Off the Wall

A Cat Named Calico

Calico was a gentle and sweet cat.

 

Back in the Midwest, we had a sweet cat named Calico.  She was a long-haired cat which seemed to live to be petted.  I think she would have rather been petted than to eat.  A little homebody, she stayed close to the house as an outdoor cat.  Another one of our cats, Romeo, which was an orange male cat, would sometimes bring a live mouse for Calico to play with, and then eat, if she chose to.

I’d been in the basement one wintry day staining a picture frame, when out of the corner of my eye I saw movement on one of the shelves against the wall.  I watched for a minute and saw that it was a small black mouse.  Ironically, it was behind a stack of clay cat heads, that I’d made a mold of from an original sculpture of mine.  It seemed like a good idea to bring one of the outdoor cats into the basement so that it could catch the mouse.  Calico was the nearest of them, so I grabbed her and brought her inside the basement.  I thought that she would find the mouse, but I was wrong.  Instead, she sat in front of the polished sheet metal that surrounded my kiln and stared at her cat image that reflected from it.  She was absolutely mesmerized by it!  So, I gave up on the idea of her catching the mouse.  Later on, I set a mouse trap and eventually got rid of the rodent problem.  Calico was not a mouser, but a lover.

Many people photograph their pets, not everyone has the talent to paint the precious one, thanks Paula, Editor.