Tag: cats

My cat has had it up to here with the snow.

Normally an even tempered little weasel, Gabby, like most of us, is happier when she can come and go as she pleases. But this winter has tested us all.

The boomerang effect has been particularly vexing. One day 70 degrees (Yippee! Let’s go out and dig in the garden!), the next day 25 degrees and snowing (Yeah. Let’s go dig out the car. Again.)

Fortunately we humans are made of sturdy stuff. We adjust. We buy snowblowers. We vent online.

Cats, while versatile in many respects, can be flummoxed by the various challenges snow presents. It’s not just the cold and the wet and the blustery rudeness of it all. There’s also the depth factor. It gets over four inches, that’s like up to armpit level for a cat. Try walking in that, humans.

So, Gabby has spent more time than usual staring out the window, watching her stone avatar in the garden endure the slings and insults of wave upon wave of snow.

Supposedly, Spring officially begins with the arrival of the vernal equinox on March 20th. Gabby will believe it when she sees it.

 

 

 

If you believe the lyrics of popular song, then you know that summer time is the best of times.

The livin’ is easy, the fish are jumpin’, etc. The summer breeze makes you feel fine, the summer wind brings love without heartache. School’s out, and it’s time to play ball, eat ice cream and generally revel in the long days of sunshine and warm nights of moonglow.

In reality, there will probably be a few days during the next couple of months when the vagaries of weather and the larger forces of destiny and fate will align to produce a few transcendent moments of that rare essence of Summer.

But for the most part, summer struggles to live up to its hype. If it’s not the bugs and the heat and the incessant lawn mowing, it’s the humidity, the haze, and the pressure to have fun, fun, fun every minute.

Personally, I’m of the view that what makes a summer moment perfect is the kind of suspension of expectations that comes with time off from work, social obligations and media overload. I need time unplugged.

When I forget this and overbook myself, I get cranky. That’s when I turn to my cat for advice.

Normally, I take the cat with a grain of paprika. It looks good, but doesn’t add much to the flavor. However when it comes to the science of down-time, cats are Zen masters. This is why they can’t hold jobs. They’re too good at doing nothing.

Sometimes I forget to do nothing. The mania for multi-tasking runs many people ragged, especially in these tech-infested times.

Cats by their very nature are blissfully immune to the lure of the internet. Sure you can find lots of cat pictures and cat jokes on the internet, but cats themselves have no interest in computers, unless they happen to feel like napping on one.

Summer, in its purest form, is an extended catnap. Whether on a beach, or a hammock, or simply curled up on the couch, an hour or two of refreshing indifference to the rush and bustle of modern life can make all the difference.

So what if summer doesn’t officially start for a few more weeks? Everyone knows that Memorial Day is the unofficial start of real summer. The pools are open, the beach umbrellas are open, the ice cream truck is jingling on the corner.

I’ll take a creamsicle.

In general, I approve of cats, feeling that their artistic merit and entertainment value far outweigh the minor annoyances which inevitably arise when sharing a home with a cat. I’ve had a cat most of my life. Not the same cat. They come and go. The best one died at age 17 a few years ago, and in my grief I vowed that as soon as we were back from our travels I was getting a kitten. My husband, who is allergic to cats, sighed heavily and hoped I would give it a rest. Naturally, I did not.

However, what I didn’t know when I brought home this adorable, albeit insane, calico kitten, was that within a month we would be moving across the country. But as we went through the grueling process of selling our Virginia house, packing up, moving to Seattle, living in temporary housing, finding a rental, etc, etc, our new kitten Gabby took it all in stride, gaily tearing apart furniture and toilet paper wherever we happened to be.

Eventually we bought a house here, and Gabby has learned to bask in the sun breaks and endure the relentless rain. So far, so good.

Then last summer one of our daughters had to move across country to a housing situation which did not accept cats, and I, idiot mother that I am, offered to give her cat a home if she couldn’t find someplace else. That’s how it began. In my cheerily delusional way, I assumed that, although the cats might have some reservations about sharing our small house, surely they would work things out in time. Now, after nine months, it appears they have worked things out. They’ve got me trained.

They ring their little bells and I jump to let them in, out, up, down, to fill their bowls and clean up their messes, to comfort them when they have esteem issues, to yank their strings when they tire of clawing the furniture. All of this sounds fairly routine, and, of course, it is, until you realize the one thing the cats will not do. They will not tolerate each other’s existence. They cannot be in the same room without a referee vigilantly maintaining the peace with a firm hand and a full squirt bottle. Thus, if cat A, for instance, wants to go outside, but cat B is lounging in the room that contains the door, I must resort to wiles and stratagems to effect the change.

Cat B, aka Domino, is bigger and arguably crazier than Gabby, and she’s made it clear that this house isn’t big enough for both of them. Which is funny, when you consider that Domino is, for the most part, a very sweet and easy-going feline, never happier than when curled up inside her Eddie Bauer bag. She loves that bag with a passion. She disdains the over-priced feathery catnip-laced playthings we’ve bought to try to limit her impact on what’s left of our furniture. She’d rather climb in the bag, wrestle with it, sneak across the room under cover in it, poke holes in it and occasionally nap in it. But she’s not about to share it, or anything else.

