The Blob

Thursday, August 22, 2002

The latest installment in further adventures of Java, the Wondercat

Faithful legions of readers of my self-important blogs are learning a lot about Java, our Ocicat. To mere mortals such as ourselves, we refer to her as either Java the Wondercat or simply, The Java (as in The Donald, The Steve, etc.). Below is yet another reason why.

First, you must understand that Java is not just the smartest cat I have ever met. She might be the smartest animal on this planet. Which makes me wonder if she is even of this world. Spend five minutes with her and you will understand. If you ask her a question, you get an answer. If she wants you attention, she'll jump up and flick on a light switch. I am not making this up. Java knows how to open door knobs. And there's more.

Anyway, yesterday morning, she was sitting on the bookshelf in our bedroom, looking out the window at the world behind our house in Irvine, California. Our zero-lot-line yard (well, more a patio) backs up to Orange County land. A large hill looms up behind us, blissfully blocking our house from the rest of the world. It also means that we have a front row seat with the world of nature. Every night, we are serenaded by at least a half dozen coyotes, howling at full volume from less than 50 yards (typically at 4 AM). Hundreds of birds land in our patio each morning. Deer have been seen nearby, and we are visited on occasion by grey squirrels, raccoons and bobcats. Overhead, we have owls, hawks, heron, ducks and turkey vultures. It's like having Animal Planet without having to pay for it. Crikey!

But I digress. Java was sitting by the window, looking out on all this. Suddenly, she started to scream. Loudly. Rita, my beautiful wife, ran to the window to see what on earth was going on. To her astonishment, Java had seen a tragedy in the making: Tony, our neighborhood hawk (we're pretty sure he's either a Sharp Shinned Hawk or a Cooper's Hawk, for those of you with binoculars) had spotted a little grey squirrel and was about to do a Desert Storm cruise-missile number on him, rendering the squirrel into breakfast. What Rita saw was that Java had anticipated all this, and was screaming to the squirrel in cat (or animal language): "GET THE HELL OUTTA THERE!! NOWW!!!!!!!!" This of course totally pissed off Tony the Hawk, who spent the better part of 10 minutes screeching back at Java for blowing his cover.

Move over, Lassie. You got competition, babe.

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