Living inside isn’t so bad when we can have devoted servants who happily will make sure we have plenty of food and water. They tend to pet us when and where we want to be petted and play with us if we want that too. I can say when having a devoted servant who is also competent does make living inside so much better.
But when humans just don’t get it and are too selfish to understand our needs, it’s terrible. It’s the reason why many cats tend to leave and find another home. It’s the reasonable thing to do.
I can’t say living with humans is always great. It depends upon the humans. The interactions aren’t always the best, but when they can provide a safe and stable home full of food, water and love, then it’s great. I find myself wanting to stay inside where it’s safe from those who will just try to harm me.
Otherwise, no, I’d be better off on my own and just get the food when they aren’t bothering me. That is when I can’t catch a mouse or bird to eat.
I never met Nuri in person, but I know she currently lives with Ali. I’m sure Nuri wants what I always wanted—a safe and stable home with Ali. Perhaps another cat to play with. Nuri is quite friendly and playful. Too playful for me, but she would have loved playing with Spot or Isis. That’s fine with me. I do hope Nuri gets all she wants. She is definitely a cat who deserves it all.
Now if Ali could just deliver it, things would be great.
There are outgoing cats who love it when company comes to visit their home. I am not one of those cats. My girl doesn’t tend to have much company and so it wasn’t a problem for me. I didn’t worry. If it would be a problem, she would make sure I had a safe place to hide and no one bothered me. I couldn’t ask for better.
But some cats do like meeting new people. They know it’s their house and like to believe the company is coming to see them. They will chat with the company and cuddle and do whatever else I wouldn’t have the audacity to try. I suppose if it makes them happy then great.
Just don’t expect me to like having company visiting my home especially if I don’t know them.
We had to move a couple of more times, but this last place was our own. So, I finally got my wish with her. It is the last place I remember living at. This was also the place in which Isis came to live with us. My girl was working a regular job outside of our home again too.
I was glad when we could stay in the same place for years. This was a comfort after all the moving around we did. I just hope my girl doesn’t have to keep moving when she doesn’t like it so well. Having a safe and stable home is a wonderful thing to have. It’s the place you go to when you need to hide from the world.
That’s how I feel about it. I still believe that home is a place you can come back to time and time again. Adventures can be good from time to time, but a safe place to hide and be loved is a must in this crazy world. Home is not just for cats, but also everyone who needs one. So I can’t complain when this was the last place we lived in together.
It was safe. It was stable. It was home. It had a great view. I could keep an eye out on humans who came and went on the street and the sidewalk. I could look down on them. I know Spot loved the view too. He watched lots of humans everyday. We watched my girl too.
It was clear that she was a crazy cat lady who couldn’t say no to us because we are cats. It’s as simple as that. I wasn’t alone at this time of my life. I was a senior cat and I could enjoy my naps and meditation. My girl gave me all the love and attention I needed whenever I asked for it.
I could not ask for more from the home she gave us. By this time I had become a quiet cat. I was so quiet that my girl’s mother couldn’t believe it. She just didn’t understand. She thought I was still a loud whiny cat. Well, my girl understood me so well that I didn’t have to ask her for much of anything.
I could enjoy my senior years without worry. I was content and relaxed. I was surrounded by my family in our last home we shared together. We were happy. All of us. I was aging and my girl could see some signs of it. She would look at my coat and see some white hairs speckled throughout my black hair. She’d ask me if I was getting old on her. I just looked at her and said nothing. I’d close my eyes and go to sleep seeing her smile at me.
I knew she was just teasing. She was making an observation. She does the same thing to herself and it doesn’t bother her to see fine lines forming around her eyes. If she stares at her silvery hairs streaked in her French black hair for too long, she laughs. She now wears lined bifocals. She’s not ashamed. She knows she is getting older. I doubt she will care as long as she doesn’t get sick.
But when we age and get sick on top of it, it’s no fun, as I will discuss in the last chapter. So, I hope my girl continues to enjoy good health that gets better not worse.
This month’s cat vocabulary is a term from Twitter known as furever human which means the human a cat gets to live with for the rest of their lives after living in a shelter.
Cats tend to get excited when they meet their furever human or even humans. They just know when they smell us. When they see us. They try to get our attention to let us know they know. Or at least it’s something like that. When I met Nuri for the first time, she was in a shelter. She was off by herself. I saw her alone. So, I walked over to her and as soon as my shadow fell over her, she looked up and started talking to me.
It doesn’t matter what she was telling me at the time. It was as if she knew who I was to her. She was just having a causal chit chat with a friend. I picked her up briefly and she didn’t complain.
When I was asked later which cat I wanted, I asked for her. She came home with me and that was that. Yes, it still took her time to adjust to her new home. It took us time to get used to each other.
