When Cats Attack

Lately, I have had several interesting interactions with cats.

There was the black kitten that hid behind a box in our garage for a couple of nights. I tried to lure it out with a saucer of milk, despite my husband's protests.

(Dan: Do you want it to keep coming back to our house? Me: Do you want it to starve behind a box in our garage?)

Dan left the garage door cracked and eventually the cat slipped out, without even touching the milk. At least, we think she slipped out . . .

Then there is Fat Cat. Fat Cat is a gray and white cat with a tail that looks like it has been lopped off. He sits outside his owner's garage and stares at all the neighborhood joggers and walkers as they go by. Occasionally, he will follow Dan and me, but he is slow because . . . well . . . he's fat, and he gives up by the time we round the corner.

Fat Cat got his name one evening when Dan said, "That cat is fat. He's a fat cat." And that was how creativity was born.

Now, whenever we walk by the gray and white lump on the sidewalk, we say, "Hi, Fat Cat."

I think he is starting to recognize his name. He mews and waddles after me during my morning jogs, until he gives up, being a fat cat and all.

Also, there have been a few cougar sightings near some of my favorite running trails. But all of that happened last year. Sure, the authorities ended 2012 without actually capturing the final cougar, but obviously that elusive cat got bored with Boise and made its way back to a very unpopulated section of wilderness . . . right?

That's what I told myself anyway until it was reported in May that a Yorkshire terrier was killed by a mountain lion in southeast Boise.

In the book Don't Get Eaten (yes, that really is the book's title), the author gives the following advice regarding cougar encounters:

• Make yourself look bigger. Raise your hands overhead. If you’ve got a jacket or a pack hold it up so you look even bigger and bulkier.


• Throw things at the cougar if it’s close enough.


• Smile. Show the cougar your teeth. To the cougar, you’re displaying weapons.


• Yell, shout, and make intimidating noises. Your goal is to convince the cougar that you are not prey, and may in fact be dangerous.

These are not the only don't-get-eaten tips the author outlines. He lists several other ways to fend off mountain lion attacks, none of which - like the ones listed above - I would have the guts or the resolve to accomplish.

These dark thoughts were looming over me as I went running in Merrill Park the other morning. I was about halfway done and just needed to go a little farther before turning around, when I saw a large cat stationed on the trail up ahead. As I approached, the cat crossed the greenbelt and disappeared into the trees.

I was getting close to a subdivision on this section of the trail, but the cat looked larger than a domestic feline (if memory serves). Maybe it was lurking in the bushes, waiting to pounce. I turned back.

"What did it look like?" my husband, Dan, asked that evening while we were walking around the neighborhood.

"I don't know. Big and orange-ish, maybe striped."

"You mean, like Garfield?" Dan said. "Maybe it was just another Fat Cat."

At that moment, Fat Cat sauntered toward us, followed by a new friend, a scraggly-looking alley cat that darted out in front of us. The friendship probably wouldn't last long since Scraggly Cat was maneuvering a lot faster than Fat Cat ever could. They perched themselves in the middle of the road and glared at us as we walked to the park.

"I'm not having much luck with cats today," I mumbled.

"You should take your new smartphone with you whenever you go for a walk or a run or a bike ride, just in case a mountain lion carries away your legs," Dan suggested.

"You're not helping."

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Dan and I Finally Get Smart(phones)

Dan and I finally did it. We bought smartphones. According to other people who own smartphones, we are the last people on Earth to do this. But we're not. Not everybody owns a smartphone.

But a lot of people do. My father got a smartphone several months ago, long before Dan and I were even considering it. I found this out when I called my dad one day, and he didn't answer. The call went to voice mail, but it wasn't my dad's voice mail. It was some weird default voice mail that didn't even mention my father's name.

"I think my dad might have changed his phone number and forgot to tell me," I said to Dan.

"Maybe you just dialed the wrong number," my husband suggested.

So I tried my dad again. This time, he answered.

He explained that he did, in fact, have a new phone, and that it was taking him longer than usual to answer his newfangled technology. He also told me that my brother and sister-in-law had loaded a picture of the two of them onto his phone's wallpaper.

"They asked me if I could remove it or if I wanted them to take it off before they left. I told them I could figure it out," my dad paused. "I can't figure it out."

A few weeks later, he texted me pictures from Yellowstone.

"I'm glad to see you figured out how to use your smartphone," I texted back.

"It's still smarter than me," was the reply.

When my father started using terms like "LOL," Dan decided we needed to take action and buy new phones. Well . . . and Dan's cellphone wouldn't close or go to vibrate anymore, and my battery only lasted until noon everyday.

Dan started researching smartphones around March so that we could purchase them as birthday presents for the two of us. Occasionally, I would catch him measuring my iPod with a ruler, I guess to compare iPod sizes to the smartphone dimensions on Consumer Reports.

(At this point, I have to take a break in my storytelling to let you know that Dan just caught me typing these last few paragraphs into my phone and asked, "Are you writing your whole blog post on your phone just so that you can say you did?")

