Frenemies

About a month ago a black cat showed up on our front porch - just hanging out, begging for a belly rub. I think it's a neighbor's outside cat, but honestly I'm not sure where it came from. Thinking it would be good for Deming to have some outside stimulation, I held her up to the window so she could see. She started meowing like crazy and jumped up on the window sill.


Her new friend thought the window sill was a great idea and joined the party.



I thought it was really cute the way they were trying to communicate through the window and decided that I would crack open the window a smidge so they could have a kitty cat chat (or whatever the heck cats do).

Bad idea.

The purring and meowing turned into a hissing fit when I opened the window. Apparently Deming and her new outside friend have a love/hate relationship that leans toward hate when they can actually smell each other. Who knew?

Cats are strange.

9 lives

I've been hesitant to write about this because truth be told, I get a little tearful when I think about how it all could have turned out.

A few weeks ago I thought I killed my cat. Writing that gave me a cold chill.

We had a wooden bed frame in our room that was squeaking horribly. The kind of squeak where you couldn't breathe let alone roll over without the bed creaking and disturbing your sleep. All it needed was a washer or two to make the horrid sound stop, but our eventual plan was to move that frame to the spare bedroom so I thought I would just speed up the process and move it right then and there by myself. I'd like to note that Adam was in the shower and I could have waited 5 minutes for him to get out to help me, but I didn't. I'm stubborn and thought I could do it myself.

The cat was sitting on my desk watching my labored grunts as I tried to push, pull, and otherwise move the mattress with my mind. Finally I get the mattress to move. Inch by inch I scooted the mattress off the edge of the bed frame really kind of proud of myself. Who needs a boy to do hard labor? Not this girl. Finally I got the last bit of mattress on the very edge of the frame. There was just about 8 inches of space between where the mattress sat hovering and the floor. I shoved it off the frame and it made a loud thud on the floor.

Then it was as if I knew even before I really knew. I scanned the bedroom for the cat. Where was she? Seconds later came the most horrible sound I have ever heard: the sound of my cat in clear distress. Oh my god. She was underneath the mattress and box spring.

You know how people talk about getting this rush of adrenaline when something bad happens? Someone may suddenly get the ability to lift a car off of a person when they could barely lift 50 lbs in the moment before that. You had better believe that I became superhuman in the moment that I knew she was under there. Without any effort I lifted both mattress and box springs. Deming was meowing and went running underneath my desk.

I grabbed her and she just kept meowing as I started crying. Oh my god... I had just dropped a bed on my cat. Was she ok? Did I break something? Did I need to take her to the vet? And what on earth would I tell them? "I'm sorry, here is my cat - I just dropped my bed on her." That sounded ridiculous - True, but ridiculous.

I was trembling and in tears when Adam came downstairs. He checked her out and thought that she seemed ok. She was still running around, didn't seem at all injured, just a little frightened. I think I was more shaken up than she was. The next 48 hours I stared at her for any evidence of discomfort or pain. She was fine.

Having come from a home where we didn't have pets growing up, I had no idea what people talked about when they spoke of such love for their animals. In that moment, I understood.

Deming has now survived 3 days in the trunk of my car and a bed falling from the sky. I bet she's grateful cats have 9 lives. I know I am.

Things that go bump in the night

This past week has been a mishmash of fear, growth, and (eventually) triumph. Adam started his 7 night tour on the night shift last Friday. It was something I had been mentally prepping myself for since the move to Kentucky. I knew it would be odd... I have always had someone else in the house whether it was my parents, a roommate, or a really tough roommate's dog, Oliver. Alright, perhaps the dog was more of a lover than a fighter, but he still made me feel better.

I kissed Adam goodbye last Friday and did what any girl would do who is ready to take on the night at home alone - I went out with some coworkers and avoided it entirely. A girls night out with dancing and drinks was a fantastic way to spend my first night "alone."

Saturday I sent him off to work again, but this time it was a different. I didn't have any crazy amazing plans to look forward to. It was just me, myself, and I. Everything went ok until about 11 pm when I decided it was bedtime. I checked the alarm, triple checked the doors and windows, and then attempted to go to bed.

It didn't go well. My nerves got the best of me and it was a struggle to ignore the false alarms going off in my head.
"Did you lock the doors?"
"What if you missed one?"
"What if, what if, what if...."

I got up about 3 different times to check, recheck, and triple check the locks. Then I decided it was time for a weapon. The Louisville Slugger seemed ineffective in case of emergency. I finally settled on a pocket knife next to my pillow. Yeah, that's right, if you want to mess with me, you are going to mess with my 2 inch pocket knife.

After a fitful night of tossing and turning, I fell asleep about 5 am. It was a short lived victory, as my rest was promptly interrupted with a "BANG!" I sat straight up, adrenaline flowing. "Someone was in the house," I thought. I quickly realized that my life was not in danger, it was the darn cat playing with the cupboards again. I don't think I fell asleep again until the morning sun peeked around our curtains.

As the nights went by, sleeping became a little easier. Perhaps this was because each night that went by brought me closer to the night when Adam would get to stay home with me again. I still woke up throughout the night, but fell back to sleep a little quicker each time. I developed my routine of lock checks, quiet time, and a phone call home before bed. It calmed me down and made it easier to fall asleep.

The end of this 7 day stint could not come quickly enough for me and last night we had big plans to go out for a nice dinner. Things didn't go exactly as planned, however, because when I got home, I curled up next to sleeping Adam and took a 2 hour nap instead. Take out Thai food (yum) and DVRed tv shows occupied the rest of our evening. Truly, I didn't care what we did - I was just glad to have Adam back home so he could fight off the things that go bump or bang in the night.

This says it all

Deming has got the right idea. It's sleep time.

12 hours and counting.... tick tock.

Dreams of Parkinson's related treatments and overdose antidotes shall greet me when my head hits the pillow in 5, 4, 3, 2, Zzzzz...............

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.)