Thanksgiving At the Kitty Table

Remember Thanksgiving? You know — that day at the end of November that’s traditionally been reserved for contemplating how grateful we are for all the good things in our lives.

I can understand stores wanting to get their Christmas merchandise out ahead of the holidays and I know some people like to shop pretty early, but come on! This year I saw some homes decorated for Christmas the day after Halloween!

Do we really need to decorate THAT far in advance?

I can’t imagine going straight from Halloween to Christmas. Some of my favorite memories are of Thanksgivings past . . . and many of them involve fur.

My first Thanksgiving with my cat, Arie, was especially memorable.

Arie was still a kitten then, and growing so fast that he was constantly hungry. I learned early on to shut him up in my bedroom at mealtimes if I wanted to eat in peace.

I warned my cousin, the Dancing Librarian, about him before she cat-sat for me one weekend, but she didn’t see Arie around when she sat down to her meal of take-out barbecue ribs, so she ignored my warning.

BIG mistake.

She’d just eaten her first few bites when suddenly a small ball of fur was clinging to her shoulder, trying to lick barbecue sauce off her face.

Somehow she managed to remove Arie without getting sauce all over him, herself and the house, but that memory was still fresh when Thanksgiving rolled around. We were wary of having roast turkey in the same house as a ravenous kitten.

When we started cooking that day, I opened a new container of frozen whipped topping for the pumpkin pie. Having been taught by my previous cat, Freya, that the best cat toys aren’t cat toys, I tossed the plastic seal that had been around the container top onto the floor so Arie could have a little fun with it.

Did he ever! He chased that piece of plastic around for a good 45 minutes. By the time we sat down to eat, he’d worn himself out so badly that he slept through our whole meal. Problem solved!

As a general rule, Chloe, whom I adopted a couple of years later, was a much better behaved kitten, so I let my guard down the first time I roasted a turkey with her in the house.

Another BIG mistake.

As we sat down to eat with the turkey in the middle of the table, Chloe suddenly appeared out of nowhere, flying through the air.

I don’t know how I did it, but I managed to grab her in mid-flight. If I hadn’t, she would have landed right on top of our turkey.

Luckily, by next Thanksgiving she’d matured and considered such kittenish behavior beneath her.

When Beau and my sweet, departed-too-soon Oliver entered my life, I was better prepared for dealing with hungry kittens who loved turkey. That Thanksgiving the DL and I performed tag team turkey roasting — one of us would baste the bird while the other distracted the two kittens.

After we finished our meal, I shared a little turkey with the boys as a reward for their good behavior.

I don’t know about Oliver, but I’m pretty sure that was the first human food Beau had ever tasted. He couldn’t stuff that turkey into his mouth fast enough. The DL still laughs at the memory of my little tuxedo kitten with his cheeks puffed out like chipmunk.

When I adopted Peyton after Oliver died, I assumed that, like my other cats, he would outgrow his “eat-everything-in-sight” phase once he became an adult.

Ha. Peyton is five years old and he’s STILL a bottomless pit. Needless to say, no Thanksgiving turkey is ever left unguarded in this house.

But, on the plus side, he helps keep the kitchen floor clean.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Paula Dunn’s From Time to Thyme column appears on Wednesdays in The Times. Contact her at younggardenerfriend@gmail.com