Musical Cats...

Each cat wants to be king of the kingdom here, and it's enough to get you nuts.  Sweet Pea is the only inside cat now, except when my husband is cutting the grass (like this morning) and then I bring Mickey inside because he's afraid of the noises from the mowers. When Mickey comes into the kitchen, I have to keep Sweet Pea in the TV room, otherwise Mickey will plow into that poor cat, and Sweet Pea (living up to his name) refuses to fight back.

Mickey wasn't always so aggressive... he was the sweetest little cat until we had to start keeping him outside during the day and in the garage at night (which has a little cat-door to get him into the fresh air of the old fenced-in chicken coop). Mickey was forced into being an outside cat because his inside behavior as he got older wasn't good enough for this house. Too many accidents, purposely done, in my opinion, because he continues to have accidents in the garage. In his old age, Mickey likes to make statements, so I've come to the conclusion that his 'statements' are less of a concern in the garage than they are in the house.

Gatsby and the orange cat share the porch, the yard, and the rest of the property... and I'm sure the orange cat has seen more of the property than Gatsby has.  The Gray Gatsby hardly ever goes farther than the end of our driveway, if at all that. He's been content to patrol the porch and the backyard since we found him the year we moved here.  Gatsby has still not accept the orange/white stray, and come to think of it, neither have I.  Too unpredictable, that blasted cat, and I wouldn't trust him for a minute.

At any given time, when Mickey and Gatsby and the orange cat are outside on that porch, you can hear hisses and growls followed by the stampeding of cat-feet as either Mickey or the orange cat runs from one side of the porch to the other. And Gatsby watches the orange cat running away, as if he's saying "So there! Go find yourself another porch!"  Seems like a day doesn't go by when I'm not having to play 'musical cats' with them so they don't fight.  Looking back over the years, all of our cats except one have been males. (And all but one of them were strays that we found or they found us... it wasn't that we went looking for just male cats.)

As the cat drama unfolds on the porch, Sweet Pea watches from the windows, running from the TV room windows to the kitchen windows, trying to see who wins the latest cat battle.  When Sweet Pea has had enough excitement, he comes into the breakfast room, jumps on my lap if I'm here at the table, and sits here watching the pictures that come up on the Pinterest boards.

I've noticed that if I'm just typing out words on my Blogs, Sweet Pea isn't interested in the computer at all. (Everyone's a critic.) But as soon as I switch to Pinterest, his eyes get focused on the screen and his head moves up and down and side to side as he watches all the pictures pop up.  I guess Gatsby and Mickey are both trying to be King of the Porch Kingdom outside, and all Sweet Pea is interested in is becoming the Purrfect Prince of Pinterest.