One of The Girls

Oreo said, "Hey! What am I chopped liver?" She is miffed because the two dogs had starring roles in recent blogs, while all she got was a basket too small for her to sleep in.
....Oreo is the senior member of our menagerie. She is an 11 year-old calico mouse catcher supreme. She is noted for a well known quote which was plagiarized and altered by Will Rogers: "I never met a bowl of food I didn't like." Around our house if you just happen to think about opening a can of anything, she is there lickety-split before you can retrieve it from the cabinet! She can hear the crinkle of a deli bag while you are still at the store! She loves roast beef, the rarer the better.
....Oreo come to live with us because her former owner had to get rid of her ten years ago. How anyone could look into that feline face and not want to keep her, I have no idea. (But I'm glad I happened to be around when the decision was made.)
....The former owner was an elderly widower for whom I did some once-a-week-cleaning. He also had a bichon-poodle mix of a lap dog. As most people know, cats are self-efficient low maintenance creatures. (Feed 'em, pet 'em when they want to be petted, let 'em out or keep their litter boxes clean -- no warranty needed.) Dogs, on the other hand and as dog owners will attest, require some hands-on attention. Dogs in turn return the attention with loyalty. Now, cats tend to be more aloof. They say you never own a cat, it owns you!
....The social worker, VNA, and health department I think used gestapo-like persuasion to determine that the old man could not take care of the cat. The dog could stay, but the cat had to go! As I said, I was doing the house cleaning for him. He was also getting some assistance from his grand-daughter who lived on the second floor of his house.
....Now the three Nazi arms of Elderly Services did not do any cleaning. I could call to question just how much assistance the grand-daughter actually provided. Apparently, I was the only one who was skilled enough to locate the dog's seven or eight "secret" latrines throughout the house. I am eternally grateful that doggy-doo comes in sizes commensurate to the size of the doggy-doer! (Little dog = little doo.)
....Within a week, the confused cat bid adieu to the only home she had ever known. Never again would she wander the large back yard and huge park across the street. The birds, squirrels and field mice in the neighborhood threw a block party that evening. As stated above, she was a mouser supreme. Did I say earlier that cats are aloof? Oh, yeah. Once inside her new home, she was rarely seen for the first three days or so, coming out only when she was hungry or to use her facility - the litter box. She couldn't understand why she was no longer let out. Like it or not, she became a house cat.
....Since cats don't answer to names anyway, Oreo didn't seem to mind that she was no longer going to be called Muu-Muu. As we were to learn later the name was appropriate. She had a dicriminating taste for almost everything. The slender sleek cat is now a plump contented feline, a fact of which my stomach and chest can verify. No longer aloof, she has become the social butterfly of the household. My daughter calls her Queenie, because she rules the roost, even the two dogs respect her.
....Hail the Queen! She's one of the girls.

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