A great battle begins over Thunder Paws

Remember how Toast Ed disparaged Thunder Paws as not being "half the cat" that Kaboodle was? If Toast Ed feels this way, then why is he cuddled up with Thunder Paws like this? Does it look like maybe the two are bonding?

I'll tell you what - they bonded! How they bonded!

This will become clear in future posts.

Now, if only the bonded pair could have a little more peaceful time to enjoy their bonding.

Nabysko spots them. "Thunder Paws is my cat!" she exclaims.

"No," Toast Ed retorts, "Thunder Paws is my cat!"

Nabysko moves in, determined to reclaim the kitten that she caused me to bring home from Sutton.

A great battle ensues.

Toast Ed is bigger and stronger, but Nabysko is filled with fire. She refuses to retreat. 

Nabysko wins. Kaboodle wonders about the commotion.

But don't think that this ended it. The battle would rage for most of the next decade - even after Toast Ed went off to Arizona to attend college. "Where's my cat, Thunder Paws?" Toast Ed would ask as soon as he would step back into the house for summer or Christmas break.

"He's my cat!" Nabysko would greet back.

"No, he's my cat!"

Even during long distance phone conversations they did this.

Kaboodle returns, decides Thunder Paws is okay

You will recall that when I brought the kitten that was about to become Thunder Paws home, Kaboodle became so angry with me that he swatted me with open claws. You will recall that I then scolded him and then, in a huff, he ran into the woods and disappeared.

You will recall that I had two things to keep me awake that night - the thunder paws of Thunder Paws pounding their way up and down the hall, and my great worry that Kaboodle had left us for good.

Ha! You can see how silly that worry was! I took this picture the very next day.

Now, what about Toast Ed? You will recall that he, too, was upset with me for bringing Thunder home. He bitterly and sarcastically told me that Thunder Paws would not be half the cat that Kaboodle was.

So how did that work out?

Log back in, my friends... log back in. The answer is coming.

How the Kracker Cats came to be, part 14: Kaboodle - we make it through the winter, but I damn near die

As much as we loved him, we could not let Kaboodle freeload off us. So we set him to work, splitting wood with his sharp claws. He did a good job.

To any newcomers, or any old-timers who need a review, I suggest that before you read this, you click either on the label, "Kaboodle," or "How the Kracker Cats Came to be." 

I must wrap the Kaboodle intro section up, so that I can introduce the remainder of the original Kracker Cats. I have to leave to catch a plane to Fairbanks in less than an hour, so I will keep this very short.

In short, despite the great ignorance that I had in me toward cats, we made it through the winter, with all of us very much in love, even if there was a certain amount of strive and contention in our lives - because Kaboodle was that kind of cat - sweet, yet combative and contentious. 

And, as I said, he played rough. So it happened that when spring finally came, I was out on the Iditarod Trail, following a specific musher with my airplane, the Running Dog, as he ran his dogs from Anchorage to Nome.

In the village of Kaltag, where the trail turns off the Yukon River and makes its way through a low range of mountains toward Unalakleet, at the edge of Norton Sound, I chatted with a vet as he gave the dog team I was following an exam.

I asked him about cats, and if they ever scratched him when he examined them.

One day, I stepped into the living room and found him like this. He had worked so hard to split that wood, I figured he deserved to chill out and relax.

"Oh, yes!" he said. "Frequently. Getting scratched by cats is part of being a vet."

So I took off my various coats and jackets, rolled up my woolen sleeves, and showed him the scars and scabs Kaboodle had left on my arm - not in meanness but in play.

His eyes went wide. "Wow!" he said. "You have an extraordinary cat!"

As the race moved toward the finish line, I grew every more sluggish and lethargic; my body and limbs seemed to be stiffen. Ordinary movement became more difficult. I chalked it up it to the physical demands placed upon even a photographer who follows this grueling race, even in a little airplane.

But when I got home and tried to catch up on my rest, it did no good. 

The sluggishness grew worse, and I stiffened more. Pain set into my legs and joints and then grew to become unbearable. By late April, I could hardly walk, it hurt so bad. But the ice on the lake that I had parked the Running Dog was about to rot and melt, so I made a heroic effort. In great pain, I taxied the plane off the lake onto the shore, removed the skis and put my wheels back on.

This left me in such pain that Sunflower rushed me to Anchorage. The doctor looked me over, speculated that I had sarcoidosis - a disease that can kill and recently did kill the actor, Bernie Mac. The doctor subscribed Prednizone.

I got well again.

Later, I was reading something, somewhere, and I saw the words, "catscratch disease." I read the article. The symptoms were identical to what I had suffered, what the doctor diagnosed as sarcoidosis. 

.....hmmmmm?

How the Kracker Cats came to be, part 13: Having just found it, Kaboodle loses his tomhood

After my nerve-wracking flight through the deep freeze, I entered the house to find this strange scene taking place.

I hung up the phone and then went to bed. There in the Iñupiat Eskimo village of Kaktovik, the only community located within the boundaries of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), I dreamed about one of my children. I woke up, fell asleep, and dreamed about another child. I don't remember the order of the dreams, nor even the content, but each dream was about one child, and that child only. I had a dream for every single one.

Then I dreamed about Kaboodle.

A few days later, I chatted nervously with the Running Dog as we flew south. The temperature had been –29 F. at take-off, one degree shy of the floor beyond which I keep the Running Dog on the ground. The reported temperature at Fairbanks, where I planned to spend the night, was -16. As I flew over the Arctic Slope, my thermometer fell to -48 degrees. I knew that down on the ground, it would be even colder.

Fearing that my engine oil would chill and turn hard and cause my engine to burn up, I searched for a warmer layer of air. I contemplated the possibility of a forced landing out here on the tundra of the Arctic Slope, far from the things of people. I thought about my survival gear. I was not convinced it would be adequate for what I would face if I had to put the Running Dog on the ground.

But the engine did not burn. I found a layer of –26 degree air and I stayed in it until I reached Coldfoot, where I landed. The temperature was –36. I went into the café, ordered dinner, ate it and then, as darkness had set in, decided to spend the night.

