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.

Chuck and the Great Escape As the Cat in the Hat

Despite how it might sound, Chuck is not on the road 365 days a year. When we’re home, the chuckster likes nothing better than to lounge around with his “sibling cats” and he’ll either be chowing down at his favorite food bowl or snoozing the day away. Trust me, you want to be a cat in my house.

But like most kids, Chuck needs fun!

Every morning he rolls down the stairs with that peculiar expression on his face--his whiskers in a snarl, poised with an expectation on his lips. He doesn’t have to SAY anything. IN HUMAN WORDS, I mean. A disgruntled MEOW will suffice. He’s bored and ready for action.

Halloween was no exception. In fact, that day was worse. Chuck is no dummy. He can read a calendar. He knew what pumpkins and Mums on the front porch meant. He knew that when I lugged out the giant bowl filled with chocolate candy and set it on the table in front of the front door, who the bags of candy were for. Trick or treaters.

He wanted to know how he fit in.
 That brings me to the great escape. And the almost costume. Yeah, yeah. I thought of getting Chuckie a costume. First, I posted the question on my facebook page, hoping for inspiration. Then I went to the Chuckster himself-- Who do you want to be?

A dog? That was the obvious undercover choice. Chuckie shook his head.

Felix the Cat. I figured a popular cartoon character would be a possible fit for the chuckster who often saw himself on the big screen. But Chuck shook his head. PETULANTLY.

The Purina Cat Chow mascot, I offered next, thinking that starring in commercials and seeing your face on cat food cans and bags was a worthy choice for a Halloween costume. But Chuck again shook his head.

I put my hands on my hips. Okay. I had to try harder. Maybe Chuckie was thinking more high brow--literary cat character. Grimbold, the black “prince of cats,” I explained to Chuckie, making my voice sound inviting, who led a goatherd on many cool adventures in Grimbold’s Other World by Nicolas Stuart Gray, but even as I said it, I could see it was way too obscure for my modern Chuck.

Okay, okay. How about Bagheera? A PANTHER.

Now here, Chuck’s eyes lit up.

He was in Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, I added for good measure. Some interest because Chuck paced the great room, but when he returned, he plopped down in front of me, disappointed still.

Eureka, who was Dorothy’s cat in the Wizard of Oz. You love to watch the Wizard of Oz on television, I reminded him.

He eyed me suspiciously.

So what? So what if she’s a girl? Does that really matter?

It did. Macho Chuck was not about to put on a girly cat costume.

I had one more idea. Okay, Chuck, this is it. You like to wear hats, right. How about DR. Seuss’ Cat in the Hat?

Yes! He went for it. And . . . all went well, the trick or treating part, the wearing of the hat part, until he was recognized.

Well, let me back up. Chuck donned his costume. He went out trick or treating around the neighborhood. As the Cat in the Hat. Then he was recognized. Not as Hot Blogging Chuck. Oh, no. As a CAT dressed up as the Cat in the Hat. The mere fact that it was a CAT trick or treating and not a KID, threw the rest of the KIDS into a near state of panic.

The tiny trick or treaters started chasing Chuck down the street. They wanted a closer look. Chuck dropped his candy and lost his hat. The poor kid, I mean CAT.

It all happened so fast I wasn’t even able to snap a photo for the blog.

Later, after Chuck calmed down, he agreed to pose with his favorite Cat in the Hat book.

Needless to say, no more trick or treating for the belly boy.

EVER!

Chuck Is A Hero-Spots Leopard Up A Tree

Chuck has been getting on my case lately. He thinks I make him look bad. Unheroic.

So . . . in the interest of fairness, and to keep my little or ah, hum, well, he’s not quite so little anymore, my chubby, well, chubby, isn’t exactly the right word--plump? Okay, to keep the “belly boy” happy, I’m blogging this week about the time we were on safari and Chuck saved Stephen’s life and, perhaps, all our lives in the safari vehicle--because of his . . . and I’m not exactly channelling here because the kid is looking right over my shoulder as I type and practically dictating this blog--because of his superior eyesight and extra-sensory sense of smell.

That’s right, the typical meow may only have the intellect of a two year old child, (I am not referring to my Chuck, of course), but the common house cat--not that Chuck is common by any means-- makes up for their childlike intelligence with their natural inborn skills.

Case in point. We were riding along on the plains of Kenya. And if you can imagine miles and miles of open land, with nary a tree in sight, with elephants roaming around us and other assorted wild animals. To stay alive, we were told to stay in the safari vehicle. There would be no hopping out to catch a closer glimpse, say of a baby hyena--if you haven’t had the good fortune of reading that adventure, please follow the link: http://averyolive.blogspot.com and read all about how Chuck has a near death encounter with a babysitter hyena when he impulsively decides he just has to meet two adorable baby hyenas. Anyway, Chuck now understood the dangers involved.

But it was nearing lunch time and Stephen, our driver, knew of a good place to have our picnic lunch--smack in the middle of the plains--under a big giant--what Stephen called a “sausage tree,” because what hung from the branches of this lone tree looked like, yeah, you guessed it--sausages.

So we drove for what seemed like twenty miles and pulled alongside of this “sausage tree.” Now, Stephen does not carry a gun with him. Let me make that perfectly clear. Even though we are on safari, it is against the law in Kenya to kill an animal. We are only there to photograph the wildlife. So, literally on the plains, you take your life in your hands. But Stephen is a professional and as we were driving to the tree, he was scanning the area on the look-out for any living, breathing creature that might cause us harm, because the idea was that we were all going to embark from the vehicle and eat our picnic lunch under that tree BECAUSE IT WAS SHADY.

