Tag: cat

Cat Buglary

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Allow me to tell you about our Halloween CAT BURGLARY. Which it so say, the cat broke into our house.

When I got home the eve of Halloween, I opened the door to find Tara sitting nearby, seemingly drawn to the sound of the garage door and waiting on me. It was very overcast, but I could see her clearly. I set down my things and picked her up. 

Tyler wasn’t home yet. Tara has been staying on our screened porch when we aren’t home, full of toys and a 6-foot cat condo and her littler box and food and water. It’s kind of kitty heaven. But she had been getting rather cramped with only that one room to explore and run in, so whenever we’re home Tara has the option of being inside with us. So why was my sweet kitty in the house during the day instead of in her kitty kingdom watching squirrels?

I wondered if maybe Tyler forgot to put her out that morning, so I texted him to ask if he knew why she was inside. I let her out in case she needed to use her litter box. I fed her, as normal, and let her back in when she came to the door. 

The cat door between the living room and the porch is currently set so Tara can go out anytime but it won’t swing inward for her to come in from outside at her leisure. 

We’ve been working with her a lot to try to get it into her adorable noggin that she can go out whenever she wants. We’ve held it open for her, bodily pushed her through it (which worked with my roommate’s puppy), and tried to entice her with treats and toys. 

No dice. She refuses to put her head on the door and push it open. Instead, she stands on her back legs and leans against the glass, pawing at us and pulling at our heartstrings, then sits down and politely waits for us to open the French door as she’s used to. But she absolutely knows that her cat door is a magical portal to the Other Side. 

When Tyler texted that he’d definitely put her on the porch that morning, my best guess was that she’d been messing with the cat door, jimmied it open with her claws, and managed to slink inside. And if she managed it once, I felt sure she’d do so again.

We passed a fairly uninteresting All Hallow’s Eve. We watched both Atlanta United and the Nationals lose. Tara took a nap on the back of the sofa. We spent some more time trying to get her to push against the cat door so it would open as its supposed to. (She still didn’t get it. She pawed at the edges and pawed from a different angle, then sat up primly to wait for us to open the door.)

Eventually, we kissed Tara goodnight and put her on the back porch for her 11pm-1am zippies (like zoomies for a dog) and we went to bed. 

I woke up around 4am and couldn’t go back to sleep. Could not. I was thinking about free tampons in schools and tailoring business clothes and all sorts of odd things. My dear husband was laying so his arm was resting on my back. Not in a cute way. I rolled over, out from under his arm, but he just settled into the middle of the bed. The middle is not his side. Annoyed and uncomfortable, I tried to decide if I should shove him back over, which would wake him up, or if I can manage to sleep on the remaining 2/5ths of the bed. I noticed around this time (4:20 or so), that the door to the bedroom was rattling slightly. It does this when the AC cuts on or off, but this rattle was at an irregular rhythm. I sat up and looked at the door. I could see a shadow underneath, moving side to side.

“There’s a cat at our door,” I said aloud. Tyler didn’t move. He was probably asleep, I realized. When I touched his shoulder, he said, “I heard you.” We both sounded incredibly nonplussed about this situation. I got up, saying, “I guess we know how she got inside earlier.” I went to the door, knelt down, and eased the door open. Tara took her time walking in, and started purring as soon as I picked her up. 

I set her down on the bed so she could greet Tyler and he, her. She wasn’t scared. She hadn’t fled the porch in a panic. She was just awake. She had a cool new trick and she was awake, so she used it to come find us. But it was 4:25 in the morning, on Halloween by the way, so I took her back to her porch kingdom. She didn’t seem upset to be there. It wasn’t thundering or raining. Nothing had gotten in with her. She had food and water, which she sniffed. I shut the door and watched her walk to the cat door and start pulling at its edges with her tiny dagger claws (which we really need to clip). 

I adjusted the settings so the door was closed from both directions, and pushed at it to make sure. Then I stuffed a small towel, which we’d been using to take her on magic carpet rides, into the hole so she couldn’t see the light from inside anymore. This, I hoped, would be her “closed” sign. She tapped at the door, but she couldn’t open it. I said goodnight and went back to bed. 

In the morning, she was still on the porch and ready for breakfast. Cat burglary foiled!

Being a Cat Lady

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Before Tara, I’d only ever lived with dogs, fish, and gerbils. The gerbils were in childhood, the last of my 3 fish died just after college, and the dogs were my roommates in my working adult life. So living with a cat has been different. I knew and loved the feeling of walking with a dog, being greeted at the door, and I still love to surprise Addie and watch her bound toward me, wiggling with excitement.

