Chuck Lies In Wait for Santa

“T’was the night before Christmas and all through the house . . .”

I made a big mistake in reading Chuck that poem.

When he heard the tale of how Santa makes the rounds of houses and doles out goodies to good little boys and girls and CATS, of course, he became determined to wait, under our Christmas tree, for Santa’s arrival. Convinced that Santa’s gift to him was going to be, well, STUPENDOUS.

After all, wasn’t he the most wonderful cat in the whole wide world?

I hated to break Chuckie’s bubble, as they say.

I hated to tell the Chuckster the truth that Santa and giving gifts was more of an idea--a fantasy--a symbol of how we should all be generous--not just during the holiday season but all the time. Well, you get the picture.

Frankly, for as smart as Chuck is, I couldn’t quite believe that he believed that some guy would be stuffing himself down our chimney and delivering gifts on Christmas Eve.

Well, Chuck, of course, didn’t believe that part. He had already seen through that ruse and realized that Santa started out from the North Pole on December 1. After all, the whole wide world is a big place and those reindeer can travel only so far on any given evening.

So, imagine my Chuck, with Ella--his twin sister by his side--snuggled under the Christmas tree, night after night, waiting for Santa to arrive. Imagine him waiting in breathless anticipation for the man in the red suit with the long white beard.

“What are we going to do?” I asked my husband, confident that Santa wasn’t going to arrive on schedule, as the belly boy believed.

“Tell him the truth.”

“I can’t do that.”

“He’s going to find out sooner or later.”

Was there some way to avoid the inevitable?

I decided to have a heart to heart with Chuckie. I took him upstairs to my writing room. He often sits on my lap while I’m working.

“Chuck, the holiday season isn’t all about presents. It’s about being thankful for what you already have.”

The kid eyed me suspiciously.

“For example, when you were born, you were homeless. But you were lucky to find a home with us. You and Ella. And your two brothers were also adopted. And now you live in a nice house and . . .”

The squirming started. When Chuck is bored, he begins to squirm. Big time.

I decided to try another tact, realizing there was no way that I could tell the truth about Santa or the lack of his physical existence in this modern world.

“The truth is, Chuck, you will never see Santa. He only arrives when you are fast asleep. I’ve known kids to try to stay awake, but they can’t.”

He jumped off my lap then and scooted down the stairs.

I followed.

There he sat vigil underneath the Christmas tree.

“Chuck, that’s what I call being too stubborn for your own darned good--”

“Leave him alone,” my husband said. “Maybe Santa is coming after all.”

I shot my husband one of my famous looks of exasperation.

My Chuckie wanted to meet Santa. See Santa with his own two eyes. How the heck was I going to arrange that?

Years ago one of my brothers dressed up as Santa, but there was no way he was sliding down our chimney. And not for a cat!

I did not want to see the kid disappointed.

Talk about pressure.

“Well, you have one week to come up with a fake Santa that will fool your cat. One week. One week before Chuck learns there is no Santa . . .”

TO BE CONTINUED . . .

Chuck Likes Flamingos and the Color Pink

It may be hard to believe that a cat likes movies, but it’s true. No, not hom e movies, but we’re talking Hollywood big, blockbuster-type movies. Action movies. And if there is an animal or two or three or four, well, the more--the better. Which may explain why the Chuckster would pick Out of Africa as one of his favorite sit you down and eat a snack while you are watching type movie.

He loved to see those lions on the screen--his ancestors, of course.

But, if the truth be told, nothing beat those flamingos--all gathered in a group on the shore--so much pink . . .

On safari in Kenya, when Bob and I had the chance to visit some of the places where Out of Africa was filmed, Chuck couldn’t wait until we got to Lake Nakuru National Park, which is a sanctuary, a very famous one, for the flamingo. Not that Chuck knew anything about that. All he knew was that he was going to see thousands of pink birds, and he liked the color pink.

Who knew?

When I write thousands, I’m not exaggerating. There are times when Lake Nakuru hosts close to a million flamingos.

