Category: Inanimate Yet Very Animate

Hey, here I am, Ruby, the Incredibly Wide Eyed Monkey.  Yes, I was incognito for a while but I am always here, hanging out on Momma’s bed with an assortment of friends. Even if I am stuffed, I got the monkey in me, which can make me wise, pensive, a barrel of fun and yet very wily. ….which means I see things, I hear things and I report things….and recognize my own behavior in others.

One sure thing, I am never alone.  In the warehouse, I may have been in pieces but I had a lot of company.  Once I was created, I then came to my new home. I have found myself in a club that consists of the inanimate (also stuffed: Tigger, Babbie and Moosie) and the animate (Four Footed: Charlie, Gen, occasionally Andy and of course, our Jakita)….oh, and Two Footed Momma.

Trust me that Tigger, Babbie and Moosie (no problem, they respect me) land haphazardly on the bed with me when Jakita decides she needs a pillow (I will do as well) or when her Mama gene surfaces and she decides they are in need of a grooming. Jakita’s only questionable behaviour is sucking on the comforter, leaving tiny teeth marks that Gen thinks, good place to sharpen my claws.  Funny thing is, Jakita would never do that to Wonder Boy’s duvet because he would be upset with her. Yeah, she is bright enough to have that figured out. Other than that she is a very disciplined little dog, almost as wise as me…….

Charlie is big and puffy, always ready to cuddle closely in the day since Momma is busy, running from pillar to post, from post to pillar.  Andy only appears if certain conditions are met…the main one being Charlie (who is always such a sweet kitty) is not present.  Let’s be blunt.  Charlie has been terrorized so much by Andy that if she sees, hears or smells him, she goes in to wildcat mode.

Then there is Gen.  Is it just me or does Gen somehow have monkey DNA mixed with her feline attributes?  I have watched her.  Gen is always cheerfully busy, but….only one problem….it seems more destructive than constructive.  She sees a charm bracelet and game on. Please don’t blame Gen. Trouble beckons her.

She is a victim of the shiny and glittery…and she has no problems, fishing it out of any basket, digging deep, finding exactly the treasure she is looking for. Trust me, she shares.  She pushes it to the floor.  Jakita, with those ears that hear the butterfly wings flap in Africa, comes running.  The treasure is delicately scooped up and taken to one of Jakita’s pillows. Team work for Best Friends Forever.

Now let’s discuss our Momma.  She means well, but like Jakita says, she is a Clumsy-Mumsy.  When she goes to make the bed, I sometimes go flying, airborne by her ruthless gung-ho, gitter-done attitude.  Sure, sure, she’ll pick me up and apologize to me but that doesn’t change the bump and fright  I endured during the free fall. Chill, Momma.  That ain’t no way to treat your Baby… Lady!

It is a good life on Momma’s bed, a safe existence.  I hear so many tales.  I wonder and ponder about the meaning of life….mine is so easy in comparison to growing up in my natural habitat, where tigers, leopards, bears and even monkeys bully each other and worse… because we all know….it’s a freaking  jungle out there!

Sometimes I see things and hear things and feel things that others are not quite clever or maybe even quick enough to assimilate.

It might be because I am a monkey…or just that  I am  The Incredibly Wide Eyed Ruby…which puts me in a Superior Classification.

Are you smirking at me, Diva Calico Gen?  Are you shaking your head Miss Fancy Pants, Jakita?  Look at Charlie and Tigger.  They just believe me and give me their rapt attention. Now that is the attitude I like.

You know during the day, Charlie jumps up on the bed, walks up to the pillow, and plunks herself down, rolls herself in to a tight ball, like a skein of wool and falls asleep.  Sometimes she chooses to cuddle beside me instead of the pillow.

Then there is Tigger, who is no problem, just goes wherever Jakita drags him.  Whatever the destination, he just fades in to the back ground unless Jakita and Gen decides it is a grooming day.  That poor little Tigger is beached like a whale and drowned in slobber.  Good news is that they are trying to show him a groovy kind of love and so far he has always recovered.

