Marina

--

February 2002

The hoomin is not well. She says she has a fever, and her voice is strange
and croaky. I've been trying to look after her, curling up with her in bed,
purring to soothe her, and giving her little kisses now and then, because
kitty kisses can cure anything. I have also serenaded her when I was worried
she would drop off and not wake up in time for dinner. I may not be a
registered nurse like my love, Waffles, but I'm doing my best to help the
hoomin recover.
However. The hoomin must be a bit light-headed from the fever or something,
because she made the weirdest science experiment today. Muttering something
about making herself a mug of hot cordial, she dug out a bottle from the
cold white cupboard in which she hides food. She hadn't opened the bottle
for a while, and she gave me this funny look and said, "this is my science
project." She put the bottle in the sink and opened it...

... and I NEARLY JUMPED OUT OF MY SKIN!!! The bottle opened with a huge
BANG! The hoomin giggled hysterically and told me she should probably not
drink this. Well, Duh! I'd just like to know what she had been drinking
before she opened that bottle. She left it standing in the sink. Smoke was
coming out of it.

I was getting worried, because the hoomin has been reading a lot of Harry
Potter books lately, and I thought she might have been getting bad ideas
about potions and stuff. That smoke coming out of the bottle looked ominous!
She turned her back on the sink, and a moment later turned back and started
giggling hysterically again. Dark red foam was silently bubbling out of the
bottle and into the sink. Now I was really getting worried. What if she was
planning on turning me and Nikki into some slimy creatures... like d*gs or
something?

The bottle is still sitting in the sink. The foam has stopped coming out of
it. If you do not hear from me and Nikki again, the hoomin has taken final
leave of her senses and turned us into toads. Please purr for us, and purr
for the hoomin to get better soon!

---
May 2002

I am sending an SOS to all of you, my fellow furry felines. I am afraid my
hoomin has been invaded by an Alien, or possessed by a Demon.

She is usually quite kind and easy-going. I can wrap her ten times around my
furry little paw before you can say "can-opener." But these last few days...
[shakes head in disbelief] Let me give you the facts:

The other day, she caught me, held me in a vice-like grip (something my real
hoomin never does, because my pitiful cries go straight to her heart), her
back legs and one front leg around me, and with the other front leg, she
squirted the foulest liquid you could imagine into my mouth.
That stuff made me throw up all night. In the morning, I was just about to
puke in the bed, when she *threw me off the bed*! This has never ever
happened before. Well, except for that one time last summer, when I brought
her a vole for breakfast in bed. Usually, she asks me to join her in bed.

After this, I was wary of her - I had my suspicions that all was not as it
should be. I stayed away from her, mostly hiding under the bed to get away
from her evil eye. If she caught my eye, I immediately said Mraah, which, as
you all know, is an efficient cat curse at the evil eye.

This morning, she behaved as usual at first, shoving some new foul gunk in
my face and expecting me to eat it. I hid under the bed. That was when the
Demon appeared again. She shoved some stuff, that was under the bed, against
me to get me out of there. I stood my ground, but when she became more
forceful in her shoving, I had to get out of there. I tried to run to the
window sill, from which it is an easy jump to the top of the bookcase, where
she cannot reach me, but I only made it to the window sill, and then she
caught me and *smeared the gunk all over my fine fur*! I ask you! Is this
any way to treat a refined old gentlecat like myself? It took me *ages* to
get my fur presentable again! I still feel dirty.

This evening, she says she is going to squirt something into my mouth again,
if I don't eat it voluntarily. She is very angry with me, which my usual
hoomin would never dare to be. Never before has she addressed me in such
foul terms! She knows very well who my parents were, perfectly respectable
housecats both of them, even if my Dad did roam a little in his youth.
I think this is conclusive evidence that my hoomin is possessed either by an
Alien or a Demon. Any cats out there familiar with this problem?

Yours,
Frank Cat,
Tips on exorcism received with gratitude

--

I had a great time during my summer vacation. The hoomin took me and my
roommate Nikki out to the island. That stoopid d*g Boogie was there, but I
soon showed him who is master of the island. He never dared come near me and
my women-folk again.
Then my hoomin went away, and Nikki thought she had to get our food while
the hoomin wasn't there, so she brought *a lot* of voles each day, though I
told her that the grandmeowmie was feeding us. The grandmeowmie got somewhat
fed up with cleaning out all the vole intestines and whole carcasses from
our cabin.

Then my hoomin came back, and I tried to be angry at her for going away and
leaving us, but I sorta like her and I just had to give her few kisses.Then
I kept a close watch on her to see that she didn't sneak off again. One day
she got on the boat and went away again, and I felt very sad as I sat there
on the dock watching her go, but she came back the same day.

There was a gang of crazy swallows on the island this year. The hoomin
called them biker swallows (she thinks she's so funny). They had absolutely
no manners! There a fella is ambling along in peace, minding his own
business, and this crazy swallow swoops out of the sky to within inches.
Gave me quite a start. Made the hoomin laugh, but she had hers coming. One
morning as she was going for her morning skinny dip (crazy hoomin), another
of those mad fellows swooped down at her! Ha!

After my hoomin came back the second time, we had some long, lovely, lazy
times together on the island. Just for being such a good hoomin, I started
rewarding her by bringing her a vole each night into bed. But did she
appreciate my offerings? Nooooo, she screamed at me and threw my voles on
the floor. Of course, I had to eat them myself. Couldn't leave them for such
an unappreciative hoomin.

This morning she locked us into the cabin. Uh-oh! We knew then that the time
had come to return home. We both hid far in under the beds so she had to
move the beds to get us, but she managed to catch us. That hoomin is too
clever. I was OK during the trip, but Nikki was very upset about leaving all
the juicy voles. On the boat, she complained the whole way, and on the bus
she pretended to be choking, so the hoomin took her out of our travelling
bag and let her lie on the seat with her harness and leash on. The little
hypocrite!

Well, now we're back home in the poky little apartment, and it will be a
long year until we go back to the island again.