on the second day of Christmas...

i'm gonna share with you
the story of 'two pees and a poo'

before you run away, it is a cat tale. i swear.

i grew up in one of those households where pets were a definite no no. they like to damage furniture, you know. oh, the horror!

the closest i ever got to a pet was the bag of goldfish i bought from the basement of my local Woolworth (back when that was still a thing), and my mom managed to kill them off while i was away at camp for all of like two or three weeks that following Summer. and, yes... it is already established that i will require therapy for the entire rest of my life, plus a few years after that.

fast-forward a couple few decades, and i share my life with a guy who has never not had cats. so now i have cats, which some may say is the best form of therapy.

what i found most fascinating in the adjustment to life with cats was just how different each one of them really is. they all have unique personalities, which shows in how they interact with the people and items around them.

case and point... Mama Kitty is usually the poster-child for apathy, but she goes into an absolute panic if their dry-food bowl dips below apocalypse-survival-level. i have to check some days to make sure that cat is still breathing. yet she turns into the world's smallest angry mob over that food bowl.

 Baby Bear, on the other hand, likes to take bird-baths in the water bowl, requiring us to have to constantly mop up the floor... and to refill the bowl. then there is the oddest of the kitty behavior.. . which brings me to the subject for today.

Cordy—the "Little One" of our furry threesome—has this bizarre ritual that she performs, without fail, every single day. and it still manages to leave us in stitches when it happens.

she has this strange obsession with the litter-box that is somewhere between comical and straight-up insane. specifically, she gets indescribably excited when it is being scooped, which is usually the last thing one of us does before calling it an evening.

she comes running like a lunatic the second she hears the scooper being lifted out of the empty ceramic flowerpot where it is kept, and the excitement increases exponentially once you start scooping.

most of the time, she gets so over-excited by said activity, that she jumps into the box while you are still in the middle of scooping. then it happens... two pees and a poo.

i cannot begin to explain it, but every single night, like clockwork, as soon as the litter is being scooped, my crazy little cat has an insatiable needs to take two very quick pees followed immediately by a poo. pretty much.

half the time, you end up standing there, waiting for her to be done, so you can finish cleaning out the box for the evening. it is so reliable, that it has become a thing in our home.

typical late-night conversation around here...

him: [calling to me from another room] sweetie, did you scoop the litter box, or was i supposed to do it?
me: i'm in the middle of doing that right now. i'm just just waiting.
him: oh. is she doing her 'two pees and a poo'?
me: pee number one already happened, and she just finished pee number two. so now i'm standing here, waiting for the poo.
him: good times.

pretty much
_______________________

i have to give honorable mention to Diesel (my Deez-Bear), who we had to say goodbye to shortly before we got Mama and Baby Bear (the Little One came later). Deez was my very first experience in living with a kitty, and he is (still) my favorite cat of all time.

and what was his peculiar quirk, you ask? well, that cat had been with me though some really rocky times—including many days when i was so depressed that i could not even get out of bed—and he had come to realize that his very presence was a great comfort to me.

every  single night, when he saw me getting ready to go to sleep, he would climb onto the ledge of the window above our bed at the old place. then he would just wait patiently. and he would keep on waiting until i eventually got into the bed, got the pillows sorted just the way i like them, and the covers tucked around me like i prefer them to be. when all of that was finally finished, he would step down gingerly from the window, and come settle on the bed, snuggled up next to me.

he seldom stayed the whole night, but he would lay there for however long it took me to fall asleep. and on those nights when insomnia got the best of me, then he would settle in for the long haul and keep me company.

i seriously miss that cat, and i really wish i had taken like a million more photos of him.