Ollie, and the Aliens Phone Home

Saturday, February 6, 2010

We’re staying in today, doing laundry, vegging, and watching Lost.

Bernie laughs at me when I make comments about Jack or Kate or Claire or Sayid. But he’s just as involved as I am.

I’ve been locked out of Facebook for several days now. I thought I might feel as if I were on a deserted island, but, except for being out of touch with Sarah and other members of our family (who are the reason I joined Facebook in the first place)and some friends of Sarah’s from school whom I like very much, it’s no big deal.

Besides, we can video-phone Sarah on Skype and see as well as talk to those guys. We’re thinking we’ll do that tonight, after they wake up, since we’re thirteen hours ahead of everyone at home.

But my friends have my e-mail address, and if they write and ask, I tell them about our trip.

Laundry is on the agenda today. We have a washer but no dryer. There’s a drying rack on the closed-in balcony. That can take a while.

We have missed Ollie and we think he missed us. He’s hanging closer to us now.

Ollie is a Korean cat, not a Canadian cat, as I once thought. Shannon and Damon got him when he was a small kitten. He’s black and white, with an odd tail- it’s accordioned so that it’s very short and thicker than most cats’ tails. They thought his tail might have been broken, but the vet said he was born that way.

His legs are long. When he makes a Halloween cat he’s a great one with those long legs and arched back.

When we came, Shannon told us she puts him in the bathroom at night (his litter box is in there) and closes the door because he gets wild in the night and wakes them up.

We tried that for a couple of nights but we wanted a kitty to snuggle. So now he sleeps with us. He sits on Bernie and meows in the morning before we are ready to get up, but we get our kitty fix.

He’s more Bernie’s cat than mine. I’d say I don’t know why, but cats can tell Bernie likes them. Ollie takes me for granted, but I love him anyway.

When he first sat beside me instead of Bernie, Bernie said Ollie was just trying to make him jealous, showing him that he could take his woman.

Ollie begins each day bossing me. My first task is to turn the shower on for him to get a drink. Ollie only likes running water. Once I convinced him to drink water from his bowl by having him stand beside me while I fill it, listening to the glug-glug of the water cooler, then holding the bowl in my hand, making sure to stir the water so he could see it was still moving. He drank more than half the little bowl.

Besides water control officer, Ollie likes being the Bear Scarer. He has a brown bear, sort of like a teddy. I get behind the door, hold Bear out and shake him so Ollie sees him, then pull him back out of sight. In a second or two Bear edges back around the door just a little. Then Ollie races past Bear and me and hunkers down on the other side of the room, shakes his buns and gets ready to do it all over again.

Sometimes Bear kisses Ollie and wants to ride on his back. Ollie hugs the bear or carries him in his teeth for a second or two the way a momma cat carries her kittens.

We thought we’d lost Ollie one day. We’d been out and when we came in Ollie wasn’t there to give us his usual greeting. We searched the apartment looking and calling for him but no Ollie.

Then Bernie led me into our bedroom and showed me the lump in the covers. He pulled the comforter back and Ollie looked up as if to say, “Were you looking for me? Sorry, I was asleep.”

Sometimes Olllie likes a good hand wrestle session, but he never scratches or bites so that it breaks the skin. He’s a smart kitty, and kind.

We’re about halfway through our time in China and we miss our children and grandchildren. It’s Saturday, evening here and morning at home, so we’ve planned to stay up long enough for our family to get a little extra sleep on Saturday morning and then call both of them.

We’ve used Skype for several years now. The first time, we called Sarah when they lived in their first house in Atlanta. We were able to see Jacob and Elyse.
In France we bought $10 worth of calling time. We called all we wanted and still had about $4 left on our account when we came home, and we still have that.
Because Sarah has Skype installed on her computer and we each have built-in cameras, we can talk to, and see, Sarah for free from anywhere in the world we can make an internet connection.

Tonight the connection is great and so is the picture. Once she knows we’re on, Elyse pops into the picture. This is such a kick for us. Juliet got up early and is already down for a nap so we don’t see her, but Josh sticks his head in front of the camera for a second.

Mary’s family doesn’t have the Skype set up, but we have great conversation while they eat breakfast. It’s so good to hear the kids’ voices.

Before we get too sleepy we call Kathy in New Orleans and Barb at home.
We still have money left in our account, but Bernie buys another $10 worth. It’s too good to pass up.