When I woke up, the temperature was –44; fourteen degrees below my floor. But I knew that there would be warmer air a short distance above the ground, so I fired up my little Coleman stove, piped the hot air over the oil pan and up into the engine and when my oil grew warm enough to flow, I started the engine. I let the plane slowly warm up at a gradually increasing idle for two hours, then took off and headed home.

When I buzzed the house, I expected the kids to bounce out the door in the normal way, but only Toast Ed stepped out to wave at me. He climbed into the mini-van and drove off to pick me up at the airstrip, then brought me home.

I expected at least my girls to burst out the front door and run to greet me, but they did not.

No one did.

I was irritated and hurt.

I sneaked quietly into the house. The front room was dark, but I could see light coming from the hallway. Down that hall, I heard screaming and in it I recognized the horrified voices of my wife, my daughters, and two of my sons, plus a horrid, horrid, caterwauling and great commotion - thumping, bumping, thrashing sounds - coming from the bathroom.

I rushed in to see what was the matter. This is what I found:

Kaboodle was in the tub surrounded by the other members of my family. Rye had a bucket of almost hot water, which he was pouring over Kaboodle. Sunflower fought to hold him still. He was coated with lather from some kind of disinfectant soap. The vet had ordered a bath for the cat, for some reason I'm still unclear about. Other than the regular tongue lashings he gave himself, Kaboodle had never had a bath.

He looked tiny, skinny, like he was nothing but a wet bag of bones.

Now could Rye have ever thought he was pregnant?

Kaboodle was screaming, lashing out with his claws, striking nothing. Occasionally, he would break free and start lunging about, while everybody screamed and stumbled all over each other as they tried to grab him.

I tried to take some pictures, but, as Kaboodle sank a claw into Sunflower's hand, it quickly became obvious to me that he was overpowering everybody. I put my camera down, and grabbed Kaboodle by the nape of his neck and his lower back.

He hissed, meowed and screamed. He shot a claw slashing at thin air. I was amazed at the strength of the skinny, slippery, little thing. Even so, I felt like a dreadful bully, holding him down like that.

Holding tight to his neck, I let go of Kaboodle's back, grabbed the water, and rinsed him off, again and again.

Finally, the job done, I wrapped Kaboodle in a towel. I took him into the living room, and placed him by the woodstove, which roared against the chill of the night.

"Oh no!" Sunflower suddenly howled. "Look at his tail! The tip isn't white anymore! We washed the white right off his tail! I loved that white tip!"

"You can't wash the white tip off a cat's tail," I protested. "How could you do that?"

"I don't know, but look, it's gone!" she insisted. I looked. It was gone.

As Kaboodle dried out, the white tip gradually reappeared, fluffier and whiter than before.

I am still puzzled about that bath. We have since had several other cats neutered and no other vet ever ordered a bath.

Finally, Sunflower wrapped her arms around me. "Glad you're home, kid," she said as a shattered cat huddled between the wood stove and the stone firewall.

Less than 48 hours later, this cat went to the vet, and lost all hope of fathering any posterity - save any kittens he might have already snuck in, back when we worried he was out getting pregnant.

I will not describe his ordeal at the vet.

Suffice it to say that when the cat returned home, his confidence was shot. He wanted to do nothing but slink from hiding place to hiding place.

Finally, I got around to reading the informational paper the vet had sent home with us. It congratulated us for having had the wisdom to get our cat neutered. In just weeks, it noted, we would be thrilled to observe various aspects of "objectionable male behavior" disappear from our cat.

“Objectional male behavior?” Boy! Was I offended!

Poor Kaboodle! Afterward, he still loved us.

How the Kracker Cats came to be, part 12: Looking pregnant, Kaboodle ventures into the snow - boy! Were we fooled!

Kaboodle in the snow, belly looking big. Was she pregnant?

Kaboodle had grown well, and had filled out nicely.

A little too nicely, Rye thought.

"I think Kaboodle is pregnant," he announced one day.

It did seem that she was carrying a little excess weight around her mid-section.

I picked her up, and prodded her belly with my finger tips.

"I don't feel anything moving in there."

"I think she's pregnant, Dad," Rye insisted "look at her."

We had planned to have her fixed. Now I tried to picture the kittens she might deliver. Well, if she did, it wouldn't be so bad. We could keep the prettiest one - maybe it would look just like her. We would have it from the moment of its birth and that would make our relationship special. We would give the rest away. Then we would get Kaboodle fixed.

Perhaps being pregnant could explain some of her strange behavior.

In early October, Kaboodle greeted the first real snow with disbelief, and wonder. She sat by the sliding glass door, staring up at the large, gently fluttering flakes. We let her onto the porch. At first, she swatted at the flakes, attempting to grab and bite them. Soon overwhelmed, she just sat and watched. The next morning, the snow was piled up one foot deep. Kaboodle plunged off the front porch into the driveway, then panicked as she became engulfed in powder. She struggled to the car, then hid beneath it. Ten minutes passed, and I could not coax her out. Finally, I reached under the car, grabbed Kaboodle by the nape of the neck, hauled her out and brought her into the house.

This is the spool in which I had once made a house for her. 

Later, the boys shoveled the driveway. Enough cars had passed by to leave some well-packed tire ruts. Kaboodle ventured outside and disappeared About 15 minutes later, I opened the door and looked outside. I could not see her. Fifteen minutes later, I spotted her running down the street through one of the ruts. She turned into the driveway, dashing for the porch. There, she lifted one paw at a time, shook it it, and bit it. Snow was caked on her fur. She was not happy.

As the winter deepened, Kaboodle lost the freedom to roam the outdoors at will. She began to pace restlessly about the house. She attacked hands and feet. She climbed into sacks and boxes, and tore things apart.

One day, I climbed into the Running Dog, punched the starter, the propeller began to sping and the Dog and I took off once again to the Far North. "Be sure and take Kaboodle in and get her shots," I had advised Sunflower just before takeoff. "If she's not pregnant, see about getting her fixed."

"I'll do it tomorrow," she promised.

It took the Dog and I two days to work our way through the weather to our destination, 700 air miles away. I found a phone and called Sunflower.

