6:18 p.m. - Friday, Oct. 15, 2004
Cat Screams
Well, here it is--the weekend again, lol. Seems like the weeks fly by most of the time now. I am re-watchin' a movie called "Walking Across Egypt" with Ellen Burstyn and Jonathan Taylor Thomas in it. I've watched this movie many times. I love it! Ms Bursyn is especially hilarious. She plays Mattie, an older lady, who gets involved with a young reform school escapee when Wesley (Jonathan Taylor Thomas) shows up at her house tryin' to find a place to hide. It's such a good story and so many things happen in it. I think I may have written about this one before, I don't know.
The other day I was in the bedroom when I heard a cat scream come from Honey Belle. It sounded so sad but was a high pitched sound like she might have been hurt. Actually I wondered for a moment if Mama might have thrown somethin' at her. Mama's afraid of HB and doesn't like for the cat to get too close to her. I didn't know what had happened but I called for HB and she came runnin' to the bedroom. This mornin' I woke up around 4 am. It was still pitch black dark outside. I got out of bed and was sittin' in the kitchen drinkin' some Coke, readin', and tryin' not to wake up Mama. I opened the door goin' into the den. HB likes to sit by the french doors in that room. All of a sudden there was the most unearthly moan I've ever heard, long and drawn out, comin' from the den. This turned into a loud cry. The cry became a scream. Yes, really, you should have heard it. Scared me to death! I hurried to see what was wrong with the cat. I was thinkin' she might be under attack from somethin'. This image of a gigantic rat came to mind for some reason.
When I got to the doorway leadin' into the den, I could see HB's outline in the darkness. The moan was bein' broken by loud hissing from HB, then it turned back into the cat screamin' again. I told her to be quiet but she kept on. I couldn't see anything beyond the french doors in the darkness. I turned on the den lights and then I saw another cat outside. It was large, probably a tom cat, and it was dark colored, either black or a very dark gray. HB was all hunkered down into an attack crouch and continued hissing and makin' growls turning into screams. Finally, the outside cat slid around the side of the house and HB quieted down. I thought it was over.
Then HB came runnin' from the den and went to the front door where she stood with her tail swishin' back and forth. I guess I thought the outside cat had run on off and so I opened the front door since she could no longer go into the den. There stood the outside cat! HB started screamin' again and I began to shut the door tryin' not to hurt HB. She backed out of the door and I shut it. Then for a long time HB ran around from the livin' room to the front door then to the den. Back and forth between the three. Finally she settled down.
Later when daylight came I reopened the den door and HB went back in there. The outside cat was nowhere to be seen. Mama got up around 7 am because she had a dentist appointment at 9 am. She said she'd heard the loud cry from the cat (when HB was at the front door evidently). She said at the time she had just removed the blanket from her bed because the house was quite warm and had tossed it onto the floor. She said when the cry from HB started up she thought she'd thrown the blanket on top of HB and must have tried to pick it back up. But Mama keeps her bedroom door shut at night so the cat wouldn't have been in her room anyhow.
I suppose HB was tryin' to protect her territory, lol. Someone told me later today that this is what they thought she was doin'. I don't know. But I do know that I certainly hope she won't do that scream too often. It's purely terrifyin'!
I'm certainly happy that all the hurricanes are about over in Florida. My friend, D, and his family and some friends went to Florida durin' the second hurricane that hit to help out, taking with them items to be distributed to families who had to remain in the area and who had been hit hard by the hurricanes damage. They were down there about a week. But they had just returned from a couple of weeks vacation in Yellowstone National Park, so they were very tired after being in Florida.
D and his family are always first to help with disaster relief. They are a great family and a fantastic example to all of us of how every family should be. I love D's family!
I have gotten so into the crime shows on TV like CSI. I love that show. It's so great that now every night of the week I can watch CSI or NCIS on Tuesday nights. I love it! I love mysteries anyhow. My mother doesn't understand CSI and doesn't enjoy the show as much as I do. So she watches her TV and I watch mine when that show is on. She likes to watch sitcoms like "Everyone Loves Raymond", her favorite TV show. And now I also get to watch CSI reruns on Spike, a channel on cable that I'd never watched before. They advertise as being "television for men" on that station. Doesn't matter to me. They have CSI on and that's all that's important. Spike does have a lot of sports shows, police shows and silly programs that appeal to (I suppose) the funny bones of men in general. All I watch on Spike is CSI.
During commercials on TV shows I read a page or two of my latest crime novel. I have really gotten into this stuff although I can never figure out in advance who did the murder and I'm always surprised to find out it's not who I might have guessed the murderer to be. I'm glad however. I think I'd be disappointed if I could always figure them out. I also love to watch Inspector Hercule Poirot dvds. I am in the process of slowly building up a library of those dvds. Those are mysteries based on books written by Agatha Christie. I also enjoy the movies about Jane Marple, another Christie invention.
I haven't gotten to see the latest Matt Damon movie yet. "The Bourne Supremacy". I've read the novel which is always much better than the movie. I love seeing Matt, but if it weren't for Matt bein' in them, I might not be as interested in the movie version. The books are quite a bit different from the movie. If you haven't read 'The Bourne Identity" yet, but you have seen the movie, you should check out the book. You will be surprised at how different it is from the movie. It's almost like a whole new experience.
