Confrontation

One of the interesting things I’ve noticed about Noah’s place in the household is that his relationship with Cammie is changing. Originally, he would follow the princess and, in so doing, annoy her tremendously. He still does that periodically, but now, Cammie just as often shadows the boy. Noah has decided that being followed by a ferocious Siamese cat isn’t as much fun as he may have thought it would be. I will find him sometimes cornered, squatting somewhere with his exit blocked by Cammie, similarly squatting, neither animal doing anything, just waiting for the other to make a move.

On the other hand, Noah still makes the situation worse - or at least keeps it as tense - by now and then aggravating Cammie’s already irritable nature. He will rush at her, just to stop abruptly. The princess will of course fly into a rage over this provocation, which is likely Noah’s intent. He’s a youth, now, about a year old, and likes to see what he can get away with.

The other day, I caught the two of them confronting each other from opposite ends of the nylon tunnel. Noah was threatening to zoom through it at Cammie, and the latter was ready to administer whatever punishment was necessary when it happened. Fortunately, as I was trying to relax with a book and a cup of tea at the time, nothing transpired, and this stand-off fizzled out.

Do you see Tucker looking on disinterestedly? It matters not to him who wins, so long as they leave him alone. A truly feline attitude...

Ferocity in Moderation

Each cat has its own unique personality, as any cat-owner knows. How different cats behave toward the same situation is interesting, and often amusing.

Josie is a good example. She is now my oldest cat, at twelve years of age, and the one I have had the longest, now that my Tungsten is gone. Josie is not a fighter. She did get into a very short brawl with Cammie once, but that was unprecedented. No, my Chubs is not a violent animal. This may be seen in regard to Noah.

Noah is my foster-cat. He is not yet a year old and is full of energy. He can be mischievous, and he sometimes likes provoking the perma-cats. This has, I think, something to do with the disparity in their ages. The youngest of my adopted beasts is Renn, and he is now eight. Tucker is ten, as is Cammie. These must seem like a bunch of stodgy old fogeys to someone like Noah. So he charges at them through the nylon tunnel, he jumps on them, he runs at them. Only Tucker does he leave alone because, surprisingly, the roly poly one takes the initiative and gives Noah a pummelling now and then.

When Noah comes too close to Renn, my big boy lets out a long, sustained groan, hardly a growl, but full of dissatisfaction and unmanifested menace. When the youth approaches Cammie, the princess lays back her ears, narrows her eyes and roars like a panther about to pounce. When Josie is upset with Noah, she gives a high-pitched, whiney growl that sounds a crotchety old woman complaining about neighbours.

No, the Great White does not convey ferocity in any convincing terms. When Cammie’s ire is aroused, I can hear it from one end of the house to the other. When Josie is angry, everything else must be quiet and still, or it goes unnoticed. I feel sorry for my Chubs; she is probably being as violent in her protests as possible, and no one is taking her seriously.

This is why I am glad she is an indoor cat in a safe environment - Noah’s depredations notwithstanding. She would not do well in the wide world, on her own. Her defences would be disregarded like a tidal wave ignores an umbrella, and her feeble anger brushed aside as if it didn’t exist. I take her protests into account when she makes them, though, for no one likes to be insignificant, and in all other things, the Great White looms large.

Josie is my pacifist, my not-so-little old lady, my beast with the wobbly belly, and it does me good to see her taking her ease in the sun.

Memory, Be My Friend

Memory is a funny thing. It is rather different than memories, plural. The former helps us recall the latter. It is not for nothing that Lord Tweedsmuir, one of our governors-general, better known as the author John Buchan, titled his memoirs Memory Hold-the-Door. The capacity to recollect actions, images, smells, sounds, feelings, is a great and powerful force, and serves emotion much more often, it seems, than it does reason.

Memory contorts time; it compresses and extends it, like what scientists theorise a black hole does. What was yesterday becomes last week, and what occurred a year ago happened just now.

I have been thinking of my late friend Tungsten quite a bit lately. It hasn’t been even five months since she died, yet in some instances, it feels as if she just turned the corner of the corridor and passed out of my sight. Other times, she seems to have been gone half my life.