The first night after Dan and I had received our phones (which we had ordered via the Internet because we didn't want to talk to people), we sat two feet away from each other on the living room couch and talked on the phone. Then we communicated through text messages. Then we called each other again.

"It's like playing a video game to get the phone icon into the ring-thingy to answer a call," I complained.

"It's so you don't answer an unwanted call by accident," Dan said.

But there are lots of things you can do by accident with these smartphones.

Once, I clicked on "Emergency Call" and instead of canceling, I pressed "Call." It was that easy. I'm still not sure who I actually called, nor am I sure how I got out of it.

Also, I keep (I believe the term is) "butt-dialing" people, although not so much with my butt as with my fingers. I accidentally call people all the time. I have probably "butt-dialed" everyone to whom I have recently talked at least once. When I realize the person on the other line has picked up, I usually react by throwing my phone at Dan and yelling, "Turn it off! It won't turn off! Turn it off!"

Apparently, I called Dan from my purse in Costco. I didn't have anyone to throw my phone at, so he listened to my shopping cart roll down the aisle for a few seconds. Then he hung up when he figured out I was oblivious to the whole situation.

I don't feel so bad though. Dan did same thing to his father yesterday.

During intermission at theater performances or before movies, we both play on our phones now. Yes, we're one of those couples. I used to think those people were more social than Dan and I, that they were texting friends or on Twitter or Facebook. But there is plenty for us nerds to do too. In fact, my introverted husband is surprised when I use my phone for networking purposes.

"Have you been texting your sister-in-law this whole time? Smartphones aren't for communicating. They're for surfing the web."

I leave my phone on vibrate now because I can't handled the strange sounds coming from it all the time. There is a sound for email, Facebook, text messages, phone calls, voice mail, etc. And don't even get me started on the smudges and fingerprints. Whoever invented touch screens did not conduct usability tests on those of us with debilitating germ neuroses.

The other night, I counted seven different mobile devices on our coffee table, and I started freaking out a little bit.

"We live in a technology zoo!" I shouted. My husband laughed.

Dan and I have both become more distracted individuals, as if I needed any help with that. Dan claims it is his new toy, and the newness will wear off soon. But everyone I know who owns a smartphone admits openly (and almost proudly) that their lives have been taken over by these twenty-first century devices. I gave us a ten o'clock curfew on the phones.

The other night, I asked Dan, "Can't we just talk instead of reading before bed? I feel like we haven't seen each other today . . . even though we have spent all day together."

Dan sighed and put down his phone . . . a little too reluctantly.

"I'll talk to you if you want . . . "

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Dan and I Get Busted

On Monday, Dan and I were pulled over on the freeway right outside of Pocatello. I've never been pulled over before. Everyone else in the world has, so I realize that this is not the most unique experience. But first, let me explain something about myself.

Even though I desperately want to be a free-spirited, stick-it-to-the-man, Wall-Street-occupying Bohemian, I am a rule follower. In grade school, getting my name on the board was the worst fate imaginable. One of my teachers, knowing that I never got into trouble, put my name on the board as an April Fool's Day joke. I cried and cried. She quickly erased it when she realized she might have done permanent damage.

To me, getting pulled over (by the way, I wasn't the one driving) was like getting my name on the board to the tenth degree.

"How fast do you think you were going?" the very young-looking police officer asked us.

"Eighty-four," said Dan.

You have to understand that Dan is an engineer. If he says he was going eighty-four, he was going 84. He is incapable of lying even in attempt to get out of a ticket.

Also, he has this theory about speeding on the freeway. He hypothesizes that he won't get pulled over if he drives nine miles per hour over the limit. Ten, yes, but not nine. He sets the cruise and goes. That is how he knew he was going eighty-four.

"I clocked you at ninety-two."

"Oh."

In the course of our conversation with the officer, we learned that he had clocked us from the other side of the freeway, while he was driving the opposite direction, and had flipped around and cut through the median to catch up with us. We started to wonder if someone else had been going ninety-two, and he had pulled over the wrong car.

But eighty-four was still ticket-worthy.

First, the officer asked if we had our car rental documents. We told him we were the owners of the car.

My brother, who was the reason we were driving so fast to Pocatello, later explained that, "Nobody drives hybrids in this part of Idaho. He probably thought you weren't from around here."

Then, the officer asked for our registration. I know what the vehicle registration is, but I was nervous, and I started pulling out everything in the glove compartment. I tried to hand him anything but the car registration in my confusion - a road map, a Safeco claim guide, a box of tampons. Finally, I settled on two insurance cards and that elusive registration.

"At least we weren't listening to Public Enemy or Ice-T," I said to Dan while the officer checked up on us.

(I am pretty sure we were listening to "21st Century Breakdown" by Green Day.)

"I wasn't going ninety-two. I think he might have clocked someone else."

The officer returned and said, "You have a good driving record, and I'm going to help you keep it that way. I'm not going to write you a ticket."

Dan and I exchanged an astonished look.

"Just remember, seventy-five means seventy-five or slower. Not eighty-four."

He wasn't even mentioning "ninety-two" anymore.

