It Ain't Me Babe

For those of you older than dirt, like me, do you remember the song It Ain’t Me Babe?
I have been singing one of the lines recently……”Go away from my window”……then it goes something like “leave at you own (the word escapes me)speed“……“I’m not the one you want babe“,….on and on.

You see, there is, or actually there was, a cute kitten (like the kitties on my bedroom walls) but in fact a real kitten that was beloved by the former occupant of my room. She liked cats and liked to sleep with cats. Every evening this little kitten would arrive at her window and come in for a snuggling sleep. Fine, I have no problem with people who like cats, and who sleep with cats. It Ain’t Me Babe.
And so when she graciously moved out of this room to assume a larger room in the other house, leaving me with the kitty wallpaper, she didn’t tell me about the REAL kitten, who wanted to stay in his little cuddly bed every night.
I am charmed by the kitties on my wallpaper. They don’t meow, they don’t tear things up, they enjoy their 2 dimensional existence in silence and respect of their roommate.
Not so with the REAL kitty. After several nights of kindly putting the kitty out the window, then tossing the kitty out, then cursing while hurling the kitty out, I had to take more drastic measures. I’m smarter than a kitty, RIGHT?
The window has iron bars on the outside presumably to keep out unwanted visitors, Hah!!!!!! The house guards are paid to keep out unwanted human visitors, but not cute little kitties.
I found some extra mosquito netting in a closet and thought - this will do the trick. So, I put the netting on the window attaching it with clothes pins which I stole from the clothespin basket (I am sure my thievery has been noticed). I will need netting on the window for summer anyway. However, the little kitty just tore a hole in the netting. I tried double netting (you know extra strength, like Bounty) but the hole was there the next day and the kitty was in my bed the next night.
Drastic measures for desperate times. I called upon Shamil. Shamil is our “Jack-of-all-trades” grounds-keeper. He is the kindest, always smiling, fella in Abkhazia. He reminds me of my friend Jose, he too is always willing to do those pesky chores no one wants to do. We have drivers (required by MSF) that often are grumpy, and ask for raises every other day. Shamil is thoughtful, and very helpful whenever asked. He fixed the light fixture in my room and so when the electricity works, so does the light. We found old buckets and pots to plant flowers in for our terrace, and Shamil put holes in the bottom……I asked Shamil to use his wits, not his charm, to solve the kitty problem. The next day he put chicken wire on the window, small hole wire, no kitty can come through those holes, neither will the giant RATS we have either. I guess a teeny mouse could get through, but I have not seen mice, just gross, fat, fast RATS. I am not sure who would be the victor in a cat and rat battle, I don’t really care. They can have their own games, just leave me out.
So, you might think the kitty ordeal is solved. It was, sort of. After 5 days of the kitty meowing endlessly throughout the night, while I was using earplugs and dreaming of a stun-gun, he departed. Presumably to find a more hospitable home, one where food and lodging were provided. Dilemma solved.

A week of peace and quiet, nice, then last night, as I was drifting off to sleep after finishing MY LAST BOOK (please send more books, Please) I heard not one cat, but two damn cats, meowing right under my window. On the terrace outside my window TWO NEW CATS decided since cute little REAL, but now departed, kitty has found another home they should take up residence here.
I ran out on the terrace, forgetting there is a guard guarding our house sitting in his guard-perch who has full view of anyone on the terrace, in my birthday suit, yelling at the cats, “Get out of here, NOW“.
Who knows what the neighbors on either side of our house were thinking, cats are just apart of life here. The cats of course scampered away for a few minutes, only to return once I got back into bed. This time with a yodel instead of a meow, a quivering, screeching, irritating, annoying, frustrating, disgusting, ‘we‘re out to get you, you silly girl‘……….yodel.

Earplugs,
a smile from the guard the next day,
an acknowledgement that I’m here to learn,
maybe to accept new night-kitty-friends.
Not in my bed, NEVER. Nighty night g