First post of 2025 is a gallery of Zeke and Opie. Zeke has the white face. As you can see they are both now lap cats again. Do you remember Zeke’s favorite tv show? Or does he just watch tv the same hour each night? I wonder. Clues below. Meanwhile Opie has decided lap sitting is fun again. This is becoming the “new normal”. Scooby’s remains are still in the center of the dining room table where he cannot be forgotten because he is right there. No one sits at that table anymore but me.
Merry Christmas to all our readers from the cats of the feline cafe!
Opie
Opie is a cat that enjoys music. She especially likes when I put a platter on the old record player purchased in 1974. I have an older and larger console model from the 60’s which works perfectly well, but you see I now use it as a TV stand.
Opie likes the screensaver
I had to protect the cloth over the speakers to prevent the cats from scratching them. My eyesight is poor so I must sit very close to see properly. Opie is waiting for me in my chair. She likes to sit in my lap and watch or sleep. I have several boxes full of records. I do sit and play them now and then. The most used ones are the Christmas albums, which are played in December.
Opie loves music
My father kept all the holiday cards he received until 1930. Here are a few. They are all postcards and not folding cards. Some I can exactly date and others I cannot.They are mostly from the 1920’s. Cards do not show any publishers or origin.
1916
1925
1923
Santa on sleigh
(1922) Reference to Teddy Roosevelt. Nice sword–don’t poke your eye out!
1925 Took me a minute to figure this one out!
1921 Cats for Christmas!
1922
1923
1918 Santa smoking pipe
1920
The House without a Soul. Scooby was the spark that drove all the activity in the house day and night. Now he is gone things are quite different. Featured photo is the last photo taken of Scooby in bed with his buddy Zeke sleeping holding Scooby’s tail. . Thanksgiving was a meal at a Dennys restaurant. No cooking no mess. All the family and friends in the generation before me are gone. Many in my generation have passed on. I remember Thanksgiving as a great gathering of people and looked forward sharing it. Now even the cats are aged. Scooby was 14 and the other two siblings are both 15. I got Zeke and Opie as kittens. We are all pushing it now.
Opie is now free to roam out of her room and now roams the entire second floor; however, she still won’t go downstairs as she thinks Scooby is down there waiting to chase her around. Carrying her down is pointless as she runs back upstairs. Zeke doesn’t know what to do with his time; Opie does not play with him. Years back they were close. I got Zeke a reindeer tent and gave it him, but Opie took it over and now claims two of them. Maybe something different would do. So Zeke just sits downstairs looking out windows. The catio is falling apart and I haven’t repaired it. My heart isn’t in it. Zeke comes downstairs to ask me for treats or food and he has been sleeping on the penguin blanket, and sitting on my lap sleeping or watching tv. Like Scooby did, he now shows up about 2:30 AM to ask for food. Opie’s hair from her grooming is growing back.
I have always had visits from “ghost” cats after a cat death but next to nothing since Scooby died. The next day; however, I found his favorite shoelace in the middle of the living room floor, and I am sure it was not there as I don’t leave strings and such out. He used to pull it out of the toy basket. I have not put away any of his things. It’s too sad. If there were one thing I could have for Christmas, it would be for him to come home alive again. He was my best friend at my side day and night.
I wasn’t going to do Christmas as it seems so sad without Scooby, but the day after Thanksgiving I was all alone and decided to put up the decorations. I remember Scooby helping me and have some photos of the two us taken by my daughter in December 2022. He never would leave the little tree alone. Today his remains are underneath the tree with his collar and some catnip mice. My heart is heavy and the days are hard and lonely.There are photos following showing all that I have described above.
Thank you for all the kind words about Scooby. We will give an update on Opie and Zeke in the future. Now is too soon. Greg
Rabbit hunting in the hedge.
Feline Café 