KITTIES!

Random Cat Owner Thoughts

BY bonnie

Why is cat fur so cute on a cat and makes us want to pet and cuddle them, but when it’s floating around my floors like tiny, sentient tumbleweeds no one wants to touch it?

The upside to having hard floors and a population of wild dust bunnies is that when you vacuum, the dust bunnies become hypnotized by the machine and float towards it like magic where they are sucked into it exactly like the ghosts in the Activision Ghostbusters game I played on my Commodore 64 when I was eight. It is extremely satisfying.

My cats have a love-hate relationship with being brushed. Because on the one hand how dare you human what do you think you are doing demoralizing me like this? but on the other hand OMG that feels really good don’t stop.

I get overly emotional anytime someone suggests that cats aren’t loving. They absolutely are. I mean. I can’t even go to the bathroom by myself because they are so loving. I had more privacy for pooing when I had toddlers.

The kitten is obsessed with stalking the bubbles in her water dish when I pour in fresh water. This freaks Leia out, as she sits to the side wondering WTF even is happening right now and if the water has bugs or something she hasn’t noticed yet.

One night the kitten, Khoshekh (we call her Khashi for short), noticed the pointer hand on the Wii and started chirping at it. Leia, who has a particular affinity for moths, and a total lack of interest in the Wii, assumed Khashi was talking about a moth so she ran over and started chirping at the glass door even though there was no moth. So I had the kitten hollering at the TV and climbing the shelves to try to get to it and Leia was hollering desperately at absolutely nothing. We are a mess.

If a moth gets in the house, the cats will sing to it all night long. And I don’t mean that weird chirping they do at birds or the red dot. I mean they sing to it. It’s very musical. And loud. And always at 2am.

Cats bring out the baby talk in me more than human babies do. And, whatever, I’m comfortable enough with myself that I can baby talk a cat. But sometimes I wonder what my neighbors think when I get home and squeak out, “Where are my titties? OH THERE YOU ARE, TITTIES. HI TITTIES!”

KITTIES!

Meet the Kitten

BY bonnie

We’ve wanted to get a buddy for our cat, Leia, for awhile now. And what better way to make life easy after a stressful and busy couple of months than to get a kitten!? (Don’t mind me. I have no mind left.)

Right now the San Diego Animal Control shelters are having a $5 sale on cats. And I reminded the kids that we weren’t there just to get a $5 cat – I’d rather pay the full fee another time for the right cat for our family than just grab any old cat cause it’s cheap. But we went to just go look. JUST TO LOOK. And then we adopted a kitten. Cause that’s how I roll. Surprise cats.

My daughter named the kitten Khoshekh after the floating cat in the Night Vale podcasts (although our Khoshekh is a girl kitty) (and also she’s not floating). I was really quite nervous about how she’d do with Leia since she seemed to hiss at all the other cats in the shelter, but I was banking on the fact that kittens tend to be more flexible than adult cats in forming friendships.

So we brought her home a few days ago and kept them entirely separated for awhile, but then it seemed as though they might be ready to meet each other. I started with just a few minutes here and there but they handled it really pretty well, actually. Soon they were playing in the same room. Today they sat in the same window and ate out of the same bowl together. Consider me impressed.

Khoshekh has come down with a cold, though. It’s pretty common in shelter cats. She’s a complete mess right now, actually. Still recovering from her spay surgery last week, and now feeling low with a cold and suffering with a chapped nose that’s quite bloody actually. She’s on antibiotics now, though, as well as some lysine to help boost her immune system and some Neosporin for her nosey. So here’s hoping she’s back up to full speed soon. Because Leia is really looking forward to having a playmate. Maybe then she can stop battling the bathroom rug. (Probably not.)