Mike's Visit With Dirty Harry

Mike here:

Dirty Harry is a pajama fluffhead. His tail opens up and a child, like Gretchen's aunt, would stuff pajamas inside him making him poufy. Since no one's used him for a pajama holder in a long time, he went flat, except for his head. So Gretchen's mom's bean, who we all call Granny bean, stuffed his butt with fiberfill to make him poufy again. That was a long time ago. Dirty Harry is way older than I am, about forty something or other, so that's why the Granny bean is so careful about how long he's away from home.

Dirty Harry sat on the aunt bean's bed for many years before she grew up and moved away from home. That's when DH got put in a basket and stuck in a corner of a catch-all room and proceeded to get very, very dirty. Granny bean is afraid to wash him anymore because he could lose an eye or a nose—or worse yet, he could lose all his fur. His eyes and nose are made out of little furry balls and are now just hanging on by mere threads. Anyway, that's how Dirty Harry got his name.

Dirty Harry arrived in his wicker basket with a little red bag of toys. I gave him my red bandana to wear so we could be alike…I got to wear a purple one. I know that purple is hard to see on a black fluffhead, but I do love the color purple so mom bean let me wear it anyway.

I had been planning Dirty Harry's visit for some weeks before he came and when he finally got here it got too hot to do many of the things I wanted so we basically just hung out around the apartment and had long interesting conversations about this and that…the human world and the real live furry feline world. He said he envied me because I got to travel through cyberspace and go all over the world. His human doesn't know very much about cyberspace. So I told him all about my adventures and the new friends I've made. DH was very impressed.

The first day DH arrived I took him on a tour of the apartment. I showed him the window in the kitchen where Gretchen hangs out. There were no birds out there to talk to that day.

In the picture you'll see things hanging from the curtains. Mom bean had been drying roses and to do that she clips live roses upside down to the edge of the sheers and lets the air do the rest. DH and I thought that was very strange but Gretchen reassured us that mom bean does that every summer. Whatever, they sure smelled nice. Like roses…except I have to confess that neither Dirty Harry nor I have ever smelled a rose until now—and it was a dead one.


Next I took Dirty Harry to the bedroom window, another one of Gretchen's post and we watched a humongous Pacific blue jay take a bath in the birdbath.

We also got to see the hummingbird protect his feeder. That little hummer will not let any other hummer get near his feeder and makes loud grinding, clicking noises if one comes near. DH and I also learned that this particular type of hummer has a very loud bird bark. Yes, I said bark. That's the only way I can think to describe it. It's really loud and sharp for such a tiny creature.

He sits in the tree and watches over his feeder most of the day and when he saw DH and me in the window instead of Gretchen, he barked at us.

Gretchen had moved into her pillow cave on mom bean's bed and I had to show Dirty Harry where she hangs out when she wants to be alone. As you can see by the expression on her face, she was none too happy about our intrusion on her privacy. DH thought it was a cool hangout for a cat with a real brain. I do too, but Gretchen is very protective of her space so we decided to leave her alone for a while.

On Sunday it was nice enough to go outside on the porch where mom bean had been reading the Sunday paper. When she got up to go inside she said we could read the funnies if we wanted. That was a blast. Yeah, I know, for a world traveler such as me, sitting around on a porch reading the human newspaper doesn't sound all that newsworthy for this story. DH doesn't read, so that was even funnier…to me at least. I think I'm the only fluffhead in the world that can read a newspaper.

After the paper and a bit of a snooze (catnap to all you felines out there) I decided to show off mom bean's fairy garden. There is a story behind that little piece of the garden and I had to tell DH about it. You see, mom bean didn't like the base of the tree looking so bare; it wasn't level with the rest of the garden dirt. She came up with the idea to pile up some rocks she had and make a miniature garden. Well, when the neighbor beans asked her what was up with the rock garden and all the tiny plants, she told them it was a fairy garden. Believe me she actually had to explain what a fairy garden was to the neighbor beans. Then the next morning, a bean had placed a fairy on one of the stones. It took mom bean a while, going past it a dozen times while doing the laundry, before she noticed the fairy. Then she got the idea to put one of Gretchen's plastic lizards on the stone, too. Over the course of the next several days, something new would appear every morning in the little fairy garden. There are now three fairies, two snakes (nice ones, of course), some little butterflies and a couple of tiny songbirds. The fairy garden has become a novelty with the neighbors and they often come by to see how it's progressing.

This picture was taken before mom bean decided it needed more plants to go around the back of the tree, too. As you can see, climbing trees is one my many talents. DH, on the other hand, only has front legs and a tail, so he stayed on the ground. Don't I look like Supermanbean with my purple bandana flying out behind me? Ha, ha, that's a good one. Supermanbean. Pardon me while I have a laugh at my own joke.

My woofie friend, Marley, happened to be on the porch after we toured of the garden. DH had never seen a woofie-poch before and was a little taken back when I asked him to pose with me and Marley. Marley's a good woofie and wouldn't ever harm a furball. Especially one with fluff for brains…and fluff stuffed up his butt…hee, hee,sorry, private joke there.

The next day we decided to do a Gretchen trick. Gretchen loves tissue paper, with a passion! She won't lie on her donut bed without a piece of tissue paper to squash up underneath her paws. Well, we got mom bean to give us each a new piece of tissue paper. Gretchen was sleeping again in her pillow cave and immediately came running into the living room at the sound of new tissue paper. I swear she has x-ray hearing—that girlcat.

Anyway, once Gretchen saw that she had a fresh sheet of tissue paper (mom bean keeps lots of tissue paper on hand just for her), we all had a great time just sitting around scrunching up tissue paper.

Gretchen likes Dirty Harry and when she wasn't snoozing—er, rather catnapping in her pillow cave, all three of us played with her toys and even got into a little mischief one night. We didn't want to have those pictures published. We kinda of trashed the place. Tiny bits of tissue paper were all over the living room and dining room. But DH is not to be held accountable for the mischief…I'm noted for getting into trouble, so I take full responsibility for that mess.

Well, the week was over before we knew it. We packed up Dirty Harry's little red bag and hung out on the back of the sofa just chatting until Gretchen's aunt bean came for him. All three of us had a great time together and maybe we'll get to do this again sometime.