We arrived by safari vehicle in the park and immediately noticed two large rhinoceros who were sunbathing not one hundred feet away from the flamingos, who were spread out along the shoreline, very busy, it seemed to me, in search of lunch.

What attracts the flamingos to Lake Nakuru is the shallow water and the abundance of algae that grows along the shore. Once again, it is all about food.

But having two rhino so close was not good. Well, I suppose, it could have been worse considering that the park has offered 25 black rhino and 70 white rhino a home there.

But still.

Chuckie didn’t seem to notice. He was staring, quite mesmerized, at the flamingo. All that pink.

And you guessed it.

Chuck does not like to stay put when there is action to be had.

Before I could issue my standard warning, he jumped out of my backpack and was already scampering toward the shoreline--due to pass one of the rhino, who looked to be snoozing.

But who knows when a rhino is really snoozing?

I certainly didn’t.

Close to panicking, I was determined to maintain my cool.

Then I spotted a straggly creature slinking along the shoreline, heading in the same direction as my Chuckie.

“OMG. That looks just like a . . .”

Before I had a chance to say the word, Bob, my ever loyal and observant husband, had noticed the danger. “Those darned hyena are everywhere.”

“Do hyenas eat flamingos?” I asked.

He frowned because there was an even greater problem.

“Or cats,” I added.

“Maybe the Chuckster will blend in.”

It was a terrible joke. Chuckie is beige and white, not pink. He had fur, not feathers. And from the hyenas’s point of view, a much tastier snack.

And it was windy. By now the flamingos had spotted that hyena and were squawking and flapping their wings, and desperately clearing a path away from him.

All the clatter woke the snoozing rhino who began to lumber toward the hyena OR was he moving toward my cat?

The hyena spotted the rhino and made a quick detour to the other side of the shore, but Chuckie didn’t seem to notice the looming rhino.

Entranced by all that pink, Chuck moved closer and closer to the flamingo as the rhino moved closer and closer to Chuck.

Something had to give.

I was just about to run forward when in one burst of panic, the flamingo--all in unison--took off--squawking and flapping their wings.

Startled, Chuck stepped back.

But more importantly, the rhino lost interest. Casually, or so it seemed to me, he retraced his steps back to the same spot and took up sunbathing again.

Chuck was safe.

I heaved a sigh of relief.

Those darned flamingos.

That darn cat.

Chuck Wrangles with the Antique Mailbox

The big question I’ve been asking myself lately is—do cats even belong in hotels—and I mean, big, fancy, knock your socks off—hotels??

Our decision to stay for a few nights in Boston necessitated that we do our research. We wanted an old hotel, a hotel with character, a hotel that had a history, one that was located on or close by to the Freedom Trail so that we could get our fill of history while we were there.

Hotel X fit the criteria. Grand and luxurious, nicknamed the old Gray Lady, it even had obnoxiously small bathrooms that dated back to the turn of the century so we could feel duly tortured while we admired the beauty around us.

Not that Chuckie cared about the bathrooms.

He is one social cat.

And while we were there, out hotel was hosting some kind of convention—what seemed like a trillion college-aged students converged there for some kind of competition—which meant HALF a trillion beautiful girls.

Now that is something Chuckie would notice.

And that is how the entire sordid mess with the antique mailbox thing happened.

The Chuckster, who sometimes seems incapable of minding his own feline business, overheard a bunch of girls admiring one of the many antique mailboxes they have in the hotel lobby.

“Do you think they still work?” one of the girls asked.

“Do you mean—can you post a letter?” her friend inquired.

“A real letter?” a third girl chimed in.

“What did you think I meant—an email?”

They laughed.

Now Chuck was listening in, and as he was stationed at an adjacent table near the mailbox in question, I saw him dart a glance at the mailbox, as if he, too, were wondering whether it was for real or for show.

And then it happened--the moment when regular Chuck turned into Hero Chuck.

He hopped down onto the floor, and without a bye your leave, scampered over to the mailbox and leapt up. His front paws somehow managed to grab hold of the opening where you would put the letters in.