Kaboodle - the snow cat.

"We took Kaboodle to the vet today, to get a shot, and a checkup." Sunflower told me over the phone, "and guess what?"

"What?" I was tired, and in no mood for guessing games.

"Kaboodle is a.......... boy!"

"Oh. Did you find out if he's pregnant?"

A sudden scream tore out of the phone.

"That cat just attacked my legs!" Sunflower explained. She had already made arrangments to have him neutered.

Tryskuit came on the phone.

She spoke of how they had gone sledding at Hatcher Pass, and how she had ran into a car in the parking lot. I chewed her out for that. "It's okay, Dad," she said, "the car was parked, it wasn't moving."

"Yea, but it could have been," I told her. "Don't you slide into a parking lot or roadway, ever."

As she was telling me about the clothes she had purchased on a recent trip to Anchorage, and as I was wondering where the money had come from, Tryskuit suddenly screamed.

"The cat just attacked my leg," she exclaimed.

Fire got on the phone, to tell me about a school project he was excited about. Twice, he stopped to scream. Kaboodle had attacked his legs.

It happened this way with each of my children. They got on the phone, began to tell me something, then screamed when Kaboodle attacked their legs.

Somehow, Kaboodle knew that his attacks should be directed at whoever happened to be talking on the phone.

We didn't know - perhaps because we were all so polite.

How the Kracker Cats came to be, part 11: Bird dog is given fake duck, spots live cat

After I rescued her, Kaboodle did not acknowledge my heroism; she expressed no gratitude that I had saved her. She just hid, like she was frightened of me.

On a crisp, golden September afternoon, Nabysko and I sat on the back porch. Kaboodle frolicked in the yard, batting at the dried-out remnants of the once-glorious fireweed, occasionally knocking down one of the remnants of the insect population from its course of flight. The mosquitoes were gone. It was pleasant to just sit on the porch, and watch Kaboodle, the trees of the forest, and Gene working on his dog house.

Gene had never struck me as a dog person, but now he had a golden retriever which he had spent a substantial amount of money on.

Gene and I always got along well, though our views of the world were quite different. When we moved out into this subdivision, fresh-cut from the wilderness, I was pleased to have a one acre yard filled with the trees, plants and inhabitants of the forest which surrounded us. Gene and Myrene were also pleased with the beauty of the location, but were intent on making their piece of it look just as it would if they still lived down south, in domesiticated Minnesota. Although their driveway led to a dirt road, they paved it. They cut down all but the most stately of their trees, then hired a bull-dozer to come in and push their earth around. This was followed by a truck which spread several tons of top soil. In this, they planted grass.

Our conversations in those days were friendly and polite, but a little strained. "You know," Gene would offer, "as long as he's here, if you wanted to ask our landscaper how much he would charge to do your yard, it would be fine with us. We sure got a good deal!"

"See that squirrel?" I would point into my own, wild backyard. "See how it leaps from tree to tree, over that patch of flaming fireweed? Damn, it's wonderful!"

"I suppose. Well, we've got a little girl now, and she is going to need a safe place to play, a yard, with grass."

I thought about noting my own five kids, growing up frolicking in the trees, playing with yellowjackets and frogs, but that seemed kind of confrontive. I did not want to generate bad feelings, but, if I had wanted to fritter away my few, free, precious summer hours at home mowing some damned grassy lawn, I would have stayed in the Lower 48.

Gene never had a dog when he was a kid, but now he had one. He took the whole thing pretty seriously. He named the dog "JB."

Gene's had never been a hunter, either, but now he was.

A duck hunter.

His dog would be a duck hunter, too.

Kaboodle and Wry - during a less stressful moment.

In the evenings Kaboodle and I would listen as Gene blew his shrill whistle, again and again and again. With this whistle, he would teach his dog to hunt. He would throw a fake duck, blow his whistle, then make the dog go get the fake duck and bring it back to him.

It worried me a bit, having this hunting dog living next door to Kaboodle, with no fence between us, but Gene assured me that JB was gentle, and harmless and that, if she were to get a little “playful,” he would be right there and would immediately bring her under control.

On a fine Sunday afternoon, Gene was once again making JB fetch a fake duck. Nabysko and Tryskuit had taken Kaboodle out into the back yard. I had been lazily curled up on the couch, relaxing happily as I read stories of war, murder, political sleaziness - all the usual fare of the Sunday paper.

As cat and girls romped happily in our back back yard, Gene was training JB in his. As usual, Gene tosse his fake duck, then blew a command on his whistle. JB looked at the fake duck that he was supposed to fetch. Then JB looked at Kaboodle.

The duck was a fake.

Kaboodle was real cat, made of genuine flesh, blood, and fur.

If you were a born hunting dog, which would you prefer to pursue?

Fake duck? Live cat?

Suddenly, the peace of Sunday disappeared in the screams of little girls, the barking of JB, the shouts of Gene, and the hissing and snarling of Kaboodle.

Dropping the newspaper, I shot out onto the back porch.

Kaboodle had just conducted an evasive maneuver, which had caused JB to stumble harmlessly past. Now, the cat turned to face the dog, to see what it would do. I was impressed with the classic cat arch, and the classic baring of teeth Kaboodle demonstrated. I had not seen her quite like this before. I felt bad I did not have my camera.

Kaboodle's theatrics failed to impress JB, however. Recovering, he turned, and charged.

Kaboodle dashed for the far end of the house. I knew where she was headed. I charged back into the house, through the living room, and out the front door. Kaboodle had already rounded the last corner and was dashing for the front porch. JB was hot on her paws. I expected Kaboodle to dash underneath the porch, but, in her panic, she overshot the mark.

Realizing what she had done, Kaboodle turned back for the porch.

It was too late. JB was closing in.

Making a flying leap, I snatched Kaboodle up just as JB's open jaws prepared to clamp down upon her. Leaving JB to the shouts of her master, I plunged through the door and into the house.

Kaboodle was safe.

I expected a little gratitude, some sign of appreciation that I snatched her out of the very jaws of death.

I put Kaboodle on the floor.