I don’t think about her all the time. That is memory’s way; we live our lives and do what we do to get through our days. Sometimes those days are exciting and rich, sometimes they are boring and tiresome. But memory usually keeps us from dwelling on the past, whether it is happy or sad. Tungsten comes back to me therefore now and then, here and there.

I was making some toast last night, as is a habit, to keep my stomach from growling when I go to bed. Tungsten would see me preparing my snack and come over and join me. Latterly, she would be in her cat-bed, notice my activity, step down to the floor, stretch and walk over. She walked not hesitantly, as if hoping for a piece of toast; not hurriedly, as if she had to arrive before it was eaten, but matter-of-factly. “Oh, it’s toast-time, is it? Splendid. I am a bit peckish.” She would sit a few feet away from me and give a great meow, a yell, really. She could hurt your ears with the strength of her voice. Surprising, coming from one so minute. That would get my attention. Then she would speak the tiniest of cries, pitiful, suppliant. She didn’t fool me. She wasn’t begging. She was reminding. She would get her little bit of buttered toast. When she was healthy, or relatively so, she would then lie on my lap. In the months before her death, she would get down and stroll back to her bed. Either way, she had her treat.

That recollection came back strongly last night, but there have been others over the days. How Tungsten would sometimes prefer to crawl onto my shoulders instead of being held. She would lie there and push her head against my face; the only time she would give me head-bumps. I would boost her up, with my hand under her bum, rather than have her claws find a hold in my skin.

Then I think of the only times that Tungsten showed fear, which was when she had to go to the veterinary. She would press as close as she could against me, actually curving her little body around my abdomen as I stood at the examining table with her. Her faith that I could protect her against anything was deep, if ultimately misplaced.

When I go to bed at night, I recall Tungsten sleeping literally in my hand, curling herself up. If she thought I was moving my hand away from her, she would seize it in one of her paws and keep hold of it, even while she slept.

The orange one would follow me at times, into one room, then into another, and then a third. But her pace was usually so sedate that I would come out of the first room as she was still coming in. Then I would leave the second as she was entering that one. In each case, she would simply turn around, untroubled.

Lastly, a memory occasioned not by touch or sight or sound, but by smell: the scent of Tungsten’s fur. It was always very clean and smelled not of any shampoo, yet as though it was always freshly washed. I had remarked on that fact more than once to people during the tiny terror’s lifetime, and marvelled at how spit alone could keep a coat so clean. I hastened to assure people to whom I related this that I, myself, used soap and hot water.

So memory teases us with the presence of those who are absent. Usually, we give no permission for these images and sights, these noises and calls from our past; they come regardless. The door that memory opens and shuts rarely has a lock, and if it does, it is not we who keep the key. All we can do is hope that those who enter through the door come as friends.

Renn and the Ice Cube

Having given Noah some fun with an ice cube in the water-dish, I thought I should do the same for Renn. After all, my big boy is the scientist in my household, and I was sure he would enjoy studying the phenomenon of floating ice.

I was right. I slipped a cube into the metal dish in the sitting room while Renn was contemplating its contents. This added a new dimension to his study of water. I’m certain he had never experienced solid water before. It was like an unknown universe had opened before him.

Renn interacted with the ice cube in a different manner than had Noah the previous day. Renn studied the cube. He watched it float. He watched it move. He himself did not move much. He was not interested in biting the ice, or in playing with it. His motives were serious; they were scholarly. He wanted to learn, not to have fun. Periodically, he poked the cube, but his goal was not to eat it, or to pull it from the dish. He wanted to learn about its characteristics.

Alas, soon the ice disappeared, like the eclipse a solar astronomer wants to experience. There will be other ice cubes, and my big boy will acquire more knowledge. He doesn’t care for telling people about his discoveries; not for him the published works, the acclaim, the talk-show circuit. For Renn, learning is good in and of itself. Some day, he and I will have a long conversation about all that he has learned. Some day, we will have all the time we need for that. For now, however, I am happy to watch him study, and for him to keep the secrets of his discoveries.

The Ice Cube Cometh

As it turns