I watched in horror as he stuck his sniffing nose into the opening. His entire head and face disappeared as I supposed he was investigating whether there were any real letters in there.

All I could think of was that movie As Good As It Gets when Jack Nicholson throws Greg Kinnear’s dog down the garbage disposal.

Would that be the eventual fate of my Chuck? Would he somehow mysteriously slide himself down the antique mailbox slot?

Then I realized CHUCK WAS STUCK!

In the antique mailbox.

The girls realized it, too.

Suddenly the four of us were gathered around trying to wrestle the poor meowing belly boy out from the narrow mail slot.

We finally unstuck him, and Chuck got his fair share of kisses and hugs from the very grateful co-eds, who were amazed that a “hero-cat" was even in the hotel lobby.

That near tragic misadventure didn’t deter us from inquiring from one of the bellboys, “Do these mailboxes really work?”

“Yes, they do. Is that a CAT?”

Needless to say, the Chuckster spent the rest of the day lounging in our room, safe from prying eyes, for, even though he wouldn’t admit it, the “belly boy” was no match for the unusually narrow slot of the antique mailbox!

Chuck, the Wannabe Native Chief!

Chuck has always had a thing for teepees and tents and being outside underneath the stars. He is one of those cats who should have been born hundreds of years ago when the West was still wild and a cat could still roam the plains free, without fear of being run over by a car or a wild horse.

After he attacked the woodpile in the English 17th c village of Plimouth, we lost no time hightailing Chuck over to the other half of the Plimouth Plantation--the Native American Wampanoag homesite--located on the Eel River, figuring he had a thing or two to learn about how the native people lived on the east coast.

At home we call Chuck the “eagle eye.” He is always the first one to spot the tiniest bug crawling along the window ledge. He goes nuts if there is a reflection from the sun off your wristwatch hitting the kitchen wall. He notices everything.

In that first minute when we arrived at the homesite, Chuck’s head popped out of my backpack, and he just itched to jump out and have a look around. This was not the usual protocol. After all, cats are seldom welcome anywhere.

But Chuck had a distinct advantage. Smoke.

There seemed to be smoke everywhere because it was cold, cold, cold and the only way to keep warm back then was to build a fire. Which created smoke. The entire homesite sat under a gray cloud, which gave the Chuckster just the protection he needed to roam around without being noticed.

So off we went. First, the “belly boy” trotted over to a lean-to where animal skins were being laid out to dry, skins which would later be used as clothing and bedding. Sniff, sniff, sniff, his curious nose couldn’t get enough.

But I could tell that Chuck had his eye on a bigger prize--the Wampanoag had recently completed building a massive dome-shaped house covered with bark. No, it wasn’t called a teepee. Native American domiciles out west were called teepees. In the East, the proper term is a “wetus” or “wigwam.”

Chuck snuck inside, and luckily no one noticed his furry body.

Imagine a rectangular structure that extended at least twelve feet high, with a dirt floor and a large campfire placed strategically in the middle for warmth. The beds, built from tree branches and off the ground, would be placed along the edge, but facing toward the center. This “wigwam” would be large enough for an entire extended family. The interior decorators were at work.

I started coughing from the smoke. So did Chuck.

There was nothing glamorous about life 400 hundred years ago.

Outside, shivering, I asked Chuck, “Have you seen enough?”

But Chuck was already scampering over to what appeared to be the cooking area. Two beautiful ladies sat in front of an oversized black kettle, preparing what would be the evening meal.

Oh, yeah, Chuck has an eye for the ladies.

Inside the kettle was a combination of berries, pumpkin seeds, squash . . . “Did the Chuckster want to stay for dinner?”

Ha.

He obviously didn’t think so. At that very moment a whiff of wind from the river blew through the camp, and the smoke cleared.

From the corner of my eye I noticed two official types “noticing” Chuck for the first time, frowning.

Oh, no.

It was true--the Chuckster had gone where no cat had ever gone before, but his idyllic trip back into the past was over.

