Washington's Wild Discovery

After a long trip from Italy, my parents picked us up in New York and all of us drove to Connecticut to our temporary duty station. I told you these cats are good travelers. We lived in CT for 5 months, just enough time for Sebastian to get into some trouble. Coco is content to stay inside, NOT Sebastian! He insists on exploring. One day Mike found him about to climb over the fence onto the secret part of the Navy Base! He is lucky Marines didn’t shoot him! After that little incident Sebastian was not allowed outside without supervision, but that didn't stop him from trying! I finally had to put a leash on him which he HATED! He used to growl and growl at it, but the desire to go outside was so strong that he put up with it!

When April rolled around, it was time to leave CT and head to our new home, WA. We planned to drive across country; (I will never do that again) We went from CT to DC then to Huntsville AL via the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was a winding road through beautiful scenery. For the first half of the drive, my parents were following us and Mike was going at a decent speed, then my Dad decided to pass us and ZOOM, suddenly Dad was flying like the pilot he is! Coco just slept on the seat but Sebastian has to be part of the action. He sat right between Mike and I and “skied” the road, leaning into each turn just like Alberto Tomba! It was funny and impressive; he didn’t even get carsick. Eventually we made it to WA and our new home.


With cats in tow we moved into a new house with a huge back yard and lots of forest around us. The cats love exploring in the yard. Almost from day one our back yard has been transformed into something you might see on the Discovery Channel or Animal Planet. Sebastian catches at least one mole or mouse a day. Here is the routine.

Sebastian will go out hunting while Coco waits on the porch, god forbid that she would be caught hunting. Sebastian brings the mole or mouse to her, leaves it at her feet and then moves on to other adventures. Meanwhile, Coco proceeds to play with the poor thing until it is dead then she eats the head and leaves the body on the porch for me to find. Nice kitty! Now usually Mike and I are the only ones that get to enjoy this, but lately Sebastian has been doing this in front of other people, particularly dinner guests, how appetizing! One recent dinner guest was amazed at the variety of creatures Sebastian finds. He brought us a gecko and a mole within an hour! Usually the men find it entertaining and the women find it disgusting. CE la Vie!

Sebastian’s all time challenge is to catch the squirrel. It is much too fast and it can climb the tree. One day however, he caught a chipmunk. I caught him with it in his mouth and tried to free it as usual. I turned him on his side a proceeded to tickle his feet, which he hates! It was enough of a distraction for me to pry his jaws of death open and free the chipmunk. Once the chipmunk got over the shock he chittered and chattered all the way to the tree. I’m sure he was cursing at Sebastian. Coco just watched from the porch and when she saw she wasn’t getting a snack she went inside....more Cat Tails to come