Bowled in regular bowls in am then again in pm in the Sun City West visit. Overall our club won, but I only had a tie and a loss. Very warm. Watched a couple of episodes of house then off to bed.

  Several weeks after this a terrible thing happened. Tippy had gone out after supper; my humans were getting ready to go to a show (I was being locked in the house because I had followed them a couple of times to other shows). We all heard a strange noise at the door, I think it was Mom who opened it and there was Tippy, he was sick, really sick, he fell over on his side and Mom immediately scooped him up and took him in the bathroom. There was quite a bit of talking and gestures going on. Finally everyone came out of the bathroom and Mom closed the door. She said, “Come on we’ll all go to the show and we’ll see how he is when we get home.”

  I kind of stood watch out side the door after they left and a little while later I had this terrible felling of sadness, I may even have cried out loud a bit. Eventually they came home and John rushed past both his parents and before they could stop him was in the bathroom. Oh how he wailed and cried, Tippy had died and I now knew what had caused my sadness. It was a mournful house for some time.

  That fall another kitten arrived, what was it with all these cats?  This time it was Senior who brought it home it was about the same color as Tippy had been. John ignored it for about a day but he found as I had they are hard to ignore. He named it Paddy. I do believe that Paddy could have been related to Tippy as they seemed very much a like. 

  The last winter we were there we had more snow than that first year and it was so cold the bay out front had ice on it. I wasn’t enjoying the snow so much any more and I really didn’t like the cold.

  One evening I had been lying beside the stove and Mom decided it was time for me to go out to my bed that had been moved up onto the porch. In protest I sort of whined a bit and as luck would have it I had been lying in one position so long one leg had gone to sleep. When I stood up I sort of stumbled a bit and let out a small yelp. Well, right away they all thought I was injured and I heard Senior say, “He better stay in for the night”.

Mom agreed but she said, “But he has to go out so he can go to the bathroom.”

Well Senior picked me up carried me out side into the snow and set me down. Brr! I t was cold, so I did what I had to do and I knew that I had something going here so I stumbled a couple of steps gave a little whine and looked up with what I hoped was a mournful expression. It worked! He scooped me up carried me back in and in moments I had a nice soft bed behind the stove.

  I thought about this overnight and the next morning when Mom got up and called me, I just whimpered and turned on the look again. For the next two days I got to stay inside, every few hours someone would pack me outside, I would do my job then get packed back inside. Then one afternoon (I was in the house by myself) I decided to just stretch my legs and I wandered around, Patches came along and jumped at me so I sort of chased him around the living room; suddenly I heard a noise, someone was coming! I hurried back to my bed and was almost there when Senior came through the door, I flopped down as quickly as I could and wagged my tail at him. He didn’t say a word.

  A little later, I think it may have been just before supper, we were all in the kitchen, I had noticed Senior talking very quietly to Mom but thought nothing of it. Suddenly Mom grabbed her coat and said, “C’mon Jerry let’s go for a walk!” Without thinking I jumped up and ran to the door dancing a bit on my way. Then it hit me! I slowed forced a limp and let out a whine. Too late! I had been tricked and a dirty trick it was. They all started to laugh so I just gave them a baleful look, then Senior said, “Ok there Uncle, out you go, you won’t be fooling us for awhile.”

  I decided to take the high road and when he opened the door I strode out with all my dignity showing. They may have caught me out but I had fooled them for almost three days.

    That winter passed and spring came again but for me personally my life entered into a different season