It was funny at first. But you know how it is with a running joke. Eventually even the best joke needs a nap. I sure do. I tell myself things are going to get better, any day now. They’ll have some sort of breakthrough, look into each other’s mad yellow eyes across a crowded room and realize, hey! Let’s give peace a chance!

Sure. It’s going to happen. Spring is here. Love is in the air, floating like pollen. Or fur.

Don’t get me started.

She basks in the middle of the road now. Casually spread out on the concrete as if she owns it, my young cat Gabby has finally adjusted to being an urban tabby.

When we first moved into the city, Gabby stared out the window of the high-rise apartment in which we were temporarily housed. Her eyes followed the swooping gulls that soar high above the streets. Frustrated by the walls of glass and the confines of the indoors, Gabby got what exercise she could by tearing apart the furniture and attacking the toilet paper in the time-honored manner of indoor felines the world over. However, when we moved into a small rental house in a quiet neighborhood near the university, Gabby saw more familiar and intriguing sights outside the living room window. Huge dogs trotted past on the sidewalk, flaunting their relative freedom. Squirrels cavorted on the lawn, twitching their fluffy tails at her. And, worst of all, the neighborhood cats padded carelessly across the front stoop, smirking at the new kid on the block.I think that was the last straw for Gabby.

She demanded to be let out. After a brief struggle, we capitulated and opened the door, and Gabby came face to face with Lucy, the long-haired calico queen of the block.Lucy, we learned from our neighbors Fred and Becky across the street, who belong to her, had been accustomed to sleep on the flowerbox which nestles below the window of our living room. Cats, like people, are creatures of habit, and the mere fact that the humans inside the house had changed didn’t change the fact that Lucy considered that window box her own personal futon. Gabby wasn’t having it.

The turf war began with glares and staring contests and moved on to low growls and hisses, eventually escalating to claws and fur-flying free-for-alls. At first I would jump up and try to referee every time I heard the snarling begin. But, you know how it is. After a while, you realize the kids just have to work things out for themselves. And now, some months later, peace reigns, for the most part. Oh, to be sure, there are still skirmishes, midnight porch raids and the interminable pissing contest that seems to be at the root of all wars, but the cats, at least, have decided the street is big enough for both of them. Sometimes Lucy strolls over here and picks up a few souvenirs. Other times Gabby slinks across the street and bothers the birds at Fred’s feeder. But, it’s no longer a war. It’s more like tourists crossing the border at Niagara Falls. Each side benefits from something the other has to offer.

In these complex times, the notion of open borders is no longer a simple issue. But, it seems to me that we are way past the point where good fences make good neighbors. Cats go right through fences. And let me tell you, anything a cat can do, a human can do ten times easier.The latest politically inspired idea to erect  multibillion dollar fences  to close off the borders of this country misses the point. Considering all the problems in the world today, if we are to survive as a species what we need is more unity, not more division. Even my cat has figured that out.

Why does a kitten chase its tail?

To get to the other side.

This makes as much sense as any other answer, I’ve decided. Of course, it may be because I’m still dizzy  from watching our new 8-week-old kitten doing 30 rpm as she seeks in vain to catch that furry snake that has been following her for days.

As adversaries, they are well matched. The wily snake manages to stay tantalizingly close, yet always slips out of Gabby’s claws. But Gabby is nothing if not persistent. So, they while away the hours, locked in combat, rolling and tumbling across the floor until they both call time out and take a nap. The snake, of course, cheats during these breaks. While Gabby dreams of cheese puffs and butterflies, or whatever it is kittens dream about, the snake is rarely still. It uses this time to work on its moves, coiling and snapping like a restless whip. No wonder Gabby can’t keep up with it.

To her credit, Gabby also works out, practicing her moves on anything snake-like. She trains tirelessly with the jump rope. Unfortunately, she also seems to draw no distinction between cords of flesh and cords of electricity and thus the tangled webs of  electric wire under every desk exert a hypnotic attraction on her peanut-sized brain. And, not content to simply dive into the mess and get herself hopelessly ensnared, she insists on chewing on the wires. This could be a problem.

So far, our relentless vigilance and crafty tactics have kept her from frying the computer wires, or herself. We hope it’s a phase she’ll outgrow. Yet, the whole tail-chasing phenomenon doesn’t seem to be limited to kittens. Plenty of humans I’ve known, self included, waste many an hour in the brainless pursuit of goals that, really, might be better left on the theoretical shelf. I vividly recall as a child once desiring a turquoise blue four-foot-tall plush bear. The rationale for this desire escapes me now. I seem to recall that I actually saved up my little all and purchased the thing. Where it is now I couldn’t tell you. Probably moldering at the bottom of some landfill. The passion which led me to acquire it died as mysteriously as it began.

No doubt, all kittens must one day experience a similar rude awakening when, at long last, having fought the good fight and prevailed, they realize suddenly that a mouthful of fur isn’t really all that much of a treat.

I suppose we all learn this in some way or another as we go through life. We chase our mad desires across six lanes of deadly traffic and, if we’re lucky, emerge on the other side dazed and confused, wondering whatever were we thinking. And yet, perhaps we aren’t so different from our tail-chasing kittens. After all, it’s better to have loved and crossed, than never to have loved at all.