Sacrificial Furniture
Jun. 25th, 2007 05:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dcseainIn September 1975, when i was 4, my family moved to Dale City, VA. Not long after we moved in, a cat appeared at our back door. Mom let him in. The man from next door came looking for the cat later that day, from whom we learned the cat was named Amos. The next day, Amos was back. He hopped onto their AC unit, onto the fence, onto our AC unit, and appeared at our back door.
Pat and John, the neighbours who owned him, asked us to watch the cat during the day while they were at work. About 9 months later, they divorced, and we got the cat.
Amos was declawed, yet by the time he died in 1989, he'd worn threadbare the back right corner of the La-Z-boy by the couch.
I moved from my mother's house to Fairfax in 1990, and shortly thereafter acquired Sheena from one of my managers, as his newborn was reacting badly to the cat hair. Hatshepsut joined our household, about which more in another post in the near future, a few months later. Hatshepsut was a Russian Blue who whas found by a coworker in the parking lot as an approximately 3 month old kitten.
In 1993 our household, now in a new location with a new make-up, was living with the 2 cats, an African Grey, a black-and-white tegu lizard, a couple of constrictors of i forget which varieties, and several score rats, which we bred to feed the snakes and the lizard. Jasper was given to me in August because he was beating up the dogs where he was then living.
In September of that year, i moved to Boston with CRK, Jasper, and a pair of rats - The other cats stayed with my long-time housemate C. I had a courderoy-upholstered sectional sofa for several years. Jasper liked to claw on the ottoman, over time tattering the fabric to the wood underneath. I got rid of that sectional when i moved from Maryland Ave in 2001, and received a blue wing-chair with ottoman from CRK and his partner near the time of that move. Jasper proceeded to work the front right corner of the cair into a mass of blue fibres and batting over the years. That chair is now in my bedroom, and he works it only a little today.
Recently, he's begun on the brown, vaguely Asainish fan-and-flowered wingchair. He has the rear right corner working rapily toward threadbare, and the rear right is coming to that quickly too. He destroyed the white slipcover that used to be on that chair last year, first opening the top seam, then the rear left seam, then the rear right seam, then the skirt. Lorelei and i spent a whole day shopping for that slip cover some years ago - i was a bit sad to see it go.
I clip both cats', and the rabbit's, claws. Even with clipping their claws, Jasper has damaged now 3.25 pieces of furniture - i'm counting the slip cover as the 0.25. I consider this furniture damage as the expected sacrifice of owning cats. So let's see...3.25 into 14 means Jasper destroys 1 piece of furniture about every 4.33 years. Happily, the chairs will be easily reupholstered once he dies.
Pat and John, the neighbours who owned him, asked us to watch the cat during the day while they were at work. About 9 months later, they divorced, and we got the cat.
Amos was declawed, yet by the time he died in 1989, he'd worn threadbare the back right corner of the La-Z-boy by the couch.
I moved from my mother's house to Fairfax in 1990, and shortly thereafter acquired Sheena from one of my managers, as his newborn was reacting badly to the cat hair. Hatshepsut joined our household, about which more in another post in the near future, a few months later. Hatshepsut was a Russian Blue who whas found by a coworker in the parking lot as an approximately 3 month old kitten.
In 1993 our household, now in a new location with a new make-up, was living with the 2 cats, an African Grey, a black-and-white tegu lizard, a couple of constrictors of i forget which varieties, and several score rats, which we bred to feed the snakes and the lizard. Jasper was given to me in August because he was beating up the dogs where he was then living.
In September of that year, i moved to Boston with CRK, Jasper, and a pair of rats - The other cats stayed with my long-time housemate C. I had a courderoy-upholstered sectional sofa for several years. Jasper liked to claw on the ottoman, over time tattering the fabric to the wood underneath. I got rid of that sectional when i moved from Maryland Ave in 2001, and received a blue wing-chair with ottoman from CRK and his partner near the time of that move. Jasper proceeded to work the front right corner of the cair into a mass of blue fibres and batting over the years. That chair is now in my bedroom, and he works it only a little today.
Recently, he's begun on the brown, vaguely Asainish fan-and-flowered wingchair. He has the rear right corner working rapily toward threadbare, and the rear right is coming to that quickly too. He destroyed the white slipcover that used to be on that chair last year, first opening the top seam, then the rear left seam, then the rear right seam, then the skirt. Lorelei and i spent a whole day shopping for that slip cover some years ago - i was a bit sad to see it go.
I clip both cats', and the rabbit's, claws. Even with clipping their claws, Jasper has damaged now 3.25 pieces of furniture - i'm counting the slip cover as the 0.25. I consider this furniture damage as the expected sacrifice of owning cats. So let's see...3.25 into 14 means Jasper destroys 1 piece of furniture about every 4.33 years. Happily, the chairs will be easily reupholstered once he dies.
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Date: 2007-06-26 01:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-26 01:56 am (UTC)