare. This happened not once, but several times. Whoever heard of a cat having a nightmare?

Miss Kitty also has an awareness of firearms. One day she directed my attention to a shotgun my husband left out after a night of armadillo hunting. She started making little sounds in her throat and running over to it, like she was warning me. Clearly, she recognized what it was capable of. I wonder…are her nightmares and her knowledge of firearms related?

As you can see, she is equally at home on my husband’s desk.

Miss Kitty is also long haired, an asset in the winter but unbearable during our south Louisiana summers. It is a ritual of summer when she and I gather on the steps, scissors in hand, for her annual cut. I’m never been trained as a pet groomer, so I grab a handful of hair and clip. Evidently, she enjoys this time because she sits still for as long as I want to cut. Our friends have learned to recognize her distinctive “chop-chop” haircuts, so as you view her pictures look for it!

The phone rang and I spoke briefly with a friend. As we talked I smelled something, you know, that smelly something that indicates someone has had an accident. I hung up and went looking. It didn’t take me long to locate the source. As a young kitten, TeeTramp was introduced to our resident matron, Miss Kitty. Miss Kitty liked being an only child and did not take kindly to the new addition to our family. She attacked Tee Tramp, and the young kitten was so afraid, she wet herself and the floor. So now, whenever she can’t get outside, she returns there to do her business.

Sure enough, there is was, and it was smeared. I thought she couldn’t get past the Roomba to go outside (our cats sleep inside and spend their days outside), had decided to do her business behind the chair, and when the Roomba came by, it surprised her and she hightailed it out of there, smearing cat poop in the process. I got the cleaning supplies and went to work.

The Roomba continued his rounds, running about 45 minutes. When he finished I decided I should check, just in case any poop was on it. When I turned it over, the smell overwhelmed me. Yes, there was poop on it.

I spent the next hour cleaning the Roomba. There was poop behind the brushes. There was poop on the edge cleaner. There was poop on the bumper. TeeTramp didn’t smear that mess, Roomba did! The iRobot website provided valuable information as I visited the forums in search of advice on how to dismantle and reassemble the Roomba. I found all the information I needed there. The parts of the Roomba, the brushes and edge cleaner, that could be replaced, I threw away. The rest were washed with soapy water.

No harm was done to the Roomba, it continues to be my best friend but it may soon have to share that honor with my newest friend, the iRobot Scooba. Yes, another robot except this one mops! My husband says they need to make a Dustba and a Windowba, the sooner the better.