Midnight Mutterings | Report from Bellingham

By Jackie Bates|2025-02-23T11:49:42-08:00February 22nd, 2025|2 Comments

View Larger Image

||| MIDNIGHT MUTTERINGS by JACKIE BATES, AKA GRANDCHILDLESS CAT LADY |||

Rose the Cat here. My sister Molly and I have agreed to be guest columnists for Jackie’s regular column. She complains bitterly about how hard it is to write a column and we’re here to show her how easy it can be. All we need is someone to write down what we want to say with her usual number of misspellings and typos.

I am officially Jackie’s cat and Molly is Jay’s cat. We were born in Mount Vernon with along with a bunch of siblings and cousins, whose mother’s are sisters who gave birth to a total of seventeen babies born a couple of days apart. (Maybe it was a kitty farm in the way Snoopy from Peanuts came from a puppy farm in Petaluma, CA.) Molly and I live in Bellingham with Jackie’s son Jay and we see her whenever she is here, and occasionally when we go to Orcas, like we did at Christmas a couple of months ago. We’ve been to Orcas for short visits a few other times, so we know what we’re talking about when we say we wish we could live full time there.

In my opinion, we should live on Orcas Island because Jackie lets us go outside more. Jay doesn’t let us go outside because of cars, dogs and other dangers. We do have a glassed in porch which is better than nothing, if not the real outside.We spend a lot of time looking out of windows when it is too cold on the porch. And also, because we try to escape whenever we can, we keep a close eye on the door and we can appear out of nowhere and slide through the door and that’s it . When we do get outside, we run away and don’t bother to return even though we know exactly where we live. If we wanted to, we could return right away when we are called, but where’s the fun in that.

OK, Molly wants her turn now.

Molly the Cat here. I’m the same age as Rose and we look a lot alike (both brown tabbies) but my coloring is a little lighter and my stripes are narrower than Rose’s. To be truthful, I’m probably more beautiful, but I’ve heard that no one likes a bragger. That’s true in the Cat World as well as in the World of Politics, which is the background noise where we live. Rose was a little larger when we were babies, but now I’m the big cat at 12 pounds, while Rose is a puny 11 pounds. It’s hard to understand because Rose is in charge of food. She’s the one who eats first and maybe most, and likes more things than I do. I’m pretty happy with expensive kibble, while Rose is willing to eat fish and chicken that Jackie cooks when she’s here. We both like wet cat food and Jay is pretty good about buying it for us as well as treats when we follow directions, which is pretty rare, even though he’s not as strict at Jackie. So I’m glad I’m Jay’s cat.

Although Rose is in charge of food, I’m definitely in charge of grooming. That is, for both to us. Even if I have to hold Rose down with my paws, I give her regular, rough baths at least once a day. While she never says thank you, I still think she appreciates my efforts, even if it’s my OCD speaking louder than that I’m trying to help her out. I also like to remind Rose that I’m the alpha cat and show it every night at dusk, at the crepuscular hour, when I remind her who is boss.

Rose the Cat here again: Here’s the big recent event. When Jackie arrived a few days ago, she immediately tried to put a collar on me. The collar was just lying around with all the other collars and harnesses Jackie has tried to make us wear. She has some idea that we should wear harnesses with leashes and walk around the neighborhood like a couple of small dogs. That way we’d be safe from cars and dogs and would still be outside. Until this last try, Jackie has been totally unsuccessful. We can get out of the collars and harnesses as fast as she can put them on. All it takes is a dainty cat foot slipped under the collar and it flies over the room in a perfect arc. We just don’t see the point of collars and harnesses and don’t intend to wear them.

That is, until Tuesday. I don’t know what came over me. Jackie decided to try one more time with the green collar with the tiny bell. The clasp is hard to open and the collar is had to adjust, and it took Jackie a good long time to get it on my neck and the clasp closed, and I just sat in her lap and let her put it on me. I could get out of it in a second if I tried, but I haven’t. I think it ‘s pretty cute and it feels fine to me. I immediately went into Jay’s room to show Jay and Molly and they were so rude. Just laughed at me and complained about the little bell. I don’t care. I’ve been wearing it ever since, even though Molly complains that it’s hard to wash me with the collar in the way. The truth is, I’d rather be fashionable than super clean, and the bell makes a gentle tinkle that I find quite fetching. To each cat her own, I say.