Stephen believed the coast was clear. He jumped out of the vehicle.
All was well.

But, of course, it wasn’t.

That’s when Chuck sprung into action.

My Chuck.

Because he just happened to be awake and not “cat-napping,” which is what was usually the case on our long safari rides. And he just happened to be intrigued by what looked like sausages hanging from that tree.

Chuck glanced up, and he saw a leopard with his kill--some poor defenseless gazelle which was now hanging limp over a branch. A gazelle that the leopard had dragged up the tree. A big tree. And now that we--seven humans and a cat had arrived below the tree, this leopard could only assume that we were there for one thing--that gazelle.

The time it would take that leopard to leap down from the tree on top of Stephen could be counted in milliseconds. We learned that later.

Chuck growled and pointed his paw at the leopard. Then he let loose a blood curdling screech, which caught Stephen’s attention. Stephen whirled toward us.

Someone shouted, “Leopard in tree.”

Stephen hopped back on the safari vehicle. He was shaken up, clearly aware of what could have happened because in this one instance he’d forgotten to look up the tree.

The leopard crept down the tree, and he waited in the bushes, eager to defend his kill.

Stephen made an executive decision. We started the engine and went to find another tree, but not before Stephen came to the back of the safari vehicle, grabbed Chuck, and gave him a big hug. “Thanks, little man.”

No doubt about it--Chuck was a hero that day.

Chuck Gets Faked Out - The French Way

The kid never seems to stop thinking. Or plotting may be the best word. After our little jaunt to Deauville, where Chuck impressed the girls with his “mussel opening” trick, Bob and I decided to do something for ourselves--or so we thought. I wanted to see Giverny--the luscious place where Monet had lived and painted and been inspired to do some of his loveliest impressionistic paintings.

I had no idea, whatsoever, that Chuck was into Monet.

Sure, I have Monet prints hanging around my house, but who expects a rascally cat like Chuck to notice, who seems to be more in tuned to watching Jersey Shore or the Kardashians on TV?

Well, he had noticed, and it seemed Chucky boy had been harboring a secret wish to see some of these paintings in person.

Now if you have ever been to Giverny, you know what a mob scene it can be. Tourists galore cram the place--milling about the beautiful grounds--admiring Monet’s gardens, the waterlily pond, and especially his house. Everyone wants to go inside the house and see how the great painter lived.

And Chuck had heard that Monet had one room completely filled with tons of his paintings. That’s the room that Chuck wanted to see.

Now this wasn’t going to be easy because as in most touristy places--NO CATS WERE ALLOWED. I would have to be super sneaky if Chuck was going to be able to stick his head out of my shoulder bag and see anything!

Of course, as soon as we arrived, we headed straight for the house. Chuck would have it no other way. Up the front steps and through the center hallway. He had no interest in seeing the kitchen or the exquisitely decorated dining room. And he was very squirmy, a bit pissed off that he had to keep his head hidden when if he were a dog, he could have most likely trotted into the house and barked his head off, and no one would have said a word. Yes, it is true. In France, the French people love their dogs and take them everywhere with them--drugstores, restaurants, etc. But that’s another story.

Anyway, here we were hurrying through Monet’s house because Chuck seemed about to burst inside my bag when we finally made it into the “painting” room. Strange, but I expected to see guards with machine guns or heavy guns at the door to the room. There were guards all right, but they stood around holding cell phones, with a kind of bored expression on their faces, as if they didn’t much care if someone stole one of the paintings.

Chuck peeked out and from that first instant, was mesmerized. I had to keep moving around the room, of course, and I felt sorry for the kid. He just wanted to stop and stare at one painting after another, as if he could get lost inside the picture. He seemed truly awestruck that he was face to face with a genuine Monet.

A stranger tapped me on the shoulder. “What you got there, a cat?”

I nodded. “He’s really into Monet.”

“Nice,” he said, reaching out his hand to try and pet Chuck, which was not such a smart idea. Chuck wouldn’t bite him or anything, but when Chuck is into something, he doesn’t like to be interfered with.

“He’s impressed,” I said to this total stranger. “You see, he’s never seen a real Monet before.”

The stranger laughed. “Yeah, right.”

Instantly, I detected something was wrong.
“What?”

“Real Monet, you say? Is that what this little guy thinks?”

Chuck whirled around at that moment, and you could see it in his eyes. He knew something was up. He knew something terrible was about to be said. His bubble was about to be burst.

The stranger said, “These aren’t real Monets.”

I gulped.

Then he waved his arm around the room, as if he needed to further illustrate his point. “I mean look. Do you see any armed guards anywhere? If these paintings were real, we’d be talking millions of dollars.”

I heard a sniffle coming from my shoulder bag. Poor Chuck, I thought.

The stranger reeled in on me. “You should be ashamed of yourself for deceiving this poor little guy. Letting him think he’s looking at the genuine article. These are all reproductions. Can you say that word, little guy? Reproductions.”

But Chuck had no intention of saying anything. He snarled, then disappeared like a puff of French cigarette smoke into my bag.

I stepped back away from the stranger and made a bee-line for the door. “Sorry, Chuck. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

And I thought back to what my husband had said back in Deauville--that it was humiliating that we, no I, was no smarter than a cat.