Gardening Sale!
 
 

Special Offers see all

Enter to WIN!

Weekly drawing for $100 credit. Subscribe to our Specials newsletter for a chance to win.
Privacy Policy

More at Powell's

Pets

Indiespensable
spacer

Fup. Store Cat.

Chapter 129

In Loving Memory
Fup. Store Cat.
1988 — 2007
fup 18 fup 19
Click here for details on our specially designed Fup. Store Cat. T-shirts!
Fup. Store Cat.
Fup watercolor courtesy of reader Linda McDougall. Click here for a larger view.
Bear
bear 		Zooey
zooey

see Fup's photo album

Bear says to no one in particular, "Beware, weary staff members who dare use the rollaway bed on election night!" Cue contagious laughter. It's not quite eleven o'clock, but the cats (and Zooey) have the store to themselves. According to custom, on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November they've gathered among the aisles. No matter which candidates win or what issues pass, they huddle inside, safe from voters.

"Beware?" Fup challenges Bear. "You're being a bit dramatic."

But Clara and Ro disagree, and Oreo and Bagheera don't argue with them.

Zooey just shrugs. "No one got hurt," he reminds everyone.

Around midnight, Fup had disappeared, and Bear followed soon after. When a half hour passed — November 2002, this was — and neither Fup nor Bear had returned, Oreo and Bagheera set out to find them. ("I didn't set out to find anyone," Oreo clarifies now. "I was tired of Oglesby's infantile scratch-scratch jokes, that's all. And Bagheera was, too.") Thus only three cats remained by the storefront windows: Oglesby, Trudeau, and Cashew. Zooey, the big Lab, slept all the while nearby on the front mat.

"When I woke up, everyone was gone," Zooey recollects.

And so he went looking. His search eventually led to the conference room upstairs, where seven cats had joined Ryan on the mattress: two in the crook behind his knees, a couple on spare patches of pillow, another somehow tucked under his arm... they filled every available inch, like water around rocks. Which made Zooey's attempt to squeeze in all the more absurd.

"Beware!" Bear reiterates. The rollaway frame collapsed without effect — no injuries, it's true — but now that the memory is fresh again, Fup concedes "beware" might not be bad advice.

previous   next

The Trip to Kahani

1  ·  2  ·  2.5  ·  3  ·  4  ·  5  ·  6  ·  7  ·  8  ·  9  ·  10  ·  11  ·  12  ·  13  ·  14  ·  15  ·  16  ·  17  ·  18  ·  19  ·  20  ·  21  ·  22  ·  23  ·  24  ·  25  ·  26  ·  27  ·  28  ·  29  ·  30  ·  31  ·  32  ·  33  ·  34  ·  35  ·  36  ·  37  ·  38  ·  39  ·  40  ·  41  ·  42  ·  43  ·  44  ·  45  ·  46  ·  47  ·  48

Read the press release.

Follow the links to more Fup adventures
1  ·  2  ·  3  ·  4  ·  5  ·  6  ·  7  ·  8  ·  9  ·  10  ·  11  ·  12  ·  13  ·  14  ·  15  ·  16  ·  17  ·  18  ·  19  ·  20  ·  21  ·  22  ·  23  ·  24  ·  25  ·  26  ·  27  ·  28  ·  29  ·  30  ·  31  ·  32  ·  33  ·  34  ·  35  ·  36  ·  37  ·  38  ·  39  ·  40  ·  41  ·  42  ·  43  ·  44  ·  45  ·  46  ·  47  ·  48  ·  49  ·  50  ·  51  ·  52  ·  53  ·  54  ·  55  ·  56  ·  57  ·  58  ·  59  ·  60  ·  61  ·  62  ·  63  ·  64  ·  65  ·  66  ·  67  ·  68  ·  69  ·  70  ·  71  ·  72  ·  73  ·  74  ·  75  ·  76  ·  77  ·  78  ·  79  ·  80  ·  81  ·  82  ·  83  ·  84  ·  85  ·  86  ·  87  ·  88  ·  89  ·  90  ·  91  ·  92  ·  93  ·  94  ·  95  ·  96  ·  97  ·  98  ·  99  ·  100  ·  101  ·  102  ·  103  ·  104  ·  105  ·  106  ·  107  ·  108  ·  109  ·  110  ·  111  ·  112  ·  113  ·  114  ·  115  ·  116  ·  117  ·  118  ·  119  ·  120  ·  121  ·  122  ·  123  ·  124  ·  125  ·  126  ·  127  ·  128  ·  129  ·  130  ·  131  ·  132  ·  133  ·  134  ·  135  ·  136  ·  137  ·  138  ·  139  ·  140  ·  141  ·  142  ·  143  ·  144  ·  145  ·  146  ·  147  ·  148  ·  149  ·  150  ·  151  ·  152  ·  153  ·  154  ·  155  ·  156  ·  157  ·  158  ·  159  ·  160  ·  161  ·  162  ·  163  ·  164  ·  165  ·  166  ·  167  ·  168  ·  169  ·  170  ·  171  ·  172  ·  173  ·  174  ·  175  ·  176  ·  177  ·  178  ·  179  ·  180  ·  181  ·  182  ·  183  ·  184  ·  185  ·  186  ·  187  ·  188  ·  189  ·  190  ·  191  ·  192  ·  193  ·  194  ·  195  ·  196  ·  197  ·  198  ·  199  ·  200

Fup's Picks

That Cat That Changed My Life: 50 Cats Talk About How They Became Who They Are That Cat That Changed My Life: 50 Cats Talk About How They Became Who They Are
by Bruce Eric Kaplan

"All these cats lead exciting and varied lives wholly independent of the human race," notes the editor in his Introduction. Well, duh. Scant attention has been paid to the role of community in modern cat culture, so what a relief that here, finally, fifty articulate felines set the record straight. Funny, sad, occasionally shocking, but never less than true, these brave monologues reaffirm our interdependency in ways that choreographed public displays such as Paws Across America never can.

Unleashed: Poems by Writers' Dogs Unleashed: Poems by Writers' Dogs
by Amy Hempel

In "Dog Kibble," Tasha Baxter's verse exhibits a brutal economy of words: "Life is never meaningless," her villanelle announces, "there is always food." Here and throughout this collection these authors demand your attention, as if to bark, "You can send me to my room for yelling at the neighbors but you cannot silence what woofs in my heart!" Among the selections nominated for Best American Writing by Pets 2000 are Bob Barker Barry's sordid and hilarious hallucinogenic escapades with Lynda; a tragic, posthumous prose poem by Marrow Irving; and Sadie Louise Lamott's "Spoon River Sadie Louise," a wildly metered exploration of the cross-cultural dynamics within a household occupied by dogs, cats, birds, and small children. The sheer intellect of these collected pieces will renew your faith in dogs.

Is Your Cat Too Fat?Is Your Cat Too Fat?
by Bronwen Meredith

Too fat for what? And what business is it of this Meredith person's anyway? Bronwen sounds like the kind of lady I wouldn't like at all.

 
spacer spacer
Follow us on...




Powell's City of Books is an independent bookstore in Portland, Oregon, that fills a whole city block with more than a million new, used, and out of print books. Shop those shelves — plus literally millions more books, DVDs, and eBooks — here at Powells.com.