Posts tagged with "cats"

Patches Arrives

Dolly vs Patches

Aaron brought Patches over Monday night, and he’s been stay­ing under my bed for most of the time. The tent that he has is sort of his secu­ri­ty blan­ket; he’ll hide in there when­ev­er he wants to be alone. Dolores is a lit­tle wary of his pres­ence, and she’ll fol­low him just to keep track of where he is most of the time. So far, it’s just a few hiss­es and growls, since Dolly seems to want to test Patches with chal­lenges, while Patches just groans. Sometimes it sounds like stock cars mak­ing a turn at Daytona when they growl out of sync.

Along Comes Patches

I’m get­ting a sec­ond cat. Aaron’s par­ents are mov­ing, and his 14-year-old Patches needs a new home. Aaron bought Patches him­self, paid for his toys, food, lit­ter, shots, and declaw­ing with his own paper route mon­ey as a kid. I’ll be damned if his par­ents sim­ply give him away to the first home they find. Instead, Patches will be liv­ing with me here, and Aaron can come vis­it when­ev­er he wants. The main adjust­ment that needs to be done is the fre­quen­cy with which I need to buy food and lit­ter. Patches used to be 25 pounds before he went on a diet, so I’m expect­ing either a very fat cat or a very flab­by cat. Aaron has assured me that his stom­ach will drag on the ground for the rest of his life.

All I need now is my own sit­com. It’d be called “Emography” and fea­ture the adven­tures of an unem­ployed com­put­er sci­en­tist liv­ing with his two cats, Teardrop and Raine, scar­ing away girls with his over-sen­si­tiv­i­ty.

The Lion Sleeps Tonight

Dolores is now com­fort­able enough with me to com­plete­ly fall asleep in my stom­ach. Not just any “closed-eyes-but-star­tled-at-any-slight-sound” asleep but “com­plete­ly-twist­ing-over-bel­ly-up-loss-of-all-sens­es” pass­ing out. I find it inter­est­ing that she still has the abil­i­ty to purr the entire time she’s on my stom­ach, but has no reflex­es at all. I can touch the pads of her back paws or poke her bel­ly and there’ll be no reac­tion. I can put her favourite treat in front of her nose, and she won’t even look at it. My the­o­ry is that purring is a very sub­con­scious activ­i­ty that cats may not be able to con­trol.

Talking To Cats

I had the plea­sure of tak­ing care of Nala while Trolley and Wheaties were home for the long week­end. She greet­ed me with loud protes­ta­tions, angry that her care­tak­er had left her alone in the house for two days so far. Alas, it was only me who had arrived, a stranger she had­n’t got­ten com­fort­able with yet. She fol­lowed me around at first, and watched as I filled up her food and water dish­es. After a while she real­ized that I was the only one com­ing. “Where is my slave?”, she demand­ed, and ran off to sleep under the kitchen table.

I tried to talk to her, to let her know that her com­pa­ny would be back in two more days. I asked if she was alright, if she was bored or sleepy or ener­getic.

It felt…a lit­tle odd…to be so ver­bose with a cat. I con­sid­er myself to be a sane per­son. At the same time, I real­ize that cats can­not answer back. A strange lit­tle para­dox.

I find myself in the same sit­u­a­tion around chil­dren. When a kid asks me a ques­tion to which the answer is beyond his com­pre­hen­sion, I don’t know what to say. I become rather embar­rassed that I’ve been placed in such a sit­u­a­tion. Do I tell this child the truth, or do I give a sac­cha­rine answer? Do I attempt to shed some con­scious­ness on a child’s life, or do I let him/her remain in a bliss­ful child­hood igno­rance?

Any deci­sion can be thought of in a bad way. I nev­er know what to say, so I gen­er­al­ly don’t answer back.

I still talk to Dolores though.

For there can be no judge­ment there.