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| What follows is actual email the girls wrote and sent to select family members after they discovered the computer in the office. P-Mom ("people-mom") had to do much of the typing but the words are theirs, complete and unedited. We couldn't improve on them even if we tried. But we thought you should have the privilege of reading them, not just the original recipients. So here they are. | |
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From: The Girls Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2001 6:04 PM To: Lynn & Sherwood Subject: A note from Chloe and Tess
Hi, Aunt Lynn, this is Chloe-the-kitty. I'm typing this note because I have bigger paws than Tess, and can reach more keys. Anyway, we both wanted to thank you for asking about us in the e-mail you sent the other day.
We are fine, although I scared everybody (even myself!) about two weeks ago when I had trouble breathing. Tess and I had been chasing a big ol' fly all over the house. Tess just kept running and running, but I was getting too tired and it was hard to breath. So my people-Mom (p-Mom, for short), Meli, took me into the bedroom to quiet me down. After awhile I could breath OK, but it was very scary. The vet said everyone has to watch me closely, and they are. Right now everything is OK. I just can't overdo it like Tess does. She runs so fast it's amazing. Everything she does is very fast. p-Mom says she must be part ferret. I say she's cute, but she's a pain. She cries a lot to be picked up, for more food, to get attention, man! you name it, she cries about it! Me, I prefer to just execute a few well-placed, loud meows, which shocks everybody so much, I get lots of attention right away.
Our birthdays are next month. We have grown a lot, and the vet even put that piggy Tess on a diet. The vet says my weight is perfect, so I can even have treats once a day. I am a better jumper than Tess; I can jump up to the top of the armoire, where its fun to play with the model ship up there. Tess can only jump up to the back of the sofa, and she just learned that!! She's a bit behind, I think.
We like living here with Meli and J. It's a nice place. When we first got here we were sick. I had a bad cough and Tess had a goobery nose and eyes. Sometimes her eyes would stick together. It looked pretty funny but scary, too. So, of course, she got tons of attention. We also had tummy troubles, but that problem is better, too. We have food that is good for our tummies, even though the stuff Tess eats, lamb and rice cat chow, smells yucky. Our vet, Dr. Amy, says that we are prone to get colds again if we are under stress. Like when we went to the vet overnight to get spayed. We were totally stressed out and came home with colds. No one even told us we had to spend the night with a bunch of barking dogs in the next room. It was hard to sleep, and we had to stay apart in tiny cages. When p-Mom came to get us we were very happy to see her.
p-Mom and p-Pop love us a lot. Sometimes they get sad about the other cat who used to live here, Sasha, but we try to cheer them up. p-Mom says that compared to Sasha, we are real slobs. Sasha must have been a real neat nick. We like to do fun things that just happen to accidentally turn out messy. I love to play hockey with my dry cat chow, so I dump out a lot of pieces and bat them all over the place. If the pieces move too fast on the floor, you can slow them down by dunking them in the water dish. They get all soft and mooshy and we like to squish them with our paws. Is that so bad? Now Tess' favorite thing is the big roll of paper towels. She likes to tackle it, knock it to the floor, unroll it as far as she can, and then spend the rest of the day shredding all of the sheets. She is very good at this. Now p-Mom keeps the paper towels in the cupboard, and Tess has to make do with rolls of toilet paper, which are not as much of a challenge. But sometimes p-Mom forgets to put the paper towels away and Tess has a blast. When she first sees the mess p-Mom looks very mad, but then she cracks up and we know everything is OK.
p-Mom is pretty happy about a new car she got. I looks nice from the front window, but we haven't been in it yet, which is just fine with me. Every single time I get in a car I end up at the vet and I get a shot or something. So I scream my head off every time we drive away, and I shake all over, too. Tess must not have a very good memory. She falls asleep as soon as she gets in the car and looks surprised when she wakes up at the vet. Where does she think we're going, anyway? To the beach? (We're not sure we want to go there either).
So, I guess we'll close now. p-Pop just got home from work and we like to entertain him by playing with him for a few minutes. He throws our balls to us, squiggles his leather belt around on the floor, you know, that kind of stuff. It's not very exciting, but we appreciate that he tries. (Actually, since Tess is such a baby, she likes it a lot.) If I feel like it, I'll even fetch the ball sometimes. p-Mom gets a real thrill out of this, and tells me I'm very smart. I don't know what the big deal is . . .
