Lazy Cat Parade

Oh, the life of a cat! To sleep, be petted, sleep, eat and sleep some more. Such a hard life!

Our cats have the good life, as you can see in this picture.

We call this the lazy cat parade. As soon as they get a chance, the cats, Kelly (the orange one) especially, like to climb onto our bed, where they sleep the day away.

We've had Josey (forefront) and Dave (middle) since 1999, when we were in North Carolina. Dave was this little ball of fur. He was the runt of the litter and looked like Gizmo from Gremlins.

Josey, sadly, was rather smelly, in that she had a gas problem. But we took to her anyway and gave her the nickname of Josey Beans. Dave we eventually called Davey, Bag of Bones and Huffer Puffer because he liked to huff and puff when he played.

Their names, by the way, stem from Clint Eastwood characters. His character in Play Misty for Me was named Dave. And Josey came from The Outlaw Josey Wales.

While we were in NC, we took the cats on road trips like to the Outer Banks, the mountains and eventually Wisconsin for a couple trips home. We even purchased harnesses and leashes so we could take the cats out for walks. They sure did look funny!

When we moved back to Wisconsin in 2003, we acquired Kelly shortly before we married. She came from a litter on the farm. Sadly, she'd been abandoned by her mother. I felt to blame because we'd seen that litter before Kelly had been abandoned. So we took her in.

Kelly was named after Clint Eastwood's character in Kelly's Heroes. She was a little orange ball of fire! She quickly changed the pecking order in the house. She would be a sweet little kitten but then, in the blink of an eye, would turn on you with her teeth and claws! She often liked to pounce at our feet as we came around a corner.

Before Kelly, Josey was the head. But Kelly asserted herself with no problem. And our sweet, quiet Davey suddenly became a brute, of sorts.

Peace now reins in our house....for the most part. We have the lazy cat parade, in which they can all sleep peacefully together.

But there are times when the fur literally flies as Davey and Kelly get involved in some sort of Mortal Combat.