She fled, and hid under my desk, as if I was the one who had been chasing her. For the rest of the day, she fled in terror every time her eyes fell upon me. This irritated me greatly.

The next day, Kaboodle was fine. She followed me around as usual. Wherever I went, she went. It was nice.

Tryskuit comforts Kaboodle. Kaboodle sticks her tongue out at me.

How the Kracker Cats came to be, part 10: So tell me, where did the stereotype of the sweet old lady and the gentle pussycat come from?

Kaboodle was so sweet - Kaboodle was so conniving. Sometimes, it seemed she was two cats, not one.

In truth, much began to change with our cat.

While she did not develop ringworm, she began to exhibit some of the characteristics which had made Sunflower and I think we did not want a cat in our house.

At first, it was all rather endearing.

Take her food, for example. Kaboodle would come in from the out of doors, hungry. Her food dish would be 3/4's full. She would sit down beside it, look at me. "Meow," she would say. This "meow" meant, "feed me."

"Kaboodle! You have plenty of food in your dish. Eat that."

"Meow."

So, I would get her food bottle and pour the tiniest bit into her bowl, atop the larger serving that was already there. Satisfied that she had been properly served, she would eat.

When she wanted to go outside, she would sit by the door, expecting someone to open it for her. It seldom took more than a few seconds before her wish was catered to. When she wanted to come back inside, she would leap onto the back porch, walk up to the sliding glass door, sit down, and wait expectantly for someone to jump to her command, and open the door for her.

Naturally, there would be a race to see who could be the first to serve this cat.

My family would have done well in ancient Egypt.

She would take a seat in the rocking chair. A human member of the family would stroll in to watch television, intent on sitting in the chair. "Damn," that person, even Fire, would mutter. "The cat beat me to the chair." Then he or she would sit on the floor.

This, as I say, served only to further endear her to the entire family.

More annoying were other traits.

How haughty she became!

Oh, I didn't mind the fact that dead shrews, killed strictly for pleasure and not food, repeatedly showed up on the porch. No. She was a hunter by instinct. Maybe, one day, she would need that hunting skill.

Kaboodle would stroll into the house, someone would pick her up, set her on their lap, and begin to pet her. Naturally, what we all expected when we did this was that she would sit there and purr, as she had done when she first came to us.

Ha!

She would tolerate this for about two seconds, leap to her feet, and, radiating disdain, shake off the person so showering her with affection, and prance over to someone else.

When the snubbed person was me, I felt shunned, insulted.

"Wait till winter," I would threaten. "I'm going to tie your tail to a branch, and throw snowballs at you!"

This wasn't all.

I would be walking trough the house, the cat would spot me, crouch down like I was some kind of enemy, then dash off and hide under something, or crawl into a box.

I, who had saved her from starvation; I, who had opened my door to her, brought her in from the cold, and catered to her every whim, being treated like this, as someone to shun, to hide from!

Sometimes, I would grab her, force her to remain on my lap, and stroke her fur while her tail swished, and an unpleasant, impatient growl emanated from her throat. Stupid. I did not know. One can force affection upon a dog and the dog will like it, but not a cat. One can force nothing upon a cat.

See her walking across the floor, reach down to pet her, and she would roll suddenly onto her back, wrap her front claws around your hand, grab a hold of your finger with her teeth, and then do a rabbit kick with her hind paws on your hand and lower arm.

Though she showed some restraint, considering her capabilities, having your hand clutched, even gently by those claws, was like having your hand clutched gently by a dozen razor blades.

It wasn't always gently. Sometimes she would get so carried away, clutching, kicking and biting so exuberantly that her claws would pierce skin. One would want to tear one’s hand away this cat, but one somehow knew that to do so would only leave the hand slashed and torn.

The boys thought this was great, and encouraged it.

They would put a heavy glove on one hand, and offer it to the cat. Kaboodle saw the glove as an invititation to attack with full ferocity. She did so - biting, clawing, and growling.

I tried the glove a few times myself.

Kaboodle would see the glove go on. Her ears would perk up, her eyes would glow with fierce intensity. She would leap to the attack. Truly, Kaboodle went after the glove far more fiercely than she did an unprotected hand – much more fiercely. This confirmed to me that she was playing, not really trying to inflict true damage, but, those claws! If they accidently slipped above the glove to unprotected skin, that skin became torn and ripped. Blood flowed.

I wondered about the stereotypical image of the sweet old lady and the gentle pussycat. Where had such an image come from? Kaboodle would have taken that sweet old lady and left her in shreds.

"I think I'm going to get this cat de-clawed," I began to threaten. "I'm going to get it neutered, so it can't have kittens, and I'm going to get it de-clawed."

"Dad," Rye would protest. "That's cruel. Kaboodle won't be any fun without her claws. Besides, a dog might get her."

"Dad," Fire added, "one day, Dallas and I spotted Scout running down the road with a cat in his mouth."

"A cat in his mouth?"

"Yes."

"Dead or alive?"

"Dead. Fresh dead. It was torn up. Blood was dripping all over the road. That could be Kaboodle if you get her de-clawed."

It pained me to think of Scout as a cat-murderer. Fire had won the argument. Kaboodle would not get declawed. As to being spayed, that was, as they say, a different story.

And look what she did to her litter!

How the Kracker Cats Came to be, Part 9: I had so much to learn about cats! What a dummy I was! Oh, Kaboodle! I am so sorry - to this day I am sorry

Does Kaboodle look frightened? I am so sorry, Kaboodle!

It was good to have a cat in house; a member of a different species commingling with us humans in a state of pure love and total trust.

Yea.

Sure.

The leg-hold trap of bad times was just waiting for the right moment to spring; to clamp its steel jaw upon the frail joint that held us divergent species together.

The first hint of hard times came after I returned from a shoot in the northeast corner of Alaska. I had developed about 40 rolls of film and had then hung it up to dry, in the bathroom, on the telephone cord I long ago strung above the bathtub, just for this purpose.

Later, as I sat on the couch, reading, I suddenly heard something crash into the bathtub.