That Jakita and Gen are always up to something. Gen’s eyes are like a crow, searching out shiny baubles on dressers, or night tables or trunks or armoires.  You name, it is never too high for Gen to scale.  I mean, I see her, she sharpens those claws of hers three times a day.  When she leaps from object to object, her balance is pitch perfect. And just like the moon landing, it is her mission to bring treasures back to earth…to her Best Friend Forever, Jakita …. it is always game on.  Sometimes they tire of the game and leave the bauble in the middle of the floor.

Often Jakita hauls the treasures back to her pillow under the kitchen table (so Gen tells me – I never leave the bedroom).  And sometimes, Momma is like that widow, from the Bible story, on her hands and knees, with a flashlight, looking for diamond engagement ring, that could end up anywhere.  One time it got stuck in a gap between the hardwood floor and the trim.   I’ve told and told you Momma.  Lock them up.  These two are scallywags.

Another problem…. see Momma has spoiled Diva Calico Gen since she was sick a couple of years back.  Gen is still served food on the bed….and Gen leaves little crumbs all over the duvet…which porky little, starved Jakita needs or she may collapse…now ….please.  Lickety solit, not two seconds later, the crumbs are gone, Jakita is gone, Charlie, Tigger and I are back to peace and quiet…for now.

I believe in tough love.  If it was up to me, Gen would lose eating privileges on my (I mean Momma’s) bed.  Apparently, I am not too far up in the pecking order but, hey, a monkey can have and share her opinions, right.  Last time I checked we were living in a democracy….well, not really, says Momma.

Apparently the Canadian Electorate are no longer charmed by the ‘my way or the highway’ prime minister…..Good riddance!  Let him take his cowboy boots back to his adopted province where the constituents will vote for a bale of hay…long as it is far right conservative,,,,so I been told… 

Now back ‘in the day’ when monkeys were monkeys (and it was okay to say your kids were little monkeys), life was pretty free, but not always easy.   Oh yes,  no doubt, you could spend your life, swinging from the trees, chattering to your extended family or your pack, and picking bits and pieces out of the fur of your fellow monkeys.  Still, there was always the stress of the unknown, much like in a Cat Colony where the biggest and the meanest have a ‘my will be done attitude.’

Now you know me, (Ruby, The Incredibly Wide Eyed Monkey) I never lived in a pack in the Jungle. I mean, I am stuffed but even so, I am just as wily, intelligent and with the same need for socialization as a monkey born in a tropical rain forest.

That is why just laying on Momma’s bed with Jakita, Gen, Charlie and of course little Babby and Tigger, has helped me develop in to the well-rounded, trusted companion that I am today.  I know you know, I can not talk.  Still, I have learned through listening, as well as communicating through my gestures and my wide-eyed stare, how to tell a tale just through the process of osmosis.

And, do I have a story to tell you, Jakita, Gen, Charlie, Babbie and  Tigger. Forget Bad Boy Andy.  He would not believe me, anyway, just because of his high levels of testosterone (you know, men, only believe in sports stats) and they all seem to share low-levels of tolerance.

You see, when we were being created in the warehouse, (which tried to resemble a jungle, (without the catastrophic thunder, lightening and torrents of rain) the owner, Mr. Get Stuffed (just like we were) had a really wise old monkey who had been kidnapped, sold to bounty hunters who in turn sold him to an exotic pet enterprise who in turn sold him to Mr. Get Stuffed. Are you with me so far?  Maybe Mr. Get Stuffed thought it would be easier for his customers to put together a monkey, if they had a live prototype.  Still you could also craft teddy bears in the warehouse, and I did not see a bear shuffling around (thank goodness).  Go figure.  Maybe Mr. Get Stuffed just liked monkeys.

All I can say is that Mr. Wise Old Monkey had yellow teeth, a grizzly grey beard and patches of fur missing but he still had a twinkle in his eye…..and we all wanted to be like Mr. Wise Old Monkey when the fresh dew of youth passed us into another portal of reality.

Alas, you know the story.  Super Boy and Itty Bitty chose me for Momma so I bade farewell to my forever warehouse friends, as well as Mr. Wise Old Monkey…and I may be wrong, but I think I even saw a tear in Mr. Get Stuffed’s right eye or maybe it was his left eye. Either that, or he had a severe  allergy attack, just as I was leaving.

Now you know, I live the life of Riley with new best friends forever Jakita, Gen, Charlie, Tigger and Babby.  Sometimes when I am all alone on Momma’s bed (Gen is catching mice, Charlie has paws to the screen in the sunroom, dreaming of being brave enough to go outside, Momma is walking Jakita and poor Tigger and Babbie are wherever Jakita left them)….I am sure…

I hear the echo of Mr. Wise Old Monkey’s chatters and clicks and wish I could see him just one more time. He’d be so proud of me and….I have so much to tell him about how the other half lives.

Babby.  The name says it all.  A baby so beloved you call it Babby.  I was so cute, thick off white cropped fur, with floppy ears. I was not one of those plush real life size doggies. No, I was flat enough to fit perfectly in a puppy’s mouth in order to be carried from destination to destination. Sometimes I would be stranded for hours, days until Momma realized and set up a search party of one to find me.

No, I did not come from a $ Store. Still, I was cloned in a pet toy factory, continents away, that mass produces all things plush by engineers who figure out scientifically and with some degree of accuracy, the numbers of bites, chews and degree of grooming a pet toy can take in a dog’s lifetime.  But the manufacturing plant did not name me or send me to my Forever Home.  It just put a price on my head, loaded me on a cargo boat, and sold me to the highest bidder, a well-known department store pet section.

Now we also needed Four Footed Intervention to find me my Forever Home That was where Our Bonnie (Momma) came in play.  When she and Daddy were watching television and an ad would pop up that featured a Yorkshire Terrier, Daddy would get unnaturally quiet.  Momma knew what that meant and she stealthily went about making Daddy’s dream a reality, much to Wonder Boy’s horror.  Having Teddy, the American Eskimo (definitely Momma’s dog) was enough punishment for Wonder Boy’s sensitive ears but a Yappy Yorkie? Are you kidding?

A Yorkie needs nutritious food, bones to chew, a cage to sleep in  and toys to play with.  Now Momma always knew what she was looking for. That made it easy.  She bought me and Miss Piggy for Daddy’s Yorkie, Zanny to wile away the hours with.

Because Miss  Piggy was made of robust pink rubber with a painted on smile and a  cute little tail, she got the lion’s share of the chewing and slobbering.  I got carried from way station to way station, shook vigorously along the way, till I swear I had the Shaken Baby Syndrome.  It was obvious Zanny, the Yorkie  had a lot to teach me. I always wondered if that was how her Momma treated her.

Then, well if you know the Tigger story…. Zanny was gone, gone, gone and play time, like the tune on a wind down music box, ended.  Years passed and we waited, not knowing if life, as we knew it, would ever be re-invented.

One day, one sweet day, we heard a little ruff which was trying valiantly to sound large and commanding.  Then there were little growls and sighs, an honest bark.  It was Game On.  Only Jakita, well, she was made to mother.  She has an inborn sense of responsibility and righteousness. We are no longer allowed outside. Sometimes we are carried to the shed room but are left to wait there until she returns and brings us back in to her doggie pillow.  Still, she will give us a mean shake every now and then.  Makes me think, it wasn’t Zanny, all dogs have that method of control.  Maybe we need it, who knows.

I notice  both Miss Piggy and my ears are a little chewed but the engineers did okay since at least they are still attached. Maybe we should add some sparkly diamond earrings to our ear lobes to cover the damage. Good news – we are still around, offering comfort and fun after fourteen years, hanging out with the Incredibly Wide Eyed Stuffed Monkey, Ruby Tutu, with her fixed glassy  stare, who is a fountain of wisdom and serenity .

We are not going anywhere anytime soon. Miss Piggy and I, we are the Lucky Ones! We found our Forever Home.

And if it ain’t, ya don’t fix it…Hear?????