Diamond's Second Christmas

Diamond was the first cat that adopted us as a family.  Mandy was about six
months old at the time and fell into instant love with him.  He'd belonged
to a neighbor of ours who also had another cat and a d-pet.  Military
housing told her that she had to get rid of one of the pets as she was over
their limit.  We were good friends and didn't have pets at the time.  Katie
knew that I liked the cat, so called me up and explained the situation to
me.  The long and short of it was that Diamond moved in and promptly took
control of everyone except Amanda.

The first Christmas with Diamond wasn't all that exciting.  I got him some
Pounce treats and a couple of toy mice, he didn't chase a mouse up my pant
leg.  But the second Christmas....

By this time we'd been adopted by Muffin, the 28 pound starving cat, and
Pixel who was a pro at aporting through walls.  Somehow, I'd discovered that
Diamond LOVED caramels.  He would plead and beg for MRE (Meals Ready to Eat)
caramel candy from the accessories packet inside the meal pouch.  Once I
gave him one, he'd gnaw, drool brown drool (he looked like a senile snuff
chewer) and purr as he kneaded the carped in ecstasy.  The other cats would
stare at him in mingled horror and wonder.  Diamond really did look
demented.

At that time, Amanda, the nemesis of the feline kingdom, was almost two
years old and really into everything she could reach.  So, in order to
protect the Christmas tree from her and the cats, we put it inside of
Mandy's play pen.  Mandy wouldn't stay in it, but maybe the tree would.
Well, the play pen kept Mandy out (she couldn't figure out reverse climbing)
and the cats found it a grand place to nap in peace.  We'd walk in and all
three of them would look up sleepily from under the tree and blink at us.
Very interesting in the dark.  And the ghost...did I mention that the house
we lived in was haunted?  It was, by a roughly 12 year old girl.  She was
fascinated by Amanda, Mike, and electronics.  She also got along well with
the cats.  She generally tolerated the rest of us, though she wasn't too
fond of the upstairs neighbors.

We had all the ingredients for disaster, a haunted house, three cats, a tree
in a play pen, and Amanda.  One night I was awakened by a crashing noise.  I
bolted upright in my bed, noticed that a white misty blob was hovering at
the door to my bedroom.  I jumped out of bed ran through the blob (can you
say frigid woman?  I knew you could.) and into the living room.  The TV
screen was on, the keyboard for the Commodore-64 was on the floor.  Mandy
was sitting by the play pen crying.  The tree ornaments and branches were
scattered around her and brushing the top of her head.  Cats were gingerly
emerging from under furniture and from behind the TV stand.  A chill went up
my spine until I stepped away from the door of the living room.

Rather than prioritize, I decided to handle the disaster as I came to it.  I
picked up the keyboard from the floor, checked to see if it still worked (it
did) and placed it back on the stand that it fell from.  Then I lifted up
the tree and set it back upright in the playpen.  Mandy needed some
comforting, but once she made it clear that it was not her fault ("Bad Cat.
Bad Cat.  He took my canny.") and that I wasn't mad at her, she was fine.
Diamond was sitting beside the TV stand drooling brown snuff and kneading
the carpet, so it was obvious what she was talking about.  The other cats
looked away in shame and innocence, then slid back into the playpen after I
got Mandy back to bed and re-decorated the tree.  Behind me, the C-64 made
clicking noises as the curser moved around the screen.

Rob, Mike, and Jason slept through the mayhem, but the upstairs neighbors
did not.  One of them told me that he didn't appreciate his sleep being
disturbed by the hell going on in my apartment.  So I asked the ghost to let
him know that it wasn't nice to diss the neighbors.  Diamond had eaten up
all the MRE caramels, so I bought him some nice Kraft caramels as a
Christmas present.  He thought they were the most disgusting stuff ever
created and didn't forgive me until Rob brought home some of the most nasty,
dried out, leathery looking MRE caramels that ever sat in extreme
temperatures for over six months.

And Mandy?  She walked around for almost a week pointing at Diamond and
informing everyone that he was a "Bad Cat."

Pam S. smiling and putting this on her blog as well as here

I'm afraid this doesn't involve Christmas or cats, but I can think of a
couple of things involving U.S. Thanksgiving.

The first is thought to be an urban legend but actually happened to me and
my mom & my brother Scott.

(1)  It was around 1976 or so and a local grocery store kept advertising on
television "Let XX do the cooking for you!"  Turkey, bread dressing, mashed
potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie.  So mom said what the heck, I
don't feel like cooking.  She called and ordered this meal to be picked up
early in the afternoon on Thanksgiving.  We get to the store, they carry the
box with our meal to the trunk of her car.  My brother commented as he
helped put it in the trunk, this box is cold.  We got home, opened the
box... inside was a FROZEN RAW 12 pound turkey; frozen mashed potatoes &
frozen gravy... yep, everything was frozen solid.  If you've ever cooked a
turkey, you know it takes 2-3 days to thaw a 12 pound bird out.  Mom was
FURIOUS!  "Do the cooking FOR me?", she yelled!  What cooking did they do?!
We drove back to the store and my normally meek, mild mother practically
threw this box of frozen stuff at the manager and accused them of blatant
false advertising while demanding her money back.  We then drove to another
grocery store, bought some nice steaks and baking potatoes and we had steak
& baked potatoes for Thanksgiving dinner that year.

(2)  In the 1980's my brother Scott and I were roommates very nice rental
house.  I'd bought him a smoker for his birthday in June and he decided it
would be great to smoke the Thanksgiving turkey.  The night before
Thanksgiving he went out and got rip-roaring drunk with his buddies and
didn't get home until about 3:30 AM.  He figured he'd just get up around
6-7AM, light the coals in the smoker, stick the bird on the rack above the
water pan with some soaked hickory chips and high-tail it back to bed for a
few hours so we could eat around noon...

WRONG!  That Thanksgiving day was the coldest day on record in this part of
Tennessee... ever.  It was about 16F degrees.  Do you think those coals
would stay lit?  Hell no!  Do you think he got to go back and take a nap?
Hell no!  Do you think he felt and looked like crap?  Hell yes!  Do you
think I was laughing my butt off at him the entire time?  You betcha!  Oh,
and do you think the turkey was done by noon?  Um... no.  Good thing we
hadn't invited guests.  We finally got to eat the dang thing around 4PM.  By
that time it was more of a joke than a meal... but afterwards he finally got
to take his nap.  Oh, and could I have helped him with all this?  Yes, I
kept saying, "Let's just bring it in and roast it in the oven" but his
stubborn self *insisted* he was going to smoke that turkey.  Okey doke :)

Jill