While watching a friend’s two dogs and my roommate’s dog for the weekend, I enjoyed a small pack. I felt powerful and fun, with all these well-trained dogs who were so happy just to be near me, tumbling over each other to press against my legs as we navigated to the door and played in the yard. However, coming down the stairs the other day with Tara, who’d slipped inside to hide in the shadows of the upper landing, I realized that this is how being a cat lady feels. This sly, silent little kitty wants to be near me, will get into mischief and then follow me back out of it. With her tail in the air and her nimble paws on the steps, I felt trusted and graceful and capable. 

I like being a cat lady. When writing recently, Tyler brought Tara in to see me. Without speaking, he released her in the hallway and she came silently into the room, leaped up onto my lap, and stepped on my keyboard. I’ve heard writer friends describe this very scenario so many times, and now it was happening to me. I hoisted Tara up onto my desk and watched her explore it. When taking a long nap the other day, Tyler brought a sleeping Tara to lay on my blanket with me, a curled up comfort. And when he’d had a stressful day at work, I brought him out to Tara to cheer him up.  

Cat lady life agrees with me. I like being inside, like writing and reading and watching movies, like cuddling and napping. All of these things can lend themselves to life with a dog, but in my experience, the dogs get bored with me, and then I feel guilty for not being more fun. And I’ve enjoyed doing these things outside with Tara. No, I don’t enjoy the scratches of bites when Tara gets overstimulated (she is teething), but I’ve felt the tiny daggers of puppy teeth and taken my share of scratches from excited, bouncing dogs. I know that cats can be trained, much as dogs can. 

And, of course, Tara is adorable. Her latest game is to hide under my the full-length skirts before bounding out to attack a nearby toy. This game is similar to one she likes to play behind the curtains on the porch. Tiny but growing, she’s cuddly and pretty patient considering the number of times Tyler and I try to pick her up and cuddle with her. She’s got moxie, pushing against us to get down when she’s had enough without using her claws. Yesterday, she spent over ten minutes determinedly pulling a wand toy from her basket, then cheerfully dragged it around the room for another ten. She’s loving and gentle in surprising ways. She’s also stubborn, but that just means she’s part of the family. 

I love my cat, and I love being a cat lady. 

Summer Reading, 2019 – Audiobooks

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We have a house! And a new kitten! Let’s look at the kitten.

This is Tara. She’s a rescue from Animal Welfare, and she’s precious and spunky and we adore her. 

Between her and the house and moving and travel for work and my brother’s wedding, we’ve had a busy couple of months. While packing, unpacking, cleaning, and traveling, audiobooks have grown even more important to me. They’re the main way I’ve consumed books since June, and they make my now longer commute far more enjoyable. I’ve also recently discovered Audible’s collection of original content, including one-person plays. Here are my top reads of summer/moving season:

The End of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption by Dahr Jamail

A former war correspondent and seasoned traveler, Dahr Jamail brings us around the world with him to witness the ways human-caused climate disruption is changing our world forever. He climbs mountains, snorkels reefs, hikes the woods outside his own home. He interviews elders in Alaskan fishing villages, the city planner of Miami Beach, Denali park rangers, and scientists all over the world, focusing on how our planet is already too warm for ice—our glaciers, ice caps, and ice flows—to survive. It’s just taking a few decades to melt. And once it does, what will our world look like? How high will the ocean be? How will the rivers and forests be affected? What coral and fish and trees will survive? This is a bleak but realistic look at the unfolding crisis, inspiring me to do all I can to engage with nature, push my elected officials for more stringent environmental protections, and visit these iced places before their ice is gone for good. 

Wally Roux, Quantum Mechanic by Nick Carr (read by William Jackson Harper, aka Chidi from “The Good Place”)

After The End of Ice, I needed something lighter, and quick. I was interested in this Audible original, but when I saw the narrator, I was sold. And I’m so glad my love of Chidi led me here, because Wally Roux was delightful, exhibiting excellence in Sci-Fi, excellence in coming-of-age stories, and, of course, excellence in narration. I wanted to hand this wonderfully charming, realistically yearning book to all my coworkers, but of course it’s hard to do that with audiobooks. So if you have Audible, treat yourself to this delight, just under 4 hours long.

A Grown-Up Guide to Dinosaurs by Ben Garrod

I loved dinosaurs as a kid. I still enjoy seeing new reports and news articles about dinosaurs and other ancient animals. So I thoroughly enjoyed the 3-hour Audible original about what we know, think we know, and get wrong about dinosaurs. (Spoiler alert: Jurassic Park lied to us.)

Other books I read and adored this summer: