i live with arthur and bubba. there used to be a dog here named mongo. he was a lhasa apso and he tried to get too close to a lady doberman and--well, you don't need to know the ugly details, except to say that i kinda miss him. arthur is an okay cat for an old lady of 17, except she gets pretty freaky when bubba comes around. i think bubba just likes to tease her. he gets bored sometimes and she's always good for a yowl or two. this is how arthur usually looks. that's because she's usually sleeping. she has a little nest on a pillow underneath a desk downstairs. it's a good place for her to hide from bubba, and he usually leaves her alone when she's asleep.

bubba is the youngest of us cats. i used to be the king of the household until he came along and he's still kind of careful around me. but he seemed to want to rule the roost at an early age, so i let him. kind of good for the ego, you know, and besides, i was tired of defending our territory. this is how bubba looks sometimes when he's been out defending: when he isn't defending, he's down by the water looking for dead catfish. he just loves to bring them in the house and listen to our humans go eeuuuuuww! those catfish sure are stinky.

as for me, i like to lie on the edge of the deck and watch the ducks swim by. it's kind of dangerous because the swallows dive-bomb me when they see me there. i think they have a nest under the boat ramp. i also like to eat and sleep. pretty low maintenance cat, or so franny says. as long as they feed me regularly and brush me and pet me every day, i'm a happy cat.

well, that's all i've got to say today.

Franny's Note: Shannon left us for the Rainbow Bridge on July 13, 2001, at the ripe old age of nineteen. He had a wonderful life and taught us much about life and love. Shannon took being a cat very seriously, you see, and these older articles are the legacy from my faithful "GuideCat."