These bright green eyes and whiskers belong to Grandma Meow Moses.
We have another cat as well.
He is a teenage punk in a tuxedo named Tuna.
Grandma and Tuna go together like oil and water, only with teeth and claws and flying fur and bad, bad words.
The kind you have to bleep.
That is why my Sweet Sven and I, along with our geriatric puppy dog, Hunter, do all that we can to keep the two of them apart.
In order to keep the peace, a battered sign is taped to the door whenever Grandma Meow comes up from her fancy senior living basement apartment for a "visit".
Visit is in quotation marks as she really comes up for a bowl of milk and to find a place to take a nap.
Grandma "visits" often because Tuna goes out to play and to hunt down and kill innocent creatures, often.
It is a great system.
However, after driving down our long and narrow driveway that is in need of pothole repair and tree trimming, crossing over a murky pond and coming to a clearing with a small yard covered in Hunter's bone collection in front of a house with a, BEWARE OF GRANDMA, sign hanging in the window, delivery people do not linger.
They drop the packages and go.
The sign may raise the hair on some necks, but it is important.
So far Grandma is still ticking, because so far Tuna has not found her in his house and he has not killed her.
Please knock on wood.
Thank you.
Now, the thing about this ratty old life saving sign that we tape to the window a few times a day is that my Sweet Sven and I are older and rattier than it.
And our memories are somewhat altered by our age, our past and our present.
By present what I am referring to is what most people refer to as, happy hour.
I however call it like it is, happy hours.
And this is the brief period in the evening in which that sign and it's whereabouts becomes questionable.
You see, Grandma is an elusive and camouflaged creature, who at seventeen likes to sleep and when her bright green eyes are shut, she looks like an old slipper.
Because she is dozing and deaf and it is happy hours, sometimes my sweet Sven and I have doubts as to whether that sign hanging in that window is for real.
"Hey. Is Grandma up here?" he hollers from the kitchen.
"Um. I am not sure," I say, all melted into the couch and feeling fine.
"Well, Tuna wants in."
"Oh, shit."
Now, if the sign is in the window there is a pretty good chance that Grandma is upstairs on a "visit."
But, it could also be hanging there from a prior "visit."
Someone may have forgotten to put it back on the refrigerator when she went back home.
Then again, if the sign is taped to the refrigerator, it could be true, Grandma could be in her apartment.
But, then again, somebody may have forgotten to post the warning when they brought her up for a "visit."
This is when things get a little hectic here in the black hole outside of Harmony Grove.
"Grandma!"
"Grandma!"
"I'll go check her apartment!"
We run around the house calling for an old deaf fur ball who is sound asleep wherever she may be, all the while Tuna hangs from the screen watching the chaos ensue.
