Chloe-isms

Now that my demanding cat has had a taste of fame she has an unquenchable thirst for more. And what can I do but give in? (For the why, see previous post.) And so, here is some more advice Chloe offers to other cats and humans. This will give you a sense of my private hell... (private hell!)

Food dishes should always be filled to at least the three quarters mark. Any lower and it’s too hard to knock a kibble out to chase around the house.

Humans are so gullible. Want to bite them? Jump into their lap and roll over to expose your belly. They can’t resist the kitty belly. When they go in to give you a scratch…

BITE!

Vacuuming up my fur just makes me think you want more. Fine, if you like my fur that much, I’ll shed faster. You’re welcome.

I do know my name. I just don’t like you well enough to respond when you use it.

Occasionally puke for no reason. This will keep the human on her toes and concerned about your health. A concerned human is an easily duped human.

When other humans are around, cower whenever your human comes near. This will make the visiting humans believe that your human beats you. It’s hilarious. 

The most comfortable place to sleep with your human is on their face. Don’t settle for second best. Start off the night at the bottom of the bed to lull them into a false sense of security. When their breathing changes denoting REM sleep patterns, move and curl up in a ball on their face.

An open book in the human’s lap is the best place to sit.

Always sit or lay as close to the human’s face as possible. Then, when they sneeze, give them a dirty look. 

Humans should always remain seated in a location where their lap is easily accessible. To ensure they perform this necessary function to cat happiness, try the following: 1) follow them around everywhere, 2) when they are stopped and standing, stand at/on their feet and stare up at them while telepathically commanding them to sit down; 3) cry incessantly and scratch at their pant legs when they are seated in a location where the lap is inaccessible, such as at a desk, until they move to a location more beneficial to you.

Humans = food dish fillers & laps. They serve no other purpose in this world.

All bugs must be killed. However, the most terrible beast that walks this earth is the spider. Spiders deserve worse than death. They deserve torture. The best practice is to torture any spider found in your territory and then leave the horribly mangled body in a highly visible location as a warning to all other spiders. Ignore the human when it tells you to stop this brutal practice. It is necessary. Give the human the cold shoulder whenever the human interrupts this practice and “puts the spider out of its misery” before you have completed your task.

Glasses and sunglasses are chew toys.

Wisdom & Advice from a Bearcat

This may sound odd to a non-cat owner, but my life, in no small way, revolves around my cat. I'm not entirely sure why or how 6 pounds of fluff rules my house, but she absolutely does. For instance, tonight I was out at a friend's birthday celebration after work and at around 7:20 pm I decided it was about time to leave. This was in part because I was tired after a long day at work, but also because I knew Chloe was at home waiting for me and would undoubtedly make my life hell if I didn't get home in time to spend at least a couple hours awake with her. I caved to the fluff. But I think most cat owners out there will understand my predicament. Dog owners may conform their lives to their dog's schedule because they don't want their pup to pee or poo inside the house, but cat owners don't have that excuse. Instead, we conform to the demands of our cats out of both love and fear. The love is our desire to have our cats continue to love us - and let's not kid ourselves here, if we put one foot out of line it's going to be at least a few days of hell for us as we work to win back our cat's affections. And the fear is at the prospect of losing that love and having our cat treat us the way he or she treats the cable man (or my sister, in Chloe's case). That is something no cat owner wants. And cats are sneaky, they will find subtle, yet profound ways to pay you back for any perceived slight (my mother's cat Julie - Chloe's mother - goes on a hunger strike every time my Mom leaves on a trip). Cat owners know that it's easiest to simply keep the peace and do everything possible to make the cat happy because then we're sure to be closer to happiness ourselves.

Now, in order to ensure that this peace continues, it is important for the wise cat owner to get inside the head of his or her cat. Try to understand why the cat does what it does. Unfortunately, sometimes our feline friends are just completely inscrutable. There must be some disconnect on certain subjects between humans and felines, a bridge that simply cannot be crossed. In the hopes of helping you, my (potentially imaginary - is anyone reading this blog?) friends understand your own furry companions a little better, I have decided to start providing you with my insights into Chloe's psyche. Perhaps it can inspire you to better understand your cat or you will see something here that rings true in your own household. Look for posts in the future on "The Wisdom and Advice of Chloe the Bearcat."* For now, here is what Chloe says on the subject of biting...

“Ooooo! What is this new, shiny object? I’ll bite it to find out.” 

Advice: If it’s new, bite it.

“Ooooo! Is this my human’s hand coming to pet me? I’ll bite it to be sure.” 

Advice: If it’s there, bite it.

“I love belly rubs and head scratches! Biting your hand will get that message across.” 

Advice: If you like it, bite it.

*Please Note: The "Advice" Chloe offers here is to other cats. Unfortunately, when she found out I was writing this blog about her, she insisted that I include her advice for other cats on how to behave with "a cat's human." It feels demeaning and I'm not sure I want to send this information out into the world so that other people's cats start behaving like Chloe, but I'm once again caving to the fluff. See the second half of paragraph 1 as to why. And good luck to us all. 