I jumped up, and dashed toward the noise. As I charged into the hallway, the cat pranced out of the bathroom. She spotted me coming, and, ears alert, dropped into a spring-loaded, guilty-looking position.

"Cat!" I accused. "What did you do?"

She sprang to flee, but I lashed out with my right hand and caught her by the nape of the neck. With my left hand, I grabbed the lower part of her spinal column. I tore her from the floor and marched into the bathroom. The telephone cord and all my hard-shot film was splayed all about the bathtub - a month's work. What priceless images had she ruined? Without modifying my grasp, I pointed her eyes and out-stretched legs at the film.

"Look what you did!" I shouted. "Bad kitty! No! No! No! Never do that again. No! No! No! You have ruined me! Bad kitty!" Then I marched to the front door, let go of her with my left hand, opened the door, and hurled her out into the yard. Kaboodle landed on her feet, then slinking low to the ground, scurried away and disappeared into the trees.

Come bedtime, she had not returned. I was wracked with guilt. My film had survived with irreprable damage. "She's just doing what any cat would do," I lamented to Sunflower, "just grabbing at anything that hangs and dangles (as I had rudely discovered one day while stepping out of the shower). She's never been treated like this before. No one here has ever been anything but nice to her. I'm worried we might not ever see her again."

"She'll be back," Sunflower comforted, "just wait until she gets hungry."

I wasn't convinced.

I let Sunflower go to bed by herself and I stayed up and worked late, until 2:30 AM. I frequently arose from my desk to go to the door and look out in the night, which had become dark again. No Kaboodle.

When finally I gave, I left the sliding glass back door open wide enough for her to slip in. I lay there, miserable. I did not sleep. At 5:00 AM, I got up and searched the house to see if she might have come in. No Kaboodle.

I stepped outside, looked under the porch and in all her favorite spots.

No Kaboodle.

"Here-kitty-kitty-kitty; here kitty-kitty-kitty-kitty!" I trilled in my most reassuring voice. No Kaboodle. She was not coming back. My children would hate me. Twenty years from now, our relationship would still be soiled by the irrational, uncontrolled fury of this never-to-be-forgotten moment. I hated myself.

I loved that cat, and I had driven her away.

I crawled back under the cover alongside Sunflower, who groaned with disgust. I arose about 9:00 in the morning, having slept no more than ten or fifteen minutes at a tiome. Weighed down by sorrow, I staggered into the living room.

"What's that I hear?"

Purring!

There, on the couch, cuddled in and kneading the prostrate Tryskuit's hair, was Kaboodle!

She had returned!

Life was good.

For a little while.

Kaboodle at the sliding door.

How the Kracker Kats came to be, Part 8*: Just how does one teach a cat to use the litter box?

The Whole Kitten Kaboodle atop her litter box.

Of course, having a cat living in the house with us presented some problems to be solved. The most important, as far as I was concerned, was how to house break her. I knew how to house-break a dog. As a child, this is how I had been taught to do it: gagging, you shove the dog's nose almost into what he has done, and then give him a couple of sharp but not brutal swats on the nose. Then you put him outside.

Soon, the dog gets the idea. He holds it in until he can escape outdoors.

With Kaboodle, I sensed early that striking her, even gently, would only be counterproductive. She would just resent it.

So, how did you house-break a cat?

Especially one set in her ways. I figured Kaboodle was about six months old when I first met her. Now she was a month older than that.

I went to the store and read the litter sacks, hoping they would have instructions.

They did not.

One night we were discussing it.

"Too bad we can't teach her to use the toilet," I lamented. "Like that one guy I read about in the newspaper did to his cat awhile back."

Toast Ed had not heard of this. I assured him it was true. "He even taught the cat how to flush the toilet afterward," I noted. "They had no need for kitty litter."

"How weird," Toast mused, "to open the bathroom door and find the cat sitting there. 'Oh, excuse me, Cat! I didn't know you were in here.'" Toast laughed at his own mental image. "The cat would probably be sitting there, reading the paper."

For some time, we did nothing.

Kaboodle seemed to enjoy having the place where she lived kept clean and so we found no "accidents" anywhere in the house. She spent a good deal of time outside. That was where she took care of her private business. Yet, snow had already dusted the mountains. Soon it would move down into the valley.

One evening, Toast thundered out of his room, throwing about accusations that someone had used his football jersey for a most unseemly task. The jersey was soiled with poop.

"Toast," I stammered, stunned, "nobody in this house would do that! Maybe it was the cat."

"No," Toast jumped to Kaboodle's defense. "It is not the cat. The cat wouldn't do something like that."

Sunflower and I went to investigate.

The jersey was soiled with cat poop, all right. There was more cat poop on the other dirty clothing piled in the closet corner where the jersey had been.

I went to the store, bought some litter, and a box to put it in.

I filled the box.

"I don't have the slightest idea how to communicate to that cat that this is where she goes," I lamented to Sunflower.

"I've never dealt with cats," she answered.

Later, I was working at my computer when I was interrupted by a cry from Sunflower.

"Grahmmy! come here! Quick!"

I dashed towards her voice, fearing what damage I would find.

Kaboodle was squatting in the litter box, using it for the very purpose for which it had been designed. Soon, I noticed that every member of the family had gathered around.

"C'mon," I said, "Do you think this is some kind of spectator sport? Let's give the damned cat some privacy."

*Please note: I accidently juxtaposed this and story #7. This one, #8, actually happened first. It's possible that #9 also happened before #7.

Tryskuit and Kaboodle.

How the Kracker Cats came to be, part 7: Pitted against the family lawyer, Nabysko proves Kaboodle to be a person

Nabysko and Kaboodle in the backyard.

Soon, Tryskuit and her brothers returned to school. Nabysko entered for the first time. One day when the leaves had turned bright orange and red, she, Sunflower, Fire and I were driving somewhere. Nabysko decided to put on a demonstration of how smart she had become since enrolling in kindergarten

"I know how many people are in this family," she proclaimed.

"How many?" Fire asked.

"Eight!" Nabysko responded, proudly.

"No, seven," Fire retorted.

"Eight."

"Seven."

"Eight."

"Seven. Nabysko! Count them. There's Mom, one; Dad, two; Toast, three; Rye, four; me, five; Tryskuit, six, and you, seven. Seven. There are seven people in this family."

"Kitten Kaboodle."

"You said 'people.' Kaboodle is not people. Kaboodle is a cat."

"Kaboodle is a member of this family." Nabysko grew testy.

"Yes," Fire was getting annoyed, "but she's not a person. She is not people."

"Kitten Kaboodle Kracker."

"She is a cat!"

"Kitten Kaboodle Kracker!"

"A cat."

"Kitten Kaboodle Kracker!"

"Cat!"

"Kitten Kaboodle Kracker!"

When he was two, we began to call Fire our lawyer. From that time forth, it had become all but impossible for anyone to gain the upper hand on him in an argument. Still, he fell silent. He had been out-lawyered by a little girl, and he knew it.

Fire felt so badly after being out-lawyered by Nabysko that he took a nap with The Whole Kitten Kaboodle.

How the Kracker Cats came to be, part 6: The Whole Kitten Kaboodle takes control

Nabysko, Tryskuit and Kaboodle.

Synopsis: I, a despiser of cats, dreamed about a kitten; I flew home from Point Hope to see the kitten step out of my dream into real life; Nabysko argued that we should keep the kitten. I said "no!" To explain how I had been brainwashed to believe that I despised cats, I recounted childhood pet tradgedies involving a duckling, a robin, a kitten and a puppy.

"Please, Daddy, please? Mom thinks Kitty is pretty," Nabysko pleaded from the porch. It was only now beginning to dawn on me that my wife and children had met this kitten before, probably while I was still in Point Hope, or flying home.

"Go get me some more ham," I told Nabysko.

She scurried into the house, then quickly returned, gripping a 12-ounce package of lunch meat. The kitten looked incapable of taking big bites. I opened the package, then tore off a tiny piece of ham. I held it out to the kitten. Gingerly, nose twitching, head bobbing lightly it sniffed the food, then took the offering. It ate that ham in a way that made even one so hardhearted towards as myself feel sympathy.

Nabysko laughed. I tore off more ham. The process repeated itself. "Let me feed Kitty, Daddy!" Nabysko said, grabbing the ham from me. She tore it into little pieces, and forced herself between the kitten and me. I felt a little annoyed -- I wanted to feed the kitten! I thought about pushing Nabysko aside, but I figured that she might protest and cause her mother to become upset with me.

Nabysko would hold out a piece of ham, then, squealing with delight, recoil her arm as the little feline pierced the meat with its sharp canines and took it from her.

"Maybe that's enough ham," I said after she had fed the kitten about five small pieces. "Maybe it's too small to eat much meat. We better give it some milk." Nabysko quickly retrieved a carton of milk and a small bowl from inside the house. I poured the milk. The kitten went for it.

"Yep," Nabysko purred. "Looks like it's our kitty now."

Kaboodle, Nabysko, Tryskuit. My darling daughters! How did you grow so fast? Our beautiful first cat! We knew so little about cats - only that we loved you.

"Nabysko, we can't keep this cat," I said gently, trying to think of another reason. "You might get ringworm."

"I won't get ringworm," Nabysko said stubbornly. "You'll get ringworm if we don't keep Kitty."

Nabysko knew nothing of this childhood affliction that had so tortuously beset the child me, given to me by a treacherous kitten, and I did not know how to tell her.

"Daddy, please!"

“No,” I said emphatically. “We cannot keep the kitten.” At some point, we got up, went into the house and closed the door upon the kitten.

Come the next morning, I rushed to the back door, worried, but was relieved to see the kitten sitting on the porch. And so, as I insisted that we could not keep it, and Sunflower did the same, we began to feed the kitten regularly, to give it milk and water.

And then, on another day not long after, I again found myself sitting on the back porch with the kitten and Nabysko. Tryskuit was with us as well.

“Daddy,” Tryskuit stated emphatically. “We must keep this kitten. She needs a home. See how she loves us, Daddy? And we love her. All of us. You too. I can tell, no matter what you say.”

“Yes, Daddy,” Nabysko took up the argument. “You love her, too. We must keep the kitten.”

"I don't know," I said. "It's got a little more meat on its bones, but it's still mighty skinny. It would hardly make a good meal."

"Daddy!"

The girls knew that I regularly ate the flesh of many animals not found in stores -- whale, seal, polar bear, black bear, grizzly bear, beaver, muskrat, walrus. When we lived in the Lower 48, there were raccoon, skunk, rattlesnake, frogs -- I'd eaten them all, and all had proven tasty and healthy.

"Why not a cat?" I taunted them. "Surely, if properly prepared, a cat should prove delicious. I heard they taste just like rattlesnake, which, as everybody knows, tastes just like chicken."

"Daddy!"

Kaboodle sleeps on the bed I share with Sunflower.

Then came the arguments over names.

I suggested "Brunch . . . cooked with onions."

This was voted down.

"We're not going to eat her for breakfast, we're not going to eat her for lunch, or in between either," Tryskuit retorted.

“Her.”

Somewhere along the line, somebody had investigated the space between the kitten's hind legs and had not found much there but fur and so had concluded it was female. The kitten liked to sleep stretched out on its back, legs spread. I noticed nothing to contradict this observation.

"Well, darn it." I groped for a bad pun. "Let's just throw the whole kitten kaboodle into the stewpot."

"Kitten Kaboodle," Nabysko laughed. "The Whole Kitten Kaboodle!" From that day forward the kitten became known as:

“The Whole Kitten, Kaboodle.”

"Kitten Kaboodle.""Kaboodle."

"Bood."

The name Kaboodle offered several culinary possibilities, which I tried out on the girls. There was "Kaboodle and Noodles," "Oodles of Kaboodle," "Kaboodle Strudel" and, in a scrumptious cross-blending of species, "Minced Poodle and Kaboodle."

Toast Ed and Kaboodle nap on the couch.

As for Kaboodle, she spent all her time outside. She was not our cat after all, but only a visitor whose presence I barely tolerated. So why would I allow her into the house. Furthermore, she made no attempt whatsover to enter the house. If the door was open, she would stop politely at the threshold.

