boiler | Adventures in Cheeseland

Greetings everyone. It’s me, Snoops. It seems like a very long time since I’ve talked with you. It seems like every time I start to say something, someone…

Sgt Stripes: What’re you up to Snoops? Not trying to hijack the blog are you?

Snoops: How could I hijack it? I started it. With Kommando, remember?

Sgt Stripes: Not really. I wasn’t around then.

Snoops: My point. Exactly.

Sgt Stripes: But she’s gone. And I’ve taken her place, right?

Snoops (growling): You have not taken her place, you big goofball. No one can take her place.

Sgt Stripes: Don’t get mad, Snoops. I didn’t mean it like that.

Snoops: What did you mean?

Sgt Stripes: Don’t you remember? You added me as co-owner of the blog.

Snoops: Yes, I did. What’s your point?

Sgt Stripes: I just wanted to know what you were going to talk about?

Snoops: I was going to tell everyone about the barely tolerable living conditions the past week or so.

Gypsy: You mean how we almost froze to death?

Angel: It really was unacceptable.

Onyx: Especially for us smaller cats.

Sgt Stripes: And it went on for days.

Gypsy: Did you hear Mom’s extremely lame excuse? She said she wasn’t really paying attention because it’s not that late in the season. Snoops, apparently your original human didn’t really believe in turning on the heat until November 1, regardless of the weather. That’s downright inhumane.

Sgt Stripes: Then when my humans was complaining about it, she told him that he’d have to wait until she could call the repairman in the morning. And he was already sick!

Snoops: It gets even worse. When she called in, she said it wasn’t an emergency. We had to wait four more days for them to come. Something about needing to take time off work.

Gypsy: She didn’t take any time off work. She brought the work here. She could have done that any time. It was really cold!

Sgt Stripes: I don’t think the humans really understood how bad it was. They were gone during the day and had blankets and electric paw warmers.

Snoops: I think Mom finally understood on the day she stayed home waiting for the guy to fix everything. It was only 48 degrees inside she said. And her handwriting was really bad because of it. I don’t know what any of that means, but she was a lot more sympathetic to us.

Sgt Stripes: She even got blankets for each of the kitties.

Angel: We shared.

Gypsy: I would get a good spot, then you’d kick me out.

Angel: Then Sarge would kick me out. It’s a good thing there were enough to go around.

Snoops: I spent that last day on her lap. I was helping her work.

Onyx: It was a really pretty day. I was sunning in the window.

Snoops: Until you decided that you wanted to sit on the inside porch.

Onyx: What’s wrong with that?

Snoops: When Mom opened the door for the repairman, you took off outside again.

Gypsy: Mom was not pleased.

Angel: The guy was really upset. He tried to help her bring you back.

Onyx: She’s way too slow for me. It was a beautiful day.

Gypsy: So why’d you come back in?

Onyx: The repairman was really nice. I thought he’d give me treats. But he brought me back inside. Then I got locked in the study for the rest of the time he was here. It was humiliating. I don’t think Mom trusted me after that.

Snoops: I can’t imagine why.

Gypsy: At least it got fixed.

Sgt Stripes: I heard the guy talking to Mom. It needs something called a thermostat. I guess a lot of humans need them because he had to order one.

Snoops: So why did it get warmer?

Sgt Stripes: He did some kind of adjustment and showed Mom what to do in case it goes off again.

Gypsy: So there’s still a chance we could all freeze to death.

Onyx: That is really annoying.

Greetings. Snoops and Kommando Kitty here. We hope everyone is well. We are not contented kitties at the moment. You would think with spring FINALLY starting to show some signs of life that things would be good. However, all is not kibbles and tuna steak.

First, our felines cousins visited a week ago. Our human sister went on vacation with her family and left them here. You know three of them: Angel, Onyx, and Thunder. They went home on Easter Sunday. At least, they were scheduled to go home on Sunday. Three of them arrived the Tuesday before Easter. It was supposed to be all four, but one refused to cooperate and had to come separately on Wednesday. That would be Gypsy.

We love family as much as the next cat. Meaning that we love our family – just the way it is. When the cousins visit, Mom lets us have the upstairs where she sleeps, and the visitors get downstairs. It’s not too bad, except THEY HAVE HALF OUR HOUSE. Snoops got down the second day. After that, a couple of them spent the rest of the time in the basement. Mom was not pleased.

At this point we should mention that the boiler went out the last week of March and we didn’t have any heat. The space heaters were downstairs, so we got the bed warmer. But it was still cold. Mom thinks we grew some extra fur to compensate. We still had cold feet. We were not happy cats.

FINALLY, Sunday got here and our human sister was supposed to pick up our visitors. They corralled three of the kitties fairly easily. Once again Angel, Onyx, and Thunder were pretty cooperative. Kudos to Onyx who was the easiest to wrangle.

Then they tried to find Gypsy. No one had seen her since she made a beeline downstairs directly downstairs following her arrival. Someone had been eating the food they were putting downstairs, so we were pretty sure she was OK. It’s an old farmhouse with lots of places to hide.

Finally, our sister gave up and went home WITHOUT her cat. That’s right. We have an intruder in our home. She’s here at least until Sunday. Snoops has seen her a couple of times and hissed at her, but the humans still don’t know where she’s hanging out. But she’s eating well, so they’re not really worried.

Back to the heat. Mom stayed home on Monday which was pretty pawsome. It was really cold that day. (It snowed 2 inches!) But then we found out why she was home. Human intruders came to FINALLY fix the heat.There were three of them, and they had to invade our space upstairs to put something on the wall. We couldn’t go downstairs for the entire day.

Then they came back Tuesday. The house was really cold Tuesday because they kept letting the outside air in. Mom worked from home, and she wouldn’t let us participate in the staff meeting or anything. We would have been a big improvement over the people who were running the meeting.

At long last, the strange humans left, and we had a warm house! Hooray! Now we just have to find the extra cat and convince her to go home. Wish us luck!