Before I close, Tess wants me to tell you a few things for her. Here goes:
Chloe is a wimp.
Love, Tess and Chloe
P. S. If you ever come to see us, you will be surprised at how nice and friendly we are. We're very soft and furry and nice to pet. We like company 'cause there's more people to give us attention. Watch out for Tess, though, she likes to give slobbery kisses to people right on their nose. Yuck! Double yuck!
Dear Grandpa Lou: Thanks for sending John and Meli the article on hyper cats. We are sort of hyper every once in awhile, but since we are almost a year old, we have calmed down a lot. However, we do like coffee with cream, which was what the veterinarian in the article recommended for calming us down. Whenever we can sneak a sip out of John's cup, we do - but he's pretty fast and takes the coffee away from us. He also gives us the last spoonful of milk from his cereal bowl sometimes. This doesn't happen very often though, because Meli yells at him and tells him it's not good for us. How can something that tastes so good be unhealthy??
Anyway, thanks for sending the article, and we've attached a couple of cute pictures taken during moments during which EVEN TESS was calm!! Bye for now, Chloe and Tess Schneider (a.k.a. The Girls).
Hi, Aunt Lynn. It's us again, Chloe and Tess. We were writing Grandpa Lou to thank him for an article he sent our people Mom, and we attached a new picture of Tess that's very cute. We're sending it to you to because it is so funny. We thought we might make you smile again for awhile.
Anyway, we're all thinking of you. P. Mom and P. Pop are talking a lot about going to the beach tomorrow since it's not supposed to rain. It'll be the first time in a month they've gone out to catch some rays. They're looking a little pale to us, so we're hoping the showers hold off for a few hours.
We hope you are fine and everything is OK. P. Mom looks kinda sad when she doesn't hear much from you. But she understands you're busy. She just loves you a lot, she says. And we guess we do too!!
Bye for now. Here's Tess' cute picture. Yuck. What a baby.
Love, Chloe for Tess and Chloe (a.k.a. The Girls)
Dear Aunt Lynn: I AM NOT A BABY. Chloe is a wuss with stinky toes!
Anyway, here's a REALLY good picture of me asleep like the little angel I am. Sometimes.
Bye for now, Aunt Lynn! Love and sloppy kisses, Tess
Hi, Aunt Lynn!! Our P-Mom, Meli, is typing this e-mail for us because we still haven't learned to type very fast. Today Meli told us that you and Woody were coming down in May, and boy are we excited. You will be the very first "house guests" we have ever had -- except for Uncle Bill -- and he came during our very first week living here -- and, well, we don't remember it so well. We do remember how he smelled, though -- he had some funky aftershave that P-Mom called Patchouli. Whew! Will you be wearing any aftershave when you come down? If so, that's a good thing, because we love to sniff people who smell different. But we do it very gently, 'cause P-Mom says it scares some people. Go figure.
So now, in preparation for "house guests" we are getting a refresher course in our early development behavioral modification. That's sort of a fancy name Meli and J use for making us stay off of the kitchen counter and the dining room table, (plus some other stuff Meli calls "funny but annoying to visitors.") We have trouble remembering not to do this because it seems there's always something interesting happening in those places and, well, we're just curious. Sometimes if we get caught walking on the countertops we get in trouble. But if we jump down quickly, P-Mom gives us a treat. Actually, she just gives me, Chloe, a treat. Tess hates them. That could account for her developing more slowly in the behavioral modification department. But anyway, P-Mom says we have another 4 months of training before the "house guests" arrive. Some of the things she mentioned we need to work on are: not sticking our paws into our water bowl then shaking them in the air real fast so water splatters everywhere; not scooping pieces of chow out of our dishes and shooting them real fast!! underneath the refrigerator; and, our personal favorite, not finding noisy toys in the middle of the night and playing with them. Our funniest toys are Mousy 1, 2 and 3 (we tell them apart by the number of facial features still glued on) and jingle balls. These are fast action toys with cool sounds. Mousy 2 and 3 squeak whenever we move them a little bit, and the jingle balls rattle really good when we roll them across the kitchen floor and crash! them into the walls. (Mousy 1 quit squeaking due to brain damage suffered while drowning in our water bowl. That wasn't such a good day. Plus it made the water taste funny).