If Kaboodle wasn't on the front porch, she was under it, or on the back porch, or under the upside-down canoe. I reasoned that she needed some kind of shelter for the days of rain. We kept an old wooden, cable, spool with a large, cylindrical hollow in in the middle of it in the back yard. I build a cat sized home for her inside that cylinder and padded the floor with warmi blankets.

I then stuffed Kaboodle inside to show her that she had an exceptionally nice and cozy home in there. She promptly jumped out, and never stepped in again. Any other small place, even with nothing but rocks to lie on, would do, but my special gift was rejected.

One morning, a neighbor girl showed up at our house, scooped up Kaboodle, said this was her cat, and took her home. In the afternoon, Kaboodle returned. I then made the girls return Kaboodle to her rightful owner repeatedly. This process repeated itself several times.

"You can keep her," the girl told Tryskuit the next time we saw her. "We don't really want that cat. That cat is just trouble! I don’t even like that cat."

Neither Sunflower nor I had yet agreed that the cat could actually stay with us. In fact, when asked, I continued to insist that we could not keep her.

The weather was nice now, but winter wasn't far away. Living on the porch, Kaboodle soon would find herself facing temperatures far below zero.

One day, after she had been with us for about three weeks, Kaboodle followed me to the door where, as usual, she stopped and sat down at the threshold. I stepped inside, then turned to face her.

"Well," I said, "you might as well come inside. We can't leave you out there to freeze to death come winter."

Kaboodle's ears perked up. A look of pleased disbelief lit her face. I was a little stunned myself, for it appeared as though she understood exactly what I had said.

"Me?" she seemed to be asking, "Me? You are inviting me to come into your lair, where only humans are allowed to tread?"

"Yes," I motioned. "You. C'mon in."

Kaboodle stood up, raised her tail high into the air, pranced inside and looked around. Our house was now hers and she would be quick to take possession of it and to claim dominion over all its occupants.

Now every member of the family, from little Nabysko up to Toast Ed, became incapable of carrying on a conversation without somehow bringing the cat into it.

Toast Ed would return from pitching an American Legion baseball game and, if he did not see Kaboodle, would enter the house with a worried expression on his face. "Where's the cat?"

"Don't worry," his mother would say. "It's around here somewhere." Although he was entering his junior year, and prided himself on being one of the toughest football players at Wasilla High School, the sight of Toast Ed curled up on the couch sleeping with the cat curled up atop him or cuddled in his arms became a common one.

Fifteen-year-old Rye would run about the house dragging a string behind him, the cat happily in pursuit.
Thirteen-year-old Fire would engage in wrestling matches with the cat.

At night, Kaboodle would leap onto the top bunk with Tryskuit, stretch out on her long locks and go to sleep. As for Nabysko, every sentence became "kitty this" and "kitty that." Each night before going to bed, she and Tryskuit would ask me to tell them a cat story. I would then sit down on the bottom bunk with Nabysko, create a character and then tell its story.

I was always just as curious as the girls were to find out how these stories would develop and then end.

Tryskuit and Nabysko became obsessed with cat books, cat calendars, cat pillows, cat cards, cat cups, plastic cats, ceramic cats. And I, who so despised all these things, happily purchased all these things for them.

I bought more cat knick-knacks than was healthy, more than I could afford.

Kaboodle soon began to assist me in my work.

How the Kracker Cats came to be, part 2: A kitten steps out of a dream

One of the two cats that were living in a log cabin within rifle-shot range of the Bettles Lodge. I did not know about them, I did not care. I would take this picture on a subsequent stop in Bettles, years later.

I like to imagine what a certain juvenile kitten might have been doing on the afternoon of July 5, 1991, as I approached Wasilla from the north. I had hoped to make the flight home from Point Hope in about eight hours – certainly, I wanted to arrive the same day that I left, July 2. The first delay I encountered came in the form of heavy rains and almost zero visibility over the Kobuk River, and so I was forced to land in the village of Shungnak and overnight there.

I got out the next day and flew deep into the Interior, where the rain yielded to sun and dry conditions. So dry, that I flew between the plumes of smoke from dozens of forest fires. I landed in Bettles, located on the Koyukuk River, a short distance from where it flows out of the Brooks Range, the farthest north mountains in the country.

I stopped there to gas up and to buy a sandwich at the Bettles Lodge, and to slake my thirst with a Pepsi. Not only did I not know there was a kitten hiding out in the woods behind my Wasilla home, but I did not know that there were two cats living in a log cabin within rifle-shot range of the lodge. I did not know, I did not care, and if someone had told me I would have thought, “so what?”

Three years earlier, I had flown my now deceased father into Bettles and overnight there. This is him, with my airplane, the Running Dog. You can see it was a very small plane, but it was a good one. I loved that dog. I miss it terribly. I hate being stuck to the ground, or forced to fly only in other people's airplanes.

By the time I finished my lunch and drank my Pepsi, smoke from the fires had drifted in over the runway and had dropped visibilities below minimum. I had no choice but to wait it out – and it turned into a two-day wait. Instead of being home, I spent the Fourth of July in Bettles. Before the night ended, I think I became the only guest at the lodge who did not get wildly and loudly drunk.

I was invited to join in, of course, but I had a plane to fly, a family to reach. I just wanted to sleep, wake up, find the smoke had moved on, get into my plane and go. But the noise of drunkenness rose in a steady crescendo from the pleasant banter and shy laughter that begins a party to the screeching, yelling, shouting, off-key, bellering singing, bodies slamming against walls crunch that so often ends it - in this case, punctuated by the explosion of firecrackers and the screaming whistle  of rockets. On the night of July 4, 1991, there was no sleep for me.

I arose bleary-eyed in the morning to see hat the smoke had thinned out. I got my shot and I took it. Just before I left, I overheard the attendant at the Flight Service Station tell the pilot in front of me that an airplane had disappeared. He told him to keep his eyes open and to check the emergency frequency now and then, but he didn't say anything to me about it when I stepped up for my weather briefing..

