This is Tika, our little 4 pound Siamese Cat.
She thinks she can drive!
DECEMBER 30, 2013.
I’d be remiss if I failed to write a post about our on-board roommate, Tika. (Ted, our almost life size Christmas decoration-bear is hibernating in the basement until the holidays next year) Tika is Florence’s little 4 pound Siamese cat. She’s been with us for about 10 years. Necessity demanded that we re-home our German Shepherd dogs Gunner and Mima (See separate post.) before departing, but Florence didn’t debate for a nano second whether Tika would join us or not. Now, those of you who know me understand that I’m a neat-freak and that “a place for everything and everything in its place” is a truism as far as I’m concerned. Also, understand that going from a 4,000 square foot home with 4 acres of land is under the best of circumstances a big transmission. Our home on wheels is large, but the living space is still ridiculously small. Adding the cat and all her paraphernalia didn’t put a smile on my face, although I agreed that she should accompany us on our Journey. For those of you unfamiliar with feline necessities, one needs a cat litter box, several food and water dishes, her own bed and space for it on the sofa, a scratching post, a cat-carrier for trips and a cat “room-cage” for her comfort when we need to stay in a motel while having the RV serviced. Little toy mice and yarn-like toys are also required of cat owners other than the most callous. Add to all of this dry food and wet food as well as back up supplies. If you can envision this entourage of items purely cat-related, you can see in your mind’s eye the space requirements needed solely to sustain the cat. So much for being completely neat and tidy on our trip.
In her defense, Tika has turned out to be a remarkably good traveler. She hasn’t experienced motion sickness and she’s adapted to the relocation of her food, water and litter box when necessary for us to bring in our slide-outs for travel. Her preference is to sit on Florence’s lap while were driving. One problem, however, is that cats are nocturnal and our room-mate is no exception. Consequently at just about bedtime she becomes active, demanding of our attention and ready to “talk to us.” For those of you uninitiated in the ways of Siamese cats, they “talk”…a lot! The scary thing is that I’m starting to understand what she’s saying and I often respond. Heaven help me. She also insists on sleeping in our bed, which is pretty annoying to me. I’ve resigned myself to it because my early-on attempts to isolate her from the bedroom at night were futile.
The cat really trusts Florence! When’s the last time you saw any cat allow its owner do this to it?
Most RV travelers have small dogs. They of course don’t require litter boxes which is nice but as much as I’d like to have one, there’s a problem. It’s not with selecting a breed…we’ve decided that any one of about three would be great. The problem is that dogs can’t be left alone for long periods of time. Cats can. So if we had a dog and wanted to drive to the City and take-in a Broadway play, we’d be in trouble. Since we’re not staying in any one place like so many RV’ers do because we’re traveling, I doubt that we’d have time to develop camp-site friends willing to babysit. So, when the time comes, we’ll have to have a conversation about getting a dog. More to follow in this post, perhaps, as Tika’s antics continue and when she decides to be photogenic.
If someone had predicted a couple of years ago that we’d be living in our motor-home and sharing the close-quarters with a cat, I’d have thought they were nuts. It’s amazing how life unfolds…
