This Is Why I'm Like This : Gatos Diablos Summer 19

14 June 2019
   I must go back and retrieve my old gatos posts, because they are wonderful/hilarious. They also explain why I think it's funny to botch Spanish like I do.
   Also, my Crosstrek is named "Francisco", because that's fun to say.

   The new Don has emerged. Strumph, AKA "Bitey" has made a bold move this June by killing the bunnies in the front yard instead of the back yard. In past years, perhaps in deference to their alliance with the fox, they have left the decapitated lapins on the deck in the back yard. They were easily cleaned up, Jersey bodega owner style, with the back yard hose. This year, she has premiered their new dumping ground: the top of the driveway. There is more direct sunlight here, a better chance that the battered bunnies can be baked into the cement. It is also not an obvious location, we keep the cars in the garage and there is no foot traffic at the top of the driveway.

  This is a challenge. I struggle to understand what they are trying to communicate to me in the first place,  but changing the dump site to a place not easily seen vexes me. Every morning, the animals are let out of the back door. The deck was the natural spot for displaying the gutted bunnies as a warning to all. But the driveway is off the beaten path. I don't even know the corpse is there until I've  returned home. The only reason I caught it this week was that our cars were all shuffled into the driveway with the spare room moved into the garage.

  Unlike the back yard, the driveway has only one option for corpse removal. The retaining wall cuts off access to one side of the driveway, so the only direction to scoop or spray is towards the trash cans. Which is great, ostensibly one can scrape the remains into the trash can with a garden hoe, whose name is "Block". Our garden tool is named "Hoe Block", because  "Yo Mamma smokes crack rock". I digress. If I hoe scrape the bulbous, jellied rabbit internal organs, they roll around and pop, making more of a mess, and making it impossible to pick them up with the hoe. The garden hose, unfortunately, is also inconveniently located up by the front door, over the retaining wall. I have to schelp up the stairs to get it. Of course I go up and down the stairs facing forward as instructed by Dick Van Dykle, but it's still more effort than turning on the hose with one hand and sipping my coffee with the other. Which was my standard tableau these many years, as I mumble "damned cats" in my best Jersey dialect and wish I also had a cigarette.

   And so I must ask, as "Bitey", ascends to her new identity as Don, what is the message she is sending? The back yard dump sites were originally set up as an alliance between the Gatos and the fox, who left the cats alone in exchange for an easy meal. It took us a season to figure that out, the cats would leave the bunnies on the patio in the evening, and in the morning they'd be gone, gobbled up by the fox. There was a fox den a few doors down, and many "Missing Cat" signs around the neighborhood, yet ours were always unscathed. AHH! Good one, "Da Bear", excellent alliance. That was the year we were overrun by fox, and there was a black pup in the den that we all doted over. Then they just disappeared. For a few years, the bunnies ran the range and the fox were gone. So were the coyotes. We heard it was mange. But this year I hear the coyotes loud and proud, and I see fox everywhere, so nature has decided its time. Maybe Gatos were not able to keep the population under control, and Mother Nature stepped back in to balance it out. Maybe Bitey is pissed off at losing her job to the fox, and, since she was young when the alliance was struck, she has no idea how to make this work. Maybe she's just too young to be Don.

  Her move to the front yard was also demonstrated when I was out front last week to get the mail, and noted a wounded bird on Francisco. I took a few steps and realized that Strumph was poised on the retaining wall, ready to pounce on the poor thing. I stopped and decided I would scoop up my feathered friend, his leg was dragging and it appeared he couldn't fly. I paused and made sure he couldn't see Strumph, who I hissed at to no avail, her focus was that of a lion on a Giselle. The bird looked at me, took a moment to pause and when I reached out---this entire time I'm running scenarios through my head, knowing there are no wild bird rescues up here, I'll have to drive the bird to the tech center, did I throw out all the shoe boxes--- he found the strength to fly away. I started a bit, shocked he was not as wounded as I at first took him to be. Maybe he just needed a break from the blitz,  a moment to collect his thoughts in the midst of the assault. He flew off, a bit crooked but seemingly able to get air. I turned to face Bitey, still poised for the pounce, but now looking like I was her target.

   She has also weirdly become more loving. She lets us pet her more than four strokes at a time, and sleeps at the foot of the bed. This cat wanted nothing to do with us for years, and now that she's a killing machine on her own---the others have pretty much retired, old and fat. Like for real. Laying around eyeing us like they still matter and we still care. Sigh. Isn't that just how we all age?

   Scene.