Replacing the Cat
Apparently we've recovered from the worst of the grief over the loss of Maggie the Cat, Girl of the Streets. Well, to be truthful, Lila, the Balinese, had no grief at all, actually, which made her process easier, I suppose. Her little world has suddenly opened up. She and Maggie had an intricate time-share system concerning the territory that is the house -- and sections of the house were off limits to either one. Maggie wasn't allowed in our bedroom until 4:00 AM; Lila wasn't allowed in the living room and the sewing room ever; Maggie wasn't allowed in the meditation room; both were allowed in the kitchen, where the food is, but only in shifts. Yesterday, Lila had finally really become confident in her ownership of the house, and she became the old Lila I once knew. Instead of spending the day sleeping on my bed, she followed me around. Everywhere. And talked about it.
The rest of us loved Maggie, and had no territory fights with her, being primates and not felines. But we do want another cat.
Now, this isn't easy. We could go on down to the humane society and rescue somebody, but the fact is, we need a kitten, cause Lila is 15 years old, and we don't want any territory problems, cause we've been there, over the last 8 years with Maggie, and we didn't like it. So we need a kitten, of whom Lila will be the absolute boss and mama surrogate.
And the humane society doesn't need us to rescue kittens, cause everybody wants kittens, cause they're so cute.
This frees us to get what we really want, which is another cat like Lila. That's what we want. Another Balinese.
Sam and Andy have for years heard stories about Lila's kittenhood. After surviving it, I figured that I should probably only have Balinese cats from then on, since it would be a shame to lose the training. Of course, I also said that I would never again get a cat that was smarter than me; these two things cancel each other out, alas.
But they both want all that excitement. There's no end of excitement with a Balinese kitten, in my experience. There's the usual kitten stuff -- the climbing up curtains, the getting lost under the stove, the jumping out on you from under the bed as you walk by, thus nearly getting both of you killed -- but there was much more besides.
There was the stealing all the pencils and hiding them behind the dictionaries on the bookshelf. There was the laboriously dragging items out of the bathroom and piling them in the living room. There was the taking the discarded stockings out of the trash and stuffing them in shoes. There was the hanging on the doorknob and swinging back and forth, trying to open the door. There was the inventing the game of "fetch." There was the jumping from the floor directly to the tops of doors and bookshelves.
Here's a Lila as a kitten story, as an illustration of what I went through that first year: Lila, as with many other kittens, climbed all over everything. Alas, this included the computer, upon which I was writing my dissertation. Problematic. I bought some books on "training your cat." Most advised spraying the cat with water out of a spray bottle, but that was clearly stupid -- she was on the computer, hello. One suggested covering everything with foil, which apparently cats don't like. Lila liked it fine; in fact, foil balls became her favorite toy (she would toss them around and then pile them all neatly under one of the dressers). Another suggested blowing up balloons and taping them to surfaces one wished the cat not to go on. The idea was that the cat would break a balloon, get scared, and never go on that surface again.
So I tried that. Now, I was after all a graduate student, at Berkeley no less, and so I didn't especially want my living room decorated with colored balloons, looking like a child's birthday party. I went and bought black balloons, in true anarchist fashion. Blew them all up. Taped them to the computer and the computer desk. Through all this, Lila sat on the floor and watched carefully. When I was done, I stepped back. Lila jumped up on the desk. Balloon blew up. Lila jumped down. She sat there, looking at the balloons, and I swear to you, you could see her thinking it through. Then she jumped back up, right where she'd been before, and started batting the balloons with her claws in. She never popped another balloon, after the first one. One by one, over the course of the next week, she got them all off the tape, and batted them around the living room, till, over the course of time, they deflated. Then she jumped on the computer some more.
Scary cat.
Anyway, that's what Sam and Andy want. Intelligent cat.
So we were looking for a Balinese, but then we thought -- well, other Asian cats are like that, too, right? Smart, loyal, interesting? So we were looking at others. Lila sat on my lap through all of this, patting the computer screen when she saw cats she was interested in. She likes the Balinese, not surprisingly.
