She’d rather have a cat.
Jul 12, 2008 Pets & Animals
Early evening Florida light streaming in through the dirt-stained glass of our kitchen’s double doors. Since it’s summer, Florida’s early evening light generally tends to waddle from bright through clouds, or bright yellow sun though clouds. It’s a particular shade of the sun too that you don’t see in the morning or afternoon due to the angle of things, all the shadows are long except for those in the kitchen. Electric lights above chase them away.
My cat comes silently stalking from around the corner with her tail straight but for the very tip, which always quirks to the left or suggests the shape of a stretched out question mark.
If I am at the kitchen window she will wind around my legs and make a high pitched, short kitteney sort of meow at the window. If I am not, she will make the same sound and then tilt her head over a dainty shoulder then up, expectantly at me.
I pad over in my bare feet and scoop her up from the bare terrazzo floors, letting her front paws dangle over me left fore arm and letting her tail and butt be supported by my right.
She’s tall enough to look out the window now and her pupils grow predator-huge. Her tail starts swishing back and forth, thumping over my stomach and hip as she stares at our back yard. Some times there are birds or squirrels and she’ll lift a paw excitedly to the window and chatter her teeth to make little purrrt-mew-meh-mew-mew? noises at them. Some times, there’s nothing in the back yard but she still watches it like it’s the best thing evar.
She’s warm and heavy in my arms. I always take the time to remember how pencil-thin and skinny she was when we got her from the shelter and compare it to how round, sleek, and solid she is in my hold now. She’s incredibly smooth; I imagine this is what silk or satin might have been created and fashioned after and her fur is always spotless. I am probably messing up the seven hours of licking she does every day to get her fur to lay just so but at that moment I don’t care and she doesn’t appear to, either.
And then she purrs. It’s not a loud purr like our other cat Raven, who sounds like she’s swallowed a diesel engine with some wheezing. Flora’s purr is deep in her chest and belly, more often felt than heard. You have to be very close or it has to be very quiet for you to hear it. She purrs and it travels up and down my arms, rumbles ticks lightly against my chest and that is when I wonder if this is what true peace feels like.
There are no expectations. There are no arguments. There are no judgments, she doesn’t care if I’m lumpy, having a bad hair day, or forgot to brush my teeth after eating something heavily sprinkled with garlic. There are no misunderstandings, no heated words by mistake, no yelling, no expectations, no broken dreams, no self-hatred or regrets. She is not human, there fore, I have no faith to lose in her.
People often wonder why I don’t have friends or wish to go out or wish to go through the rigmarole of finding them–I think it’s because I’d much prefer my kitchen window and the rumble tick of a contented cat.
A Series of Unfortunate Naps.
Jun 29, 2008 Pets & Animals
That is what my sleeping habits and patterns have become. It is not, however, due to insomnia which has generally been an off and on problem for most of my adult life.
It is due, in many great parts, to a large eighteen pound cat we put on a diet the end of last year.
It can start any time at night, some times it starts as early as midnight, some times we catch a break and it starts around 5am. Most nights, it starts around 1am to 3am, and is constant until one of us says some rather nasty crap and gets out of bed to feed the land beast we call Raven.
The ritual for the cat begins with her claws on the side of our bed which she uses to haul herself up. The edge of the bed she uses is now a mess of pit marks, claw swipes and the california King cotton sheets are plucked from her claws; making smooth look knubbed. Once she manages to haul herself onto the bed, she begins her rounds. These start at the feet.
Since Raven is some how physically unable to retract her seven foot long claws, having her walk over our feet every morning is a study in how well we can stand bleedingdeathpain. See figure A:
Figure A
She used to do this on our heads, but I grew wise to this, so as you can see with Figure A, I scoot down the bed every night I crawl into it. I sacrifice my feet for my head–I figure thinking is just as important as walking.
Once she is thoroughly finished leaving new holes within our ankles, she makes a 3/4 circut around the bed, trundling up the left side and across the head of the bed. The delightful part to remember while picturing this is that she is an old cat, and tends to bring gifts with her when she gets up on the bed: some times litter is clumped on the back of her legs, some times my hair. It’s always an adventure in ew, great, now I have to wash the entire bed again. Thanks. While she is doing this, she will often sniff for any random pieces of food that may have mysteriously rained down from heaven and landed on our pillows. The approximate sound I can compare Raven’s sniffing too is the sound of an elephants trunk shoved into your ear. See figure B:
Figure B
Now that I am good and wide awake, contemplating honorable suicide or becomming a nun, Raven will gracefully heave herself to the floor, wait anywhere from five to ten minutes and do it all again.