Still, as I headed south, I reqularly checked the emergency frequency– and was I surprised when, as I neared the Yukon River, I suddenly heard “Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!” It was the downed but uninjured pilot. I relayed the message to the Civil Air Patrol pilots searching for him and they went and got him.

Finally, I put the Yukon, the Tanana, the Nenana and Interior Alaska behind me; I flew past the massive flanks of Denali, aimed the Running Dog at a saddle in the Talkeetna Mountains directly head of me and then flew right into it.

As I exited the saddle, the mountains dropped sharply away and the lake spattered Matanuska - Susistna Valley appeared before me. About ten miles dead ahead was the spot that held my house and family. Almost immediately, I came upon a bald eagle, gliding at my same altitude. It locked one eye into mine and although I was most anxious to get back to Sunflower and the children, I pushed the stick hard to left and put the Running Dog into a steep bank and did a 360 degree turn around that eagle. As I did, it rotated around a pivot point in such a way that it’s unflinching eye never left mine. 

The only sign that the eagle moved at all was the changing patterns of light and shadow that flashed across its face, body and wings as it pivoted to watch me pass by.

I then leveled my wings and flew a bee-line straight toward a certain small, familiar, patch of marsh. Just beyond that, in the midst of the birch and spruce woods, sat the little red house with the green canoe in the back yard.  

It is at this point that I like to picture what the juvenile kitten might have been doing. I picture it nestled down in the woods behind our house, napping happily in the splotchy sunlight filtering down to the ground through the branches, birch leaves and spruce needles. As I draw near, the juvenile cat hears a sound that it has heard many times before – the drone of an airplane.

It cannot know just what that sound means, but it is a common one in the valley and so causes the cat no alarm. Even as it keeps its eyes closed, the kitten turns one ear toward the north, to follow the drone as it grows louder and louder and draws closer and closer.  The young cat hears the Running Dog. I do not know it, but the nose of the dog is pointed right at that kitten.

Suddenly, the kitten detects something unusual in the sound. The roar stops altogether, and is replaced by sound of an engine idling, a propeller slowly spinning, and of wings gliding, slicing, the air.

As I approach the swamp, I pull the throttle all the way back to idle, then shove the stick forward, forcing the nose of the Running Dog to point downward towards the swamp. This puts the tiny, wood-framed, rag-clad, airplane into a steep glide. It picks up speed as it swoops down over the swamp until finally its wingtips dip below the tops of the bordering trees.

Now the sound is strange to the kitten. Not threatening, just strange. More gentle than the growing roar of before, but unusual, a sound that it does not understand. The kitten has heard the sound of raven wings, beating and slicing the air, but it has never the sound airplane wings swooping.

The kittens eyes come open. The kitten is calm but tense, as it tries to determine is this sound signals a threat.

Now, as the wheels of the Running Dog near the level of the marsh grass, I shove the throttle full forward and pull back hard on the stick. This causes the Running Dog to roar mightily. I climb up over the trees behind the house, directly over the spot where I like to picture the cat to have been sleeping.

To the kitten, this roaring, beating, noise can only be terrifying. The poor little feline jumps up, and then flees madly in whatever direction its feet first fall.

At least, that's what I like to picture. What I know for certain happened is that, as the Running Dog rolled to full power, I climbed upward over the tops of the trees and then over the shingles of the little red house, then climbed above it in a tight, spiraling turn. 

I did not know about the juvenile stray cat hanging out in the narrow strip of woods that separated our house from the marsh. If I had known, the thought that the suddenly roaring engine of the Running Dog might have sent that cat fleeing in terror would have delighted me. In fact, I almost certainly would have turned that airplane around to swoop back down upon that cat, to terrify it, to send it fleeing far into the swamp. I would have then climbed up, turned back and then dive down on that kitten for a third time; I would have grazed its ears with one wheel of the dog, and then blasted its face with prop wash.

 
That cat would have fled until its legs gave out and its lungs collapsed; never again would it have dared to return to the Kracker house; never would there have been any critters known as the Kracker Cats.

This blog would not exist.

But I did not know, so, instead, I put the airplane into a climbing spiral over the house until two little girls bounced out the front door, waving their arms excitedly. Behind them, an assortment of older, rowdy boys tumbled out, followed by a beautiful, raven-haired woman. All waved happily, then climbed into the mini-van, backed out of the driveway, and began the five-mile the drive toward the Anderson Lake Airstrip. 

I flew above them, weaving and lollygaging about the sky 500 feet over the mini-van, slowing down my forward motion. In this way, we would reach the airstrip at the same time, and they could watch me land - my wife and children always loved to watch me land.

Early in the afternoon of the day following my return, I stepped out of the house with a ham sandwich in hand and took a seat on the back porch. It was the kind of beautiful summer day that I fear folks whose lives are restricted to the Lower 48 cannot know. The sun was warm and the sky deep, clear, clean, blue. At long last there was no snow, no cold. The leaves on the birch trees had sprouted into their full splendor of green, and now hung translucent in the sun. Except for the chittering of squirrels and the calls and songs of birds, it was quiet and peaceful. All was pleasant. I felt happy, relaxed.

Then I saw it -- the kitten, walking out of the shadows cast by the leaves onto the spongy, mossy, ground. Painted over a base kitten coat of white were splotches of gray, marbled with varying shades of black and brown. The green eyes of the juvenile feline bore into my own as it padded softly, silently, straight toward me, stopping occasionally to lift or drop its head in a kind of bobbing motion.

I knew I should yell and curse and scare it away, or perhaps pick up a rock or a stick and chuck it at the animal. But I did not. I just sat there on my porch as the kitten closed in on me. 

Soon, the kitten stood at my ankles. It looked up at me, then meowed. Next, it climbed onto my lap, then reached up, placed its paws in my beard and began to knead. I placed two fingers on its head, between its alert and friendly. Its fur was soft, pleasant to the touch. I gently scratched its crown, then let my hand run down its neck to the top of its back. The kitten purred.

It had stepped out of my dream and become real. 

I did not know it, but my life had just made a fundamental change. Nothing would ever be the same again.

The kitten who stepped out of a dream to become real.