Escapades of a Bearcat

I haven’t spent much time talking about my cat in the past year or so. In fact, the last post I wrote was about my Persian cat, Ernest. Well, Ernest is gone. Gone forever! Don’t panic though, he’s not dead. He’s just living with my parents in California (which some Oregonians might think is the same as being dead – these Oregonians have a real beef to pick with my birth state for some reason that’s never been very clear to me). I really tried with Ernest. I gave it a full year, but no matter what I did Ernest hated me. If I walked into a room, he would walk out. If I came near him, he would cringe away from me. If I tried to pet him, he would start crying. Honestly, I felt like a monster. If anyone was the victim in our relationship, it was me! I’m pretty sure he was working a plan to psychologically torture me to the point that I would break, die and then he would eat me. I would not put it past the beast. But the straw that really broke this camel’s back was what happened when my cousin, Vera, came to visit me.

Vera flew into Portland, navigated the wild ways of Portland’s public transportation system and met me at the Courthouse downtown. From there we took my typical bus route home, arriving at my usual 5:30 pm. I walked in the door and Ernest immediately began to scuttle out of the room as was his custom, but as Vera came in behind me, Ernest paused. He stopped, turned around, and walked back into the room (which I was still standing in!) and sat down in a corner to gaze at Vera. This was odd. But at this point I had become somewhat used to the eccentricities of Ernest’s behavior and the fact that I would never understand him. Later, after Vera’s suitcase was in the guest room and we were all settled, we went downstairs to watch some TV. As soon as Vera sat down on the couch, Ernest walked over to sit at her feet and gaze adoringly up at her. I kid you not. Ernest had a look on his face that said he was looking at an angel. It was revolting. He even let Vera reach down to scratch his head! What was this??? I had owned this miserable rat for over a year and no matter what I did he treated me like scum, but he takes one look at this new person and he’s in love?? It was the last straw. Ernest and I were never going to get along and I was tired of finding excuses to stay away from my own house so that I wouldn’t have to go back to the second Cold War. I immediately called my mother (who had given me Ernest in the first place) and told her that I just couldn’t take it anymore. Something had to be done.

Some of you may remember (actually, I’m not sure if I wrote about this before, so some of you may be hearing about this for the first time), but we originally purchased Ernest in order to breed my mother’s Persian, Julie, and get a kitten for my sister. Well, during this time, Julie had produced three beautiful white and gray kittens (they all looked like little Julie clones). My sister planned to take two of them and my mother suggested that I take the third and Ernest could come to live at my parents’ house instead. This sounded perfect to me (surely I would have more luck getting a kitten to love me than a fully grown cat) and it wasn’t long before my parents were delivering my new kitten, Chloe.

Chloe is now almost two years old and I absolutely adore her. She was worth every miserable year of living with Ernest. Chloe is a 7 pound ball of gray/white Persian cuteness who looks remarkably like the ewoks from Star Wars. I always tell people that she’s a bear dressed up in a cat suit, which has led to her nickname of “bearcat” (although that’s certainly not her only nickname: Bear, Little Duck, Little Rabbit,  Little Monster, Biter, Pip, etc.). Chloe is the ideal cat. She does have a few…unfortunate habits, for instance if allowed to sleep in my bed she will slowly move from sleeping at my feet at the start of night to sleeping literally on my head by morning. But for the most part she is absolutely perfect.

What my family and I have found from now raising/living with 5 Persians over 3 households is that these are very peculiar little animals. Even more so than other cats (and that’s saying something, ‘cause we all know cats are pretty weird). For example, when Julie thinks it’s time for my parents to get up in the morning, she grabs a corner of the sheet and pulls the covers off them. Olive and Isobel (Izzy), my sister’s cats, have equally odd habits – Olive weighs herself on the bathroom scale every morning without fail and Izzy has to sleep with one paw resting on my sister’s hand.

While I like to think that Chloe is the best of the bunch, the truth is that she has her own odd little idiosyncrasies that seem pretty strange. Every morning Chloe and I follow the same routine and any deviation from it results in one majorly unhappy kitty. I wake up, make my bed and then open the bedroom door to let Chloe inside. Chloe saunters in and sits at my feet as I brush my teeth and then waits for me to sit down to floss my teeth and jumps in my lap. None of this may sound strange to you, but we haven’t gotten to the good part yet. As I shower Chloe sits calmly on the rug just outside the shower door. As soon as I exit the shower, Chloe darts in and sits in the shower for the same length of time I was in there. She rolls herself along the floor and rubs up against the walls until her fur is soaking wet and then finally walks out, her own shower complete.

Lately, she’s decided that it would be even better if the two of us would “shower” together. It only took one time jumping in while the water was still on for her to get the message that she should wait until that whooshing water sound was done to come in, but since that time she’s decided that we should at least share the shower space while I’m drying off. Every morning as I reach out to grab my towel I have to hold the door as tightly closed as possible in order to keep her from darting in. She has a very bad habit of rubbing up against my still wet legs and depositing loose fur everywhere. But it’s a constant battle and this morning she took our struggle to a new level. For the first time this week I managed to grab my towel without letting the little scamp in the shower, but in retaliation Chloe put on her crazy eyes and attacked the remaining towel on my towel rod as if it was somehow that towel’s fault. I opened the shower door to a confident, bug-eyed little monster who then calmly strolled into the shower for her morning ablutions. Very strange.

 

And so, cat tales (you have no idea how hard it was for me not to write “cat tails”) from here on out will feature my little bearcat, Chloe. The escapades of a bearcat are varied and quite fun. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.