But Sam and Andy are now in love with the Bombay -- ooooh, they said, that's pretty.
I think really they aren't picky -- I got up this morning and Sam had already researched the zip code for the Siamese kittens in the paper.
I'm going to come home some time this week, I bet, and discover a new kitten in the house, hiding things under the bed.
The rest of us loved Maggie, and had no territory fights with her, being primates and not felines. But we do want another cat.
Now, this isn't easy. We could go on down to the humane society and rescue somebody, but the fact is, we need a kitten, cause Lila is 15 years old, and we don't want any territory problems, cause we've been there, over the last 8 years with Maggie, and we didn't like it. So we need a kitten, of whom Lila will be the absolute boss and mama surrogate.
And the humane society doesn't need us to rescue kittens, cause everybody wants kittens, cause they're so cute.
This frees us to get what we really want, which is another cat like Lila. That's what we want. Another Balinese.
Sam and Andy have for years heard stories about Lila's kittenhood. After surviving it, I figured that I should probably only have Balinese cats from then on, since it would be a shame to lose the training. Of course, I also said that I would never again get a cat that was smarter than me; these two things cancel each other out, alas.
But they both want all that excitement. There's no end of excitement with a Balinese kitten, in my experience. There's the usual kitten stuff -- the climbing up curtains, the getting lost under the stove, the jumping out on you from under the bed as you walk by, thus nearly getting both of you killed -- but there was much more besides.
There was the stealing all the pencils and hiding them behind the dictionaries on the bookshelf. There was the laboriously dragging items out of the bathroom and piling them in the living room. There was the taking the discarded stockings out of the trash and stuffing them in shoes. There was the hanging on the doorknob and swinging back and forth, trying to open the door. There was the inventing the game of "fetch." There was the jumping from the floor directly to the tops of doors and bookshelves.
Here's a Lila as a kitten story, as an illustration of what I went through that first year: Lila, as with many other kittens, climbed all over everything. Alas, this included the computer, upon which I was writing my dissertation. Problematic. I bought some books on "training your cat." Most advised spraying the cat with water out of a spray bottle, but that was clearly stupid -- she was on the computer, hello. One suggested covering everything with foil, which apparently cats don't like. Lila liked it fine; in fact, foil balls became her favorite toy (she would toss them around and then pile them all neatly under one of the dressers). Another suggested blowing up balloons and taping them to surfaces one wished the cat not to go on. The idea was that the cat would break a balloon, get scared, and never go on that surface again.
So I tried that. Now, I was after all a graduate student, at Berkeley no less, and so I didn't especially want my living room decorated with colored balloons, looking like a child's birthday party. I went and bought black balloons, in true anarchist fashion. Blew them all up. Taped them to the computer and the computer desk. Through all this, Lila sat on the floor and watched carefully. When I was done, I stepped back. Lila jumped up on the desk. Balloon blew up. Lila jumped down. She sat there, looking at the balloons, and I swear to you, you could see her thinking it through. Then she jumped back up, right where she'd been before, and started batting the balloons with her claws in. She never popped another balloon, after the first one. One by one, over the course of the next week, she got them all off the tape, and batted them around the living room, till, over the course of time, they deflated. Then she jumped on the computer some more.
Scary cat.
Anyway, that's what Sam and Andy want. Intelligent cat.
So we were looking for a Balinese, but then we thought -- well, other Asian cats are like that, too, right? Smart, loyal, interesting? So we were looking at others. Lila sat on my lap through all of this, patting the computer screen when she saw cats she was interested in. She likes the Balinese, not surprisingly.
But Sam and Andy are now in love with the Bombay -- ooooh, they said, that's pretty.
I think really they aren't picky -- I got up this morning and Sam had already researched the zip code for the Siamese kittens in the paper.
I'm going to come home some time this week, I bet, and discover a new kitten in the house, hiding things under the bed.
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