Posts tagged with "Byron"

He Who Cannot Be Tamed

Byron’s over a year old now, which means he’s offi­cial­ly an adult in kit­ty years. I’ve giv­en up on my dream of hav­ing anoth­er big cat to cud­dle, as he’s retained stocky limbs and long tail, but grown into a small and slen­der body.

Dolly more than makes up for that though, even though she’s still a lit­tle sore at me for bring­ing him home. She’s nowhere near as tol­er­ant to my teas­ing as before, but she’s still social and still nes­tles against my chest when she’s in the mood (usu­al­ly dur­ing naps, nev­er at night nowa­days).

he who cannot be tamed

Disguised in this inno­cent yawn is a silent roar from the killer with­in.

My rela­tion­ship with Byron is very dif­fer­ent from the one I share with Dolly. She’s a cat who appre­ci­ates the love and atten­tion I give her, and she shows me this with every nuz­zle and purr.

Byron, on the oth­er hand, is more of a pet; a cat who’s nice to have around, but who does­n’t inter­act with me on the same lev­el. He has a few social habits — hang­ing out with me when he knows it’ll soon be meal time, or jump­ing on me for a nice rub­down when he hears me stir­ring in bed as I’m wak­ing up — but that’s usu­al­ly as far as it goes. I’ve tried to nour­ish a stronger bond with him by prac­tic­ing con­trolled feed­ing and mak­ing sure I pick him up sev­er­al times a day, but he’s always remained a kit­ty of his own.

a path you didn't choose

People are for­go­ing their heavy coats for light jack­ets, even a litte skin. But win­ter still lingers in the crisp air, a reminder that it has­n’t been long since those frigid nights, but that it’ll soon be warmer and brighter. On the right days, I can wake up with the warmth of the sun on my face, dri­ve with the win­dows down, and eat din­ner in the day­light.

The cats sit intent­ly by the back door for hours, lis­ten­ing for any birds come home for Spring. They haven’t heard any since last year, and for Byron, that’s pret­ty much a life­time. Nowadays, I mea­sure time by how much heav­ier feels every day. There’s a com­fort to be found in know­ing that your cats are grow­ing and healthy.

cats eating

It feels like so much of what I used to cher­ish has fall­en to the way­side. Like I’m relent­less­ly try­ing to catch up on sleep, on time spent with friends, on gui­tar prac­tice, on var­i­ous projects, on get­ting to inbox 0. With time now such a valu­able resource, I’ve been re-eval­u­at­ing things to sal­vage as much as I can. Figuring out the dif­fer­ence between what I tru­ly enjoy and what I enjoy because I think I should, between what I need and what I want.

It’s strange to think that I’ve end­ed up here, and yet it’s hard­ly dif­fer­ent from where I was not so long ago. Life is always inter­est­ing, no mat­ter what age you are, and regard­less of how you think you’ve set­tled into it. If you’re doing it right, at least.

some day i'm gonna find it out

Over-stim­u­la­tion is a sling­shot moved by the force of com­pa­ny for the sake of self-dis­trac­tion.

cat in window

 

And yet I’ve nev­er felt so alone. The nights are filled with absence, which I try to mol­li­fy with indul­gence. It’s okay for now cause I know I’ll be okay some day, when it’ll be safe to be alone with my thoughts again.

Byron

Kitties are impos­si­ble to resist when you see them in every oth­er viral video doing some­thing hilar­i­ous or clever or just plain cute, and my plan to wait until life set­tled down a bit before adopt­ing anoth­er one was as dif­fi­cult as the inten­tions were noble.

I’ve had Byron for about a month now, and he’s already been a great com­pan­ion. He has­n’t warmed up to sleep­ing with me at night, but he fre­quent­ly sleeps in my lap, and fol­lows me around the house, even going so far as to lie on the bath­mat to watch me when­ev­er I’m mak­ing a nice BM. He also rarely stops mov­ing, which makes him espe­cial­ly dif­fi­cult to pho­to­graph. Like Dolly, he can be quite a vocal cat, and will meow repeat­ed­ly when he knows he’s about to be fed or if I call his name.

cat on a couch

 

I can tell he’s already grown in the short time I’ve had him. It’s always fun to see how all the parts of kit­ties devel­op at dif­fer­ent rates; right now he has big ears and a full tail, though his big mitts are more like­ly due to his breed. His face is also quite mature, though it isn’t par­tic­u­lar­ly strik­ing or unique.

Continue read­ing “Byron”…

rose coloured veil

Thank you for friends from Scotland and moon­cake from Hong Kong.

Thank you for guests and hosts and hol­i­days.

Thank you for friends like Lisa and Flight of the Concords.

cat on lap

Thank you for healthy kit­ties.

Thank you for mov­ing base­lines and dub­step wob­bles.

Thank you for local­ly grown beef and sig­na­ture sauces.

Basia Bulat at the Ottawa Folk Festival

Thank you for inspi­ra­tions and front row seats.

Thank you for British sit­coms, old and new.

Thank you for cheeks and day­dreams.

friends playing Magic: The Gathering

Thank you for new friends and Magic nights.