If Jackie can send the two pictures of us, you can see me in the high cabinet in the kitchen at Obstruction Pass at Christmas. No one can imagine how I got in there. I had to jump from the floor at an angle into the high cabinet that I couldn’t see into when I jumped. Maybe I knew all the dishes were in the dishwasher. I’m not telling. Molly is in front in the picture of the two of us. You can see the beautiful narrow, pale stripes she is so proud of. I love my sister Molly, and she tolerates me and keeps up with the laundry. Maybe someday…

**If you are reading theOrcasonian for free, thank your fellow islanders. If you would like to support theOrcasonian CLICK HERE to set your modestly-priced, voluntary subscription. Otherwise, no worries; we’re happy to share with you.**

About the Author: Jackie Bates

Was born a very long time ago in Raleigh, North Carolina, but the first place I can remember living was in a small village on the Cape Fear River. There I had an idyllic life with my father, a housekeeper named Miss Sadie, a tiny chicken named Rooster, an equally tiny Shetland Pony named Virginia Dare, and Winston Churchill, who happened to be a dog. There were occasional visits from my mother, my three older siblings, who lived somewhere else where the schools were ‘better.’ (I was too young for school.) Possibly they came every week end. All I know is that they left as inexplicably as they arrived. After that we all lived together on seventy acres on the outskirts of Raleigh, in a house my father built from the trees on the property. Plus some glass and plaster and old slate for the roof. Eventually I escaped to New York City, where I lived twice, to Detroit, back to Chapel Hill, North Carolina for the third time, to the Bay Area in California, to Charlottesville, Virginia, then to Washington State east of the mountains, to Seattle, to Waldron Island for a couple of years then at last to Obstruction Pass, here on Orcas, where I’ve been for 30 years with time off in Seattle, on a sailboat in Bellingham Bay and on Stuart Island. This is already too long and all I’ve talked about is moving. I did birth a couple of delightful kids along the way; no grandchildren to speak of. For now I have everything I need except a cat. Do you have a spare cat?

2 Comments

Ken Wood February 22, 2025 at 6:25 pm

Dear Jackie,

I do not have any spare cats for you but I do want to hijack the comments to your regular column to memorialize an old friend, Theo the Cat, who apparently crossed the Rainbow Bridge to polydactyl barn cat Valhalla during this last cold spell. (I hope Rose and Molly approve)

Theo was named after the late Dr. Theodor Seuss Geisel, who wrote and illustrated mind-bending children’s books from beautiful La Jolla in San Diego, some of which featured cats, many of whom had a distinctive ‘kink’ in their tails, which the polydactyl Theo did as well. Coming from a farm in Mt. Vernon, Theo was the first of the barn cats at our place. Independent, wild, fierce and friendly at the same time, Theo was a character in every sense of the word. As a neutered male cat you might have thought that he would be limited or “altered” in his behavior, but he was, despite his missing gonads, a complete terror to every cat for miles; often showing up to sample the fare at other cat’s dishes uninvited and unwelcome. And often coming home with various cuts, bites, scratches, wounds, disfigurements, etc. all of which he healed from with stunning vigor and speed. Theo came to our house with a load of hay (for Theo’s equine companions) in 2007 as a young(ish) cat, though I don’t know his actual birthday. He was part of a set of barn cats that had lived at Baker View Farm (where I buy hay) for many, many generations. I asked Ron, the farm owner, if he could spare any barn cats, as we had developed a rodent problem here, and his reply was, “A free cat with every bale!” So I looked around and the friendliest of the wild kitties came up and asked to move to Deer Harbor. And for 17 years he had a warm, comfortable bed and a sufficiency of Costco cat food provided in exchange for his rodent reduction efforts. But he was NEVER actually a domesticated cat and would likely of disdained the term if he understood it at all. Theo was glad to meet people and tolerated children to a degree that most cats would not, but he was always his own cat and I respected that. He lived his feline life on his own terms and (I think) has ended his in the same iconoclastic Theo fashion. On the other hand, I thought he was gone for good every time he disappeared for weeks on end and he might just reappear/resurrect at any time! But I don’t think so, not this time…

I am grieved that my old buddy is not there to welcome me to the barn with his horrible, discordant meow but I am very glad that I was lucky enough to be a part of his life. What more can I say about an old friend? That cranky, nasty-rowling, his-way-or-the-highway, old cat that graciously tolerated my friendship for the last seventeen years, will be sorely missed. May we all have such non-human characters in our lives, even if only to remind us that being a friend and accepting friendship in return is not limited to our own species.
Jackie Bates February 23, 2025 at 9:56 pm

Thanks, Ken, for bringing Theo’s story to us. I love that he was named for Dr. Seuss and had such character. I was at the Orcas Animal Shelter recently with a friend who was buying a dog license. I had hoped to have a little visit with kittens. There were no kittens in the room beside the front door. Instead, there was Zane, a 24 pound neutered male Tabby and all around terrific cat. Also, I was happy to see Sadie Bailey, who frequently responds to Orcasonian posts and who, apparently, visits Zane regularly now that her own cat is no longer with her. Cats mean a lot to people who like cats. (Though not so much who don’t like cats yet.) I wish I had known Theo. Again, thank you.