But we have some other stuff we can do, even if we can't find any noisy toys. Tess thinks up some really fun stuff. Like, in some of the rooms we have these really cool spiral wire doorstoppers. Tess knows where each and every one of them is. Sometimes in the middle of the night Tess wanders from room to room taking her little paw, pulling back the doorstopper as far as she can and then she lets it go and BOINGGGGGGGG! It makes the coolest sound. Then she goes to the next room, then the next, and pretty soon there's a BOINGGGGG! sound from everywhere. Sometimes, in the middle of the night Meli hears this, and she puts a pillow over her face so we can't hear her laughing really hard. But we hear her, and pretty soon P-Mom has laughed so hard she has to get up and pee. So then we wait outside the bathroom door, and on the way back to bed she pets us. So it all works out. P-Mom has said that this is one thing we absolutely cannot do when we have "house guests", but if you want us to do it for you, let us know. Just don't drink a lot of water before you go to bed.
P-Mom says we also have to get baths before you come. (If she puts those stupid pink collars on us again, I'm going to barf). Tess has had two baths lately due to "mishaps" in the fireplace. She "accidentally" opened up the fire place screen a couple of times and walked around in the ashes. The first time she did this P-Mom was upset because she got her "pretty white mitts and boots filthy". But the second time was a way cool because Tess forgot her mitts and boots were dirty and walked around on the sofa and loveseat. When P-Pop woke up (this was New Years Day morning) he scooped her up really fast and put her in the bathtub. She screamed and cried a lot and splashed the sooty water everywhere!! Happy New Year. Then P-Pop had to clean the bathroom and wash a load of sooty towels, and his sooty p-j's. And P-Mom said the place looked like a "disaster area." Tess is an expert in disasters. Well, P-Mom is getting tired of typing, and I'm just about out of things to say. Except that I'm glad you're coming down, and we'll be on our very best behavior while you're here, OK?
'Time to go to sleep and snuggle with the people who love us.
Bye for now. Love, Chloe and Tess--enjoy the pics from Christmas Day!
Dear Chloe and Tess,
I'm happy too that you don't mind that we come out and share your p-family with you ... but, never fear! you shall receive as many cozy pettings that you will allow us to deliver, so you won't feel neglected by Uncle Woody or me. Maybe I may sneeze a little after a long while (it's just a teensy weensy kitty allergy, but no big deal! I promise not to sneeze on you!), but I'm still looking forward to meeting you and sharing the couch with you, if you wish! You know, your p-mom and I go back many many years (oops! well, not THAT many... we're not pre-historic!), to when she and your p-dad got married... and the sad part is, even tho we're family, we don't get to see each other often enough. That makes this upcoming visit in May a really REALLY special trip... plus, it will be EXTRA-special because we will be celebrating your p-dad's 50th Birthday!!!!!!! (translate: STAND-BY! Extra Goodies In the House!!!) So, you probably will have to wear one of those cute little birthday hats but hey......... I'D DO IT for a big piece of Birthday Cake!!!
Well, knowing how busy you 2 must be, I'll sign off and await further messages from you. Thanks for getting Meli to type your e-mail for you........ what kind of bribe worked to get her to do that????????? I'd sure love to be able to dictate some of MY messages like that!!!!!!!! Say, and you know that wet sponge delivery to Meli and your p-dad in the middle of the night when they were sleeping??? That was pretty funny! and, I think they really LIKED it, so, hey - do it again tonight, ok??? and, let me know what happened!!!!!!!!!!!
Bye for now, you little kittens,
Hello again, Aunt Lynn. This is Chloe, and p-Mom is typing this e-mail for me and Tess. We were very sorry to hear that you are still under the weather. Yuck. Are you feeling well enough to enjoy President's Day with Uncle Woody . . . just a little?
We are up very late tonight because we were sorta lazy today, and didn't use much energy. It was a quiet Sunday and P-Mom and P-Pop didn't do anything exciting for us to watch or supervise (they need a lot of supervision sometimes). P-Pop spent most of the weekend playing with his new toy, a scanner. It makes a funny beeping sound that is no longer interesting to us at all after hearing it for two whole days. We wanted P-Pop to scan our tummies while we laid on the glass, but he thought it was a stupid idea. Maybe sometime when he is gone, P-Mom will do it for us! She is usually up for doing something silly like that. If we do get pictures of our tummies, would you like a copy?
This weekend was sorta fun sometimes because it was warm enough to open up the windows during the day. The breeze was wonderful and the sunshine made us very sleepy. That's when we like to roll over on our backs, and let our tummies get toasty warm in the sunshine. It feels very wonderful! Maybe getting your tummy warm in the sunshine would make you feel better, Aunt Lynn!! Go ahead, roll over and stick those paws in the air!!
On pretty days like today, when the windows are open, me and Tess crouch down, peek over the windowsills and very quietly watch the birds and squirrels outside. Sometimes we get very excited and forget there's still a screen in the window! Big bounce! But the birds and squirrels don't EVER forget about the screen. They taunt us everyday and they know there's nothing we can do about it. Just when we're starting to question the meaning of our lives, p-Mom cheers us up by offering treats! And all we have to do is "sit pretty" and she forks the treats right over! No hunting required. Fortunately for us, she's not very picky about the "sit pretty" part -- which is good because I'm not sure we understand what she means.
Today p-Mom was playing with some chalks and paints that were in millions of different, bright colors. Tess decided that she wanted to eat a small, pink piece of chalk, which p-Mom took away from her just in the knick of time. (That silly Tess -- she'll eat just about anything, especially things she's not supposed to have. Like shiny, foil gum wrappers, twist-ties, and rubber bands. Mom says she must be part billy goat!) Anyway, after p-Mom took away the chalk from Tess, we all noticed she had that pink stuff on her face. Now Tess thinks she is really cool because she got to wear make-up. I pointed out to her, however, that I don't need make-up because I have a naturally pink nose. I think I hurt her feelings . . . .
Well, that's about it for now. We're sorry we don't have more exciting things to tell you, but things are rather dull here at the moment. (As if being Tess' sister could every be dull!!) We sincerely hope you feel better soon. We still have medicine left over from last winter when we had bad, boogery colds. (I sure hope you don't have your eyes stuck closed like Tess did when her cold was very bad). So if you need some antibiotics, we could send them up to you, OK? In the meantime, we have lots of IMPORTANT INSTRUCTIONS:
Lots of love, Chloe and Tess
Dear Chloe and Tess,
Your e-mail to our OLD address arrived safe and sound, and p-Mom read it to us. Thank you so much for answering our e-mail, and we're very glad it made you laugh AND feel better for a few minutes. Just think, if you read it a bunch of times during the day, you could string together 5-10 minutes of feeling better!! Wow, that's almost as good as chicken soup. Did we ever mention how much we love chicken?
AND we did stay awake for your entire email, you silly Aunt Lynn. We love every word you send to us. Actually, you're the only person who sends us e-mails BACK!!! There are some of p-Dads brothers that you could e-mail every day for an entire YEAR and never hear a peep back from!!! Do you know how long a year is to us kitties?
Anyway, we're very happy you're feeling a smidgen better today, and hopefully, tomorrow you'll feel even better .... longer!! If you start to have a relapse, just remember our instructions, especially the no eating the flip-flop part. People and cats just don't seem to remember that they could feel better if they just stayed away from rubber flip-flops. Of course, Tess forgets this all of the time. She loves to gnaw on any old shoes that just happen to be by the door. You might want to remember that when you are visiting. One tell-tale sign that she has been foolin' with your shoes is that she leaves little presents inside them ... not anything yucky like you-know-what, but lumpy things like rubber balls, and pokey things like paper clips and milk bottle lids. She's a goof.
There's one thing we're kinda worried about, though . . . we don't know any real tricks to show you when you visit . . . and we might be a teeny bit shy. Maybe if we have enough time we can learn something new (we'll have to check with p-Mom to see how many days it is until you come down -- she knows EXACTLY how much time we have because she is on a BIG DIET, and does a count-down every morning!). Do you have any particular trick requests? I used to fetch my ball for p-Mom, but I got bored with the whole idea--especially after watching too many episodes of the dogs on Animal Planet. Fetching is mundane. Our very best trick isn't even REALLY a trick -- it involves sitting in a box while p-Pop pushes us around the house. Actually, the tricky part is getting him to DO IT AS MUCH AS WE WANT!!
Well, we'd better go now. Take it easy, and take very good care of yourself. Doctor's Orders!! AND. . . .
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