In the end, I think he believed Dan. What liar would admit he was going eighty-four? Dan hadn't even stumbled and said he was driving "around eighty" or "close to eighty-five." What dishonest person is that specific?

We also noticed that the police officer dashed past us before we could even get back on the road. He pulled over a white Cruiser ahead of us. Could this be the vehicle he had actually clocked at ninety-two?

"He was just doing his job. If I were going ninety-two, I would have pulled me over too," Dan said as we pulled off the shoulder and back onto the freeway. "Cops are looking younger nowdays, aren't they?"

At dinner that night, I told my brother and his wife that both of us had just remained respectful and calm. In my case, I was most likely just frozen in terror, reliving that dreadful April Fool's Day when I saw my name on the board.

"Calm? You?" asked my brother.

"Well, I guess I giggled a little and tried to hand him a box of tampons."

"Don't do that. He'll think you're high."

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Let Me Tell You 'Bout the Birds and the . . . Squirrels (RE-POST from 6/25/11)

Let me introduce you to the squirrel that shows up in our front yard every year and eats the seeds out of the bird feeder hanging from our pear blossom tree.

Last summer, I asked my Facebook friends, "How do I keep the squirrel from climbing onto my bird feeder and spilling the contents of that feeder, aside from running out the front door, clapping my hands, and yelling, 'Squirrel, that's not for you!'?"

I received several suggestions: Put the feeder on a metal pole, buy a bird feeder with a squirrel guard, shoot it with a BB gun. (This last tip prompted a healthy discussion on gun control, pacifism, and vegetarianism.)

I took none of the advice. I did, however, buy non-germinating bird seed.

This summer, like last summer, I filled the feeder and waited for the myriad of exotic birds with multicolor plumage - as promised by the bird seed package - to light daintily on the edge of the cedar perch. Until . . .

"Squirrel, that is not your food! And you look fat this year! Have you been eating all of this bird seed?" By this time, I was standing in the front yard, shouting up the tree, and clapping my hands at the squirrel wildly. "Look at how much seed is on the ground! Did you do that?"

Squirrel, as I so affectionately call him, did not answer me. But the neighbors walking their dog furtively crossed to the other side of the street.

I did not refill the bird feeder, deciding that the birds (and probably Squirrel) should eat the seed off the ground first. Eventually, once the seed disappeared, Squirrel took to gnawing on the wooden feeder instead. We now have a large chunk missing from the feeder's side and perch.

The cute, colorful birds, that occasionally outsmart Squirrel, are not innocent players in this summertime cat-and-mouse (or squirrel-and-bird) game.

Last summer, when I wasn't looking, a bird built a nest in one of my fuchsia plants, hanging on our front porch. Before I got around to removing the nest, the bird had already laid her eggs. I couldn't in good conscience destroy her babies, so the nest stayed and consequently killed my fuchsia.

But the babies were adorable, their miniature beaks flailing in the air when their mama would fly to the nest to feed them, their squeaky chirping, their tiny, fuzzy heads poking above the fuchsia leaves.

One day, I came home from work, and the babies were gone.

"Dan," I said, almost in tears, "the baby birds are gone. The nest is abandoned!"

"That's what happens when birds grow up. They fly away."

"I feel like I helped them grow into independent, self-reliant creatures. And now they've disappeared, without even a goodbye! I'll miss them."

"Okay . . ." Dan said. "We're never having kids."

The birds left behind a nest full of droppings and a dead plant.

As much fun as I had hatching baby birds last summer, I decided I wanted my plants to survive this year. So we removed the nest as soon as it appeared in our fuchsias. About a half-hour later, Dan had to remove another one. And a half-hour after that, yet another nest magically manifested.

This time, it was my job to dispose of the nest. All of a sudden, I heard a fluttering of wings and a nasally squawking from the tree. There sat an extremely agitated female bird, glaring at me with such animosity that I thought I might have been warped into the middle of a Hitchcock movie.

"It's okay, birdie," I cooed calmly. "I just want my fuchsia to live. You're going to have to find another nesting area."

This remark was greeted with more violent wing-flapping.

I ran inside with the nest.

"We have to do something, NOW! That bird wants to kill me."

Dan decided we should stick sharp objects in the plants to prevent the birds from landing.

"I don't want to kill the birds. I just want my plants to live."

We compromised. Dan armed the soil with plastic forks and knives instead. While he prepared the plants, I stepped out onto our front porch. Up on our roof was the soon-to-be mama bird, her mouth full of twigs and dead grass. A colorful, presumably male, bird was "supervising" the operation. They looked around, bewildered as if to say, "Where did you put my potential nesting location?"

"Ha ha! Not so smart now, are you?" I said to the birds. "No nest here for you! Not in my fuchsias! You'll have to go somewhere else! "

"And you wonder why our neighbors don't talk to us," Dan said as we hung our plants back up.

It worked. Our hanging plants are nest-free. We still have beautiful birds that visit our feeder when Squirrel is not around. A few weeks ago, we even had a Chukar in our driveway. Dan was so excited, he recorded a video of the bird waddling around and making strange noises.

Now if I could only figure out how to keep my little summer creature friends from eating my sunflowers! That may be a story for next year.

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