Fup. Store Cat.

Chapter 150

In Loving Memory
Fup. Store Cat.
1988 — 2007

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Fup watercolor courtesy of reader Linda McDougall. Click here for a larger view.

Bear

Zooey

see Fup's photo album

"What'd you do today?" Oreo asks, though Bagheera rarely strays more than a hundred feet from the house. Sometimes the other cats will tease him, singing, "He's got the whole yard / at his paws..."

Bagheera says, "Hung out under the Claytons' porch this morning, in the garden most of the afternoon."

Oreo used to question aloud Bagheera's motives for staying put, and whether he was scared of what might be hiding down the block. At first Bagheera would tell him, "No, I'm not scared," then he wouldn't bother answering, and finally one time he shot back, "Are you scared of an inner life?" Oreo shut up after that.

Oreo had always assumed that Bagheera is smart. It hadn't occurred to him previously that Bagheera might simply use his brain more.

He imagines himself in Bagheera's place, among the year's last tomatoes. They smell great, don't they, tomatoes on the vine? He wills himself to daydream.

But kids shout to each other in the park beyond the backyard fence. Dog collars jingle on the sidewalk out front. Tree limbs beg him to climb. Meanwhile, the bulkhead is wide open at Thelma's, Oreo can sense it.

Distractions.

"Good times?" Oreo asks.

"Worms and spiders," Bagheera replies. "A bluebird raised hell for about a half-hour and then disappeared."

Fup and Bear are holding court in Thelma's basement right now, Oreo might even be willing to bet.

"I'm going to see if anyone's at Thelma's," the black and white cat decides. He should check. Might as well. "Want to come? No?"

The Trip to Kahani

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Fup's Picks

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
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?
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.

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