My sleep at night has turned into a series of unfortunate naps. I long the for the days of sleep that lasted two hours or more before some sort of interruption–Flora, get off the ceiling fan. No, Flora, the blinds are not a jungle gym. Flora! Stop knocking the computer on the floor!
For now I guess I’ll just have to stock up on really good band aids and get used to curling into a fetal position in the middle of my bed while the demented snuffleupagus that is my cat shark-circles around us and I wonder what it’s like to get a full night’s sleep.
Signs Mel Need Sleep:
Apr 26, 2008 Humor
Holding my cat, Flora, up to the ceiling and exclaiming: “Kunta Kitty!”
And then after a second, rocking up on tip toes to put her paws near the ceiling (I’m short, okay.) then singing Spider Cat, Spider cat.
Really, I’m like this almost every day.
The World Reflected
Apr 5, 2008 Personal
My garden is filled with basil once again, the cherry tomatoes are taking over one corner, the oregano has created a thick bed of itself all along it’s single row, like a guardian of dirt and everywhere there are lady bugs. I caught through our bedroom window, a bright orange butterfly flitting off to do whatever butterflies do yesterday morning.
As I watch my garden sometimes, my cat, Flora, enjoys watching the squirrels. She also enjoys watching the finches, blue jays and mourning doves landing on the bird bath and chirupping to them. I don’t think the chirrups are very convincing; none of them have tried hopping into her mouth through the window, but she’s very earnest in her attempts at hypnotizing.
I swear someday I will have a clear few snippets of video showing her churring at the birds.
Hairball and litter bit treasures.
Mar 18, 2008 Pets & Animals
I can’t tell you why I love cats more than dogs.
Dog lovers every where tend to rise up and point out how much more affectionate dogs are. How you can train them and you can’t (with ease) train a cat. How a dog might save you in a fire while your cat would probably wait until you are cooked to their liking and begin nibbling on you—if they haven’t already found some way to escape and leave you for dead.
They might also like to remind us cat lovers of how they’re never stand-offish and they’ll never treat you like a servant, but understand you are top dog and on occasion, an equal.
I don’t disagree with these points and more that dog lovers bring up.
But there’s something about a dog that I can’t connect with. To me, I can’t tell the difference between their feed me barks, their ‘I need to go pee right now,’ barks, and their ‘omg someone is coming/another dog’ barks. I can tell the difference between their ‘eat your face off,’ growls and playful growls. But for me, as much as dog lovers say that cats are a mystery—for me, dogs are the mystery.
Every so often my husband’s sister, Kim, asks me to look after her three huskies. It’s always the most confusing, nervous time of my life. I walk them every two hours because I don’t want to mistake their ‘I gotta pee,’ barks with their ‘hey I like you,’ barks. I keep a constant eye on them because one of the puppies is prone to eating everything that doesn’t move and being an idiot. Again, it all goes back to me not quite understanding them all that well.
And with cats? It’s whole different ball game. I can tell you the difference between Raven’s ‘Feed me now,’ meow, and her ‘I’d like some attention,’ as well as her, ‘back off or Imma cut you suckah,’ merowl. I can tell you by the way Raven walks or moves, how she sleeps or looks about if she’s feeling well or not. I can tell you when Flora is happy to see me in the curl and arch of her back as she rises to sit bastet-pretty for me whenever I enter a room as she’s napping.
I can tell you that outside of the touch of human comfort, there is nothing in this world like the smell of a clean, healthy cat. It’s like the dust of old, loved books mixed with the warmest left over sunshine caught in their fur from their most recent sun-nap. The feel of a contented purr that coaxes me for more affection, felt in the palm of my hands and heard in my ears like the most perfect, wondrous little natural motor. I love best of all this look-that-is-not-a-look they give me, when they are pleased to see me and squint their eyes up tight to show me they mean me no harm then they rub their little triangle heads against me to mark me as theirs for all the cat-world to smell.
There’s always little things to love that one must take in stride. With cats, it’s the surprise left in your shoes after an upset stomach, the dirty paw prints in your just scrubbed bath tub, the entire roll of shredded toilet paper all over the house as well as the daily dig for ‘treasure’ in the litter box to keep it clean.
But it’s worth it. Because there will be days when you just don’t think anyone in the world will ever get you, even your friends, your spouse, your parents or yourself—and out of the corner of your eye you’ll see two tufted ears pop up and perhaps the warm bat-bat of a paw. It isn’t long until this aloof creature that seems to think you are beneath them will curl up near you or on you and begin that beautiful tick-tick-tick-tick purr of theirs.
Everything seems just a little bit better. Everything seems just that much clearer.
Maybe I can tell you why I love cats more than dogs.
