Does she have a manual?

When cat ownership was suddenly thrust upon me last December, I was kind of excited about it. Ok, that's an understatement. I was really really excited about it.

Look at this face:

Deming looks so calm.
So innocent.
I should have known better.

This was the cat who was determined to get her way and live with the people she stalked at the apartment complex. The cat who MacGyvered her way into the trunk of my car when we left Savannah for Phoenix. The cat who wedged herself in my wheel well for 3 days for a cross country road trip.

Have you ever tried to train a cat?
Bwahahahahaha.
There is no training a cat.

For the most part, she's a good kitty, but when her attention seeking switch gets flipped Deming changes from calm, cool, and collected, to LOOK AT ME!

There are a few things I've learned over the past 7 months:

• If I make sure her food bowl is full before bedtime, I avoid the uncomfortable eyeball lick at 3 am. Yes, you read that correctly. If she's hungry in the middle of the night she licks my eye. Fantastic.

• Paper products = catnip. You know the excuse, "My dog ate my homework?" It's true in this case. She will chow down on books, bills, and cardboard boxes. If anything is at all important, it had better be put in a drawer. In fact, as I write this, she's eating my research proposal paper.

• We find the TV fascinating and so does she although she doesn't really watch it. She could care less about what is on the boob tube. Deming wants to sit in front of it. And then she wants to paw at it which thrills Adam to no end (note the sarcasm).

• Cabinet doors are the best play things. I know she's bored when I hear, "Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!" She usually doesn't go inside of the cupboards, she just wants to let us know that she's around and wants entertainment. And she knows it's wrong. She'll bang on a cupboard then peek around the corner to see if we are paying attention.

• Just like us, she likes to be snuggly in blankets. You have to be careful not to accidentally sit on her.
  

• If bedroom doors aren't fully closed she will open them. If they won't open, she'll just keep trying. This results in more of the "Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!" noises we know and love.

• Deming forgets where she is sometimes and falls off windowsills or backs of chairs. Then she tries to act all cool like, yeah I meant to do that. At least I know she's my cat. We're both terribly clumsy.
  

This cat is trouble. But we love her just the same. Most days.

(Betty, the bullet points were for you.)