Let's talk about the cats

Serene and sophisticated, they own me.

I’m baaaack. I don’t know if you missed me and my stories. But I missed you. The past three months have been a whirlwind of activity. Planes. Trains. Automobiles. Disneyworld rides. I didn’t make the time to write, and I’m sorry. The good news is that I’ve collected tons of ideas through my travels.

I missed my cats while I was away.

I have a bad habit of taking things for granted when they are always there. When I traveled over the past three months, I realized I missed my cats.

Months back, I introduced you to Beau, our 170 lb Mastiff. He is huge. And eats a lot. He doesn’t mean to - but he kind of insists upon himself. He’s hard to miss. In contrast, our two cats, Jesse and Peanut, quietly crawl around the house and simply get on with their lives.

We met them in November 2019. My beloved’s daughter was fostering cats for a local shelter, and she coyly asked us if we could keep them for the weekend because she was going away. They were babies at the time. Their mother was killed by a car, and this tiny brother and sister were left to fend for themselves. Two neighborhood boys found them and brought them to the shelter.

They called us a “failed foster”

We immediately fell in love with these two adorable creatures and promptly started the adoption process. Let the spoiling commence. My beloved said we would not turn the house into a “cat palace” and promptly dropped cat toy after cat toy into his pets.com shopping basket.

Peanut is the female. She had some digestion problems when she first came to live with us. I won’t go into it in too much detail, but let’s just say her poops were soupy. When the vet needed more detail, I became the poop chronicler and took pictures after every “event.” After trying different expensive food options and various medications, we reached the point where her poop was the consistency of soft-serve ice cream (chocolate, I couldn’t help myself), and everyone was happy.

Jesse, on the other paw, had a different set of issues. If Woody Allen had been a cat, I’m sure he would be Jesse. So much anxiety packed into such a small feline frame. Let me give you an example.

Wake up call

Every morning, the cats and I have a routine. They see me begin to stir and decide it is time for me to get up. They begin by crawling up my legs, back, and shoulders and eventually arrive at my face on my pillow. They give me their proudest butt hello and inform me that it is time to get up. I rub my eyes, make some aches and pains noises as I get my creaky body out of bed, and go downstairs to feed the cats.

Every morning it is the same. I put my coffee mug in the coffee maker and the food in their bowl. They eat, and then Jesse rushes away to an urgent box or bag that is in need of his inspection. I finish making my coffee, return upstairs, and enter my office. Peanut is completely disinterested in the box inspection, so she comes with me.

Without fail, Jesse starts wailing from downstairs. In his loudest, most anguish-ridden cat voice, he gives us the most mournful sounds possible. I know he is saying, “Where did everyone go? We were together a second ago having so much fun, now everyone is gone, and I am alone, by myself.” I mean, really, Jesse. We just came upstairs, like we do every morning. Eventually, he realizes where we are and stops his cat whining.

The keyboard magnet.

Peanut doesn’t have time for Jesse’s anxiety. She spends her days plotting ways to get me to feed her chicken. (Don’t worry, the vet said it was fine). When she decides it is lunchtime, she gracefully preens across the screen when I’m on a zoom call. Everyone at work knows her by her tail. If I’m not paying attention to her, she walks across my keyboard and makes gibberish typing symbols appear on the screen. It can be kind of annoying when I am on a deadline. When I ask her to stop, she looks at me with a dewy, wide-eyed look that says, “What did I do?” I respond by going downstairs, opening the refrigerator, and putting some chicken in her bowl.

Then we have another issue.

I know that I said this post was about the cats, but to be honest, I also missed the dog while I was away. And since we are talking about the refrigerator, I might as well confess that another creature in the house is spoiled. It’s not me or my beloved, so by process of elimination, you are right; it is the dog. Beau is not an early riser. He tends to stay upstairs until noon or 1:00 pm. He naps from room to room in the morning and doesn’t brave the stairs until he is hungry or needs to pee. Except when he hears the refrigerator opening.

Beau loves cheese sticks. When I go downstairs to give Peanut her chicken, Beau’s ears perk right up. It’s motivation enough to get him off his very large Mastiff butt and come downstairs to the kitchen. I make him sit, break the cheese stick into small pieces and feed him each piece by hand. Yes, I know he could eat the whole thing at once, but it’s fun for me and him.

So, is there a moral to this story?

Come live with us if you have four furry legs and want to be spoiled.

Do you spoil your animals??? It’s okay, this is a safe place to share.