No, this isn’t a Halloween special.  It’s about a trick I played on Mum.  Let me set the scene.

Mum and ‘Dad’ went away for 4 sleeps and a friend of theirs stayed here to look after Gibbs and me.  He did a pretty good job and we looked after him, too.  So that he wouldn’t be lonely each night, we both slept on his bed and helped him get up each morning as he’s a postman.

picture by Aoife McCannAnyway, the day after Mum got back she got those scales out of the bathroom and stood on them.  She made a funny noise and returned them to their usual place of under the bathroom sink. Obviously the numbers weren’t going in the right direction.  But little did she know, I had my paw on the scale behind her.

The next day she got the scales out again and stood on them. ‘Yippee!’ she cried.  I carried on eating my breakfast and I’d warned Gibbs to do the same.  ‘Yippee!’ she cried again, coming back into the kitchen.  ‘Casey, Mum’s lost weight! That’s great news!’

‘Nom, nom, nom,’ was all I could muster at the time.

‘Gibbs, Mum’s lost weight. That’s good news, isn’t it?’

‘Nom, nom, nom,’ he replied.

I think I told you once before that Mum goes to a place that she’s nicknamed ‘Wobbly Wonders’; it’s where people who need to lose weight go and once they’ve been weighed, they sit down and wobble all over the place which burns hundreds of something called calories.

Well, that got me thinking about my own six-pack, or lack of it.  I live a very sedentary lifestyle.  I’m the Right-Pawed Assistant to a writer so while she’s writing, I am on paw in case I’m needed. Often as not, I’m not really required so, to pass the time away, I sleep. In the winter months, I rarely go out.  If the weather is bad a litter tray appears under the dining table as if by magic, and I use that instead of going out in the cold, rain, snow, or whatever horrible weather is happening outside. 

It stands to reason that all that inactivity leads to a looser interpretation of a six-pack and Mum is trying to help me to streamline my belly so that I can be the silver bullet I used to be.  I did notice, though, that during those miserable winter months, I probably suffered with S.W.A.D. which is a variation of S.A.D but means ‘So What About Dinner?’

And humans don’t always get it, do they? I mean, we do spend a lot of our time resting our eyes but when we do decide to hang out with you, what happens? You give us a plate of food, which, to be perfectly honest, we’re going to eat, because we never pass up an opportunity to eat, but it wasn’t what we came to say hello to you for.  We wanted to engage with you, have cuddles, or play a game.  Does your human do that too? 

So Mum and I are on this joint ‘keep fit’ thing.  She bought a book called ’50 Games to Play with your Cat’ and every now and then she’ll try and get me to take part in one of the ‘new’ and ‘interesting’ games. While she is trying to play one of these new games with me I just lie on the floor looking at her as she runs after the thing she’s just thrown and retrieves it.  She soon gets tired but as I’ve been resting on the floor, I’m good for another hour or more!

I’ve noticed, too, that she’s cut down my portion sizes a little bit and she said that once the better weather comes, we’ll both be outside in the garden, getting the fresh air and the Vitamin D which is supposed to be good for you. I’ll be able to watch the birds and bees as they go about their business while she tends to the weeds that are growing at an alarming rate all over our garden.    

I started this with a trick and now let me tell you that the ‘treat’ is spending time with my Mum, doing things that she likes doing. Dad said he might come over to help Mum with the garden and of course, they’ll need my expertise to supervise the weed pulling.  Gibbs can be the foreman and I’ll be the director.

Anyone interested in a game of belly football?

Till the next time.

Casey 

Huge and very grateful thanks to Aoife McCann for her super drawing of Casey and his paw on the scales.  

A Cats Prayer

Lead me down all the right paths,
Keep me from fleas, bees, and baths.
Let me in should it storm,
Keep me safe, fed, and warm.

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