I’m not sure what happened after we had camped out. I saw my girl moving our stuff out of the place we were in for one night. Spot and I hid from her. Just out of her reach. But it was no use. After she had taken everything out, she came back for us. By then it was dark. She stuffed me into another carrier. She put Spot into a backpack that she put on her back. She set my carrier down in a basket. The back basket of her tricycle. She took us to our new home.
I had a lot to say about this move. It was the first time I had ridden on a tricycle. It wasn’t as bad as a car. My girl could ride it well. I knew it was her vehicle of choice. I couldn’t understand why Spot was so quiet. Perhaps because he was on her back? He could see better than I could. He had nothing to say about this ride we were forced to take.
It was a short ride. She locked up her tricycle and then picked up my cage. She carried us into the new place. I was still complaining. Now Spot was joining in too. We met no one along the way to our new place. Well, as soon as we were inside, my girl let us out.
Spot went exploring. I wasted no time finding a place to hide. Our stuff was everywhere. It was a big mess. I couldn’t find anything. I didn’t want to do anything. I just wanted to hide. It was a strange place. It was much too scary. My girl was busying organizing things and making too much noise.
As a cat, I don’t need to own a lot of things. It’s just the way it is. Sometimes we get some good extras like furniture made for us. But typically we just need food and water bowls, a litter box, a place to sleep, and something to claw up. We can use the furniture typically thought of as just for humans. It’s our home too. We like to share everything. Have you noticed? I know my girl did. She is quite smart about us cats.
But you just wouldn’t believe how much stuff my girl used to own. It was unreal whenever we had to move. It was too much. She doesn’t have that much anymore. She is traveling as light as she’s been able to. Some people have told her she still has too much. She’s shocked by that. She has reduced what she’s owned over the years and feels freer and lighter than when we were moving around too much as far as I’m concerned.
Even she could agree on that. So, it was good for all of us that we had another apartment for just the three of us again. It had a sleeping alcove. My girl loved it. She had a job that caused her to be on a different sleep schedule and she appreciated having that alcove. She put up a curtain and it was cozy and dark. There were lots of pillows to protect her when she tossed and turned as she slept.
She even went swimming in a pool at night. I could smell the chlorine on her when she came back. It wasn’t a pleasant smell. Then she would do some writing and work on her magazine that she had at the time. It was quite a life for a time.
But that place was so dark when she turned out the lights that she couldn’t see me at all. In fact, she couldn’t see much of anything. I could tell her I was right there. She never stepped on me when I told her how close she was to me. Bless her for that.
Then I don’t know what was going on. I made a vocal sound that disturbed her. I was loud about it too. She complained that I was sounding just like a full fledged tom cat. She reminded me I wasn’t one anyone and hadn’t been for quite a long time.
I didn’t listen. I kept making the noise, but then I would jump up on the bed and rub up against her. I so love my girl. For once I was the one who was driving her crazy. I suppose we were outside for too long. Spot never did this. It could be that he was fixed at a younger age than I was. He never sprayed either. I of course knew how to spray. I did it on purpose to get my girl’s attention whenever I got mad at her. It annoyed her so much… And the ways in which she reacted tended to get ridiculous that I still knew she hated what I was doing, but still loved me unconditionally at the same time.
But he was the one who sometimes would venture out with her. We were inside a building, so it wasn’t a big deal. But he usually freaked out when he heard someone else. I don’t know why he wanted to explore the place beyond our apartment. But that was Spot. I was quite content to stay inside our little place to ponder my life as it was in our safe little space.
My meditation was good there. It was a nice place. Don’t ask me why we left there. My girl never said. I was beginning to think something was wrong. Something she found difficult to talk about and difficult to deal with. But our lives were about to change radically again.
But at least we were able to stay together. Otherwise I don’t know how I would have gotten through it. The whirlwind was having some serious trouble. I just never knew how bad it was for her. But I do know she did everything she could to keep us all together.
With her serious problem, I don’t know how she was able to keep her promise to Spot and me, but she did. As far as I’m concerned, she did what she should have for us. She did it without complaint to us. But it made her cry too much. I knew she was sick to some extent. In spite of that sickness, she could take care of us and herself. As a cat, I do have a unique perspective on my girl.
I doubt my views of her matched what some other humans were saying about her. Those humans weren’t very nice to my girl or to my kind in general. Unfortunately, they were the ones who dictated certain things to my girl and she had to comply. At least for a time. But never forever.
I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul. —Jean Cocteau
I’ve lived with cats for a long time. Then they all died and I didn’t get another one for several months. Those were horrible months. A home just isn’t a home without at least one cat. My lesson has been learned.
There is, incidentally, no way of talking about cats that enables one to come off as a sane person. —Dan Greenberg
As a person who is certified insane, I don’t worry if I sound insane whenever I talk about cats. I know how contradictory they can be. It doesn’t bother me since I learned to love them all unconditionally.
Sir Socks Le Chat 