Crazie Cathie

I have this neighbor named Cathie. And she is crazy. So, naturally, I refer to her as Crazie Cathie.

Before we had Molly, I didn't know a single neighbor. Not one. Which I blame mostly on the insane working hours at our old jobs and our crazy travel schedule when we weren't working. But after a few weeks of taking Molly on a walk every day, I had met most of the people on our street, and their dogs. Somehow I couldn't remember ANY of my neighbors' names, but I knew ALL of their dogs' names. I've gotten a little better over the past few months. Except for one of them who stuck out to me from the very beginning. And that was Crazie Cathie.

You see, Crazie Cathie was unnaturally obsessed with little Molly. I realize she is cute...(well actually, I am extremely biased and think Molly is by far the cutest and funniest animal ever created)...

...so I was used to most people walking by, introducing themselves, asking a few questions about Molly and commenting on how cute she was, etc... I'd do the same for their dog, and then we'd both move on with our lives.

But not Crazie Cathie. Oh no. She wanted to hold Molly. She wanted Molly to come play in her yard. She wanted to "babysit" Molly. She wanted to talk to me FOR-EV-ER about Molly. She had numerous daily questions about Molly's sleeping/eating/training/playing/etc habits. She showed me pictures of her old dog who looked somewhat similar to Molly. She took several of her own pictures of Molly (which apparently she shared with her co-workers). She usually sits on her front porch, and since her house is catty-cornered from my house I can see her from my porch, which thankfully is screened in so that I can attempt avoiding her by walking towards the other end of the street. But she always found me. She'd go on walks and "run into" us. She gave me her business card (which is how I know she spells Cathie the crazie way with an "ie") so if I ever needed her to watch Molly, I could call her.

And she also came by our house to give Molly hand-me-down "presents" from her own dogs...

Exhibit 1: A baseball hat. I'd like to know when, where, and why exactly a dog would ever have the need to wear such a thing. Other than to look completely absurd.

Exhibit 2: An automatic feeder. There is no way we could ever use this, considering Molly eats anything and everything that might possibly look even remotely edible, regardless of how much she's already eaten.

Crazie Cathie is extremely nice and completely harmless, but she was starting to freak me out a little bit. And she drove me absolutely bananas every single day. Not to mention the time-waste factor - I had all this new-found free time, and I didn't exactly want to spend so much of it with her.

How was I going to get away from her?! It took me twice as long to walk Molly simply because Crazie Cathie would have something to tell me or show me or give me. My only saving grace was if Crazie Cathie was smoking, because Molly does NOT like smoke. I trained her well.

I had about run out of ideas, when one blessed day Crazie Cathie came over to say good bye - she was moving! I didn't quite believe her since it took a few weeks for the movers to show up, and another few weeks for her to pick up the last of her things, but alas she is finally gone. She's shown up a few times after moving out so I am still cautious when we head out the front door. And now, after months of going on a daily walk, Molly is on auto-pilot. She only goes one way down our street, and never goes past our house on the way back. She's not taking any chances at another Crazie Cathie run-in.