We had to get out of here FAST.

“We’ve been spotted,” I whispered to the kid. “C’mon.”

Chuck was no fool. But, you know, what they say about cats-mighty curious.

He stopped mid scamper.

“Chuck, c’mon. We’re not welcome here.”

But Chuck had spied an authentic hand-carved canoe, or rather what the Native Americans called a “mishoon.” And at that moment, it was on fire. Yep. That’s right. No joke. It seems that the native people often used fire as a tool to hollow out a tree so they could “create” a canoe.

With no thought of the imminent danger from the “suits,” Chuck jumped on the edge of the canoe and began sniffing, careful not to burn his too curious nose off.

“That’s it,” I thought, as I grabbed him by the scruff of his orange and white neck. “You’ll thank me later when you’re not rotting in some Massachusetts jail cell awaiting sentencing from some dog loving judge.”

On our way back to the car, I asked him, “Well, Chuck, what do you think? Do you still want to live back then?”

No answer.

I had gently shoved the kid back into my backpack. Now I peeked inside. He looked to be catnapping.

Was he dreaming of a more rustic lifestyle when he could someday grow up to become Chief Chuck of the Wampanoag tribe?

Who knows what cats secretly dream about besides snacks?

Chuck Attacks the Woodpile at Plimouth

In honor of Thanksgiving this year, Bob and I and our good friends Chuck and Phyllis decided to take a ride up to Boston and visit the Plimouth Plantation. The Chuckster, of course, came along for the ride, eager to see what a seventeenth century English village looked like.

Chuckie has a very active imagination for a cat, and he decided to pretend as we arrived in the parking lot of this living history museum, that he was really back in 1627.

What harm could that do?

The museum is divided into two sections: the 17th C English village along the shore of the Plymouth Harbor and the 17th C Native American Wampanoag homesite located along the Eel River.

It was a bit nippy outside and by the time we arrived in the village--late--we had no trouble letting Chuck wander around on his own. He has a thing for sniffing the grass, sampling the vegetation, and he didn’t hesitate when it came to hopping in and out of the herb gardens behind the twenty or so timber-framed houses. No harm done. We also explored the houses themselves, eyeing the quaint (translation super small) quarters, fireplaces, narrow beds, tiny tables and sparse furniture that constituted living arrangements almost 400 years ago.

All was well until . . .

I spotted the temptation before Chuck did, but there was little I could do about it. Stacked firewood. Now, at home, the Chuckster has a thing for climbing up or jumping up on piles of firewood--outside--neatly stacked. And Chuck is no lightweight. When he hits that stack with all his weight, something is sure to go a tumbling--the wood.

This stacking of firewood was like the mother of all stacking--imagine a circular arrangement of the wood, where the wood all comes together in the center, fanning out like a beautiful fan that’s been opened.

Chuck made a run for it. And I knew, just knew what he was going to do--make a running leap and hop up on top of it.

I imagined it all--some, if not all, of the stacked wood crashing to the ground below.

There was no way to stop the kid. No way at all.

I closed my eyes and waited. Secretly praying that no one else would witness the fiasco.

There was nothing. No crash. Nothing. What?

I peered out.

Chuck sat on top of the woodpile, like the King of the Mountain, and surveyed his seventeenth century kingdom.

Okay, maybe he dislodged one or two pieces.

Still, the kid was in trouble. With me.

The potential of what could have happened . . .

But he looked so cute posing up there. His big belly . . .

And, as he spied me getting closer, he knew just what to do--he jumped on down and posed on the ground.

You got to love a cat that will do what he has to do, even if it makes his mother crazy and comes this close to getting us kicked out of a living history museum!!!

Chuck Gets Introduced to Some Monkey Business

No matter where we stayed on safari, something always excited Chuck. And the few nights we spent at Camp at Siana Springs were no exception. This time it was monkeys.

Now in the United States, you are used to riding along the roads and spotting squirrels or, perhaps, an occasional deer out your window. In Kenya, you see more than squirrels. Although fifty percent of the wild animals are on preserves, fifty percent of them are not. As you drive through the country, it is not unusual to glance out your window and see an elephant in the distance or a giraffe or a family of monkeys running along beside you on the super highway.

At first, you are simply amazed at the sight. One time in particular, a mama monkey with a bambino on her back, followed by a few other family members, chased after each other in the field as we sped down the highway, so we asked Stephen to pull over so we could get some photos. And, yes, I held on fast to Chuck, just guessing he would want to leap out and “get a closer look.”

When Stephen announced that we would be spending a few nights at a camp where a very special monkey also lived, Chuck was in his glory. He just loves monkeys because he thought they were cute.

Sure enough, when we first arrived, we immediately noticed something peculiar. Monkeys seemed to be everywhere. Some were hanging out in trees; others were lounging around on pathways.

“These monkeys are smart,” Stephen said to us. “Smarter than the average monkey. Be careful.”

“How smart?” I asked, knowing that Chuckie was wondering the very same thing.

“Well, for example . . .” and Stephen proceeded to explain that one of the things that the monkeys loved to do was break into the tents and scavenge for people food. So, under no circumstances, were we to EVER leave our tents unzippered.

“Okay, I got it. Zipper the tents.”

“But, that’s not going to be enough. You see, the monkeys know how to unzipper the tents. They’re constantly on the lookout for food.”

Chuck’s eyes grew wider.

“So what do we do?”

In Stephen’s hand, was rope. “We string this rope through the zipper so we can tie it down to the ground.”

I shrugged. “No problem.”

“But,” Stephen said, “Unfortunately, the monkeys have learned how to untie the usual knots that people use to secure the zipppers down to the ground, so we’ve had to come up with a new knot.”

I lowered my voice. “A secret knot, you mean?”

“Exactly.”

“You hear that, Chuck?”

But, of course, Chuck wasn’t listening. He is the most distractable cat. No, his attention was focused to the side. What was the Chuckster looking at? I glanced over and almost fell backwards.

On a log, sitting neatly in a row, sat an entire family of monkeys. Not saying a word. No chattering. No eating. No monkeying around.

Only watching. Us. Waiting for us to tie the secret knot. I was convinced that all they needed was to see I tie it--once--and we would be doomed. They would be in our tent in a flash.

Creepy.

“Don’t pay them any attention, Chuckie,” I said. 


“Just don’t let them see you tie the knot,” Stephen warned.

But it was difficult to concentrate on learning a new knot when ten beady monkey eyes were staring at your back.

I literally froze. I panicked.

After Stephen left, I didn’t want to leave our tent, fearful that when it was my turn to tie the knot, the monkeys would catch on, untie our knot, and break into our tent. Chuckie worried, of course, that they would find and eat his “cat snacks.”

Now a cat’s paws are not designed for tying knots, but Chuck was determined to be helpful. When the time finally came to leave out tent, Chuck peeked his head outside the tent and motioned that the coast was clear.

But . . . darn. As soon as we unzipped the tent and rezipped it, the monkeys appeared like magic. Lined up on the same log, their beady eyes poised on us, watching, waiting.

That’s when Chuck jumped into action. He became my blocker. He stationed his belly between me and the monkeys and blocked their view.

“That’s the spirit, Chuck,” I whispered, as I frantically struggled to tie the knot.

But the monkeys were clever. They started moving in closer.

Suddenly, Chuck let forth a deep, guttural growl.

Whoa. The monkeys didn’t like that sound.

“Where is that coming from? You sound like a lion.”

Chuck narrowed his eyes. I guess the “chuckster” was capable of anything when his snacks were being threatened.

Finally, I tied the “secret knot,” and Chuck and I were able to leave our tent.

Now monkeys are cute all right, but Chuck and I both learned that even though they have a good arm when they’re throwing fruit down at you from a tree, due to Chuckie’s superior blocking ability and guttural growl, when we returned after dinner, our tent was still tied down shut. Our “secret knot” had not been broken.

Chuck and the Almost Elephant Stampede

The expression “curiosity will kill a cat” was never more true than when Chuck decided he wanted to join Bob and I one evening to watch the elephants go to the trees.

We were on safari in Kenya, Africa, and staying at the foot of Mt. Kilimanjaro in a fenced area near a preserve.

The elephant is the biggest land mammal still alive today, and can live to be between 50 and 70 years old. They can weigh from 7,700 pounds (3,500 kilograms) to 26,000 pounds (12,000 kilograms). An elephant can eat about 600 pounds of food and drink 80 gallons of water a day.

To me, these are intimidating statistics.

If you see an elephant lying on the ground, that is not a good sign. It is almost impossible for an elephant to get up, once he is on the ground.

So, one day, Chuck asked the magic question--how do elephants sleep?

Now when Chuckie sleeps, he gets all curled up in his cat bed and sometimes twines himself around Ella (his sister) so that you can’t even tell where one cat begins and the other cat ends. He puts his paw over his nose to keep it warm. He wraps his tail around him. AND Chuckie loves to sleep in the cat beds that are near the heaters. Cats love heat and the sun.

Can you imagine elephants curling themselves in giant elephant beds?

I don’t think so.

Stephen, our guide, who owed his life to Chuck after the leopard in the tree episode, promised to take Chuckie out near dusk to watch the grand exodus of elephants across the plains to the trees.

Stephen explained. “Elephants sleep by leaning against the trees. They can transfer their weight against the trees, little man. So every night they walk across the plains to the trees to sleep. It makes their tree trunk legs feel better.”

Chuckie just blinked. He couldn’t imagine it.

The sight of hundreds of elephants crossing the plains is a magnificent sight. We were parked in the road. They crossed in front of us and behind us. They circled around us. They walked steadily and with purpose, headed toward the trees in the distance. Their journey would take hours, and they did that journey every evening.

You would think Chuck would have been intimidated by that many elephants, but he wasn’t. Perched on the ledge of the safari vehicle, he watched in amazement. But, nevertheless, I held onto him.

Chuckie was always full of surprises. The last thing I needed was a cat leaping out of the vehicle and causing a stampede of elephants. The last thing I needed . . .

That’s when it happened.

Chuckie spotted an elephant that seemed to lag behind the others. An outcast. He pointed his paw in the direction of that particular elephant.

Stephen explained. “That, little man, is the loser elephant. Every herd has one. He is no longer considered part of the group.”

Chuckie did not like that answer. Suddenly, he wasn’t interested in the elephants going to the trees anymore. All he wanted was to help the loser elephant.

I must have a mother’s sixth sense. Just as he was about to bolt out of the safari vehicle, I screamed, “Chuck, don’t you dare.”

But Chuck wanted to get a closer look at the loser elephant.

“Stay in this vehicle.”

Chuck leapt outside and landed in the dust.

The loser elephant, who’d been lagging behind, spied Chuck and now began to move forward.

I half expected Chuckie to run over to the loser elephant. But he didn’t. He meowed. He didn’t growl.

Oh, great. I imagined the worst. Disgruntled loser elephant charges the vehicle. Chuckie is crushed to death. We are killed, of course.

But that didn’t happen.

The loser elephant began to purr, a deep rumbling purr.

“Elephants do purr like cats,” Stephen explained.

“They do? I didn’t know that.”

Chuckie meowed back, even louder.

Then, the other elephants around us starting running. Not toward us, but away.

“Stampede,” Stephen yelled. “Chuck, back in the vehicle.”

Chuck finally listened to Stephen.

When it was over, I couldn’t figure out if Chuck had acted heroically by trying to befriend the poor loser elephant or if he had made the situation worse.

But one thing for sure, at the end of the day, Chuckie had made a new friend with the loser elephant. And, no, I explained to Chuckie, we couldn’t smash all the air out of the loser elephant and take him home with us. Even with the air smashed out of him, we were still talking--what--a thousand pounds of elephant skin??? Stuffed in my carry-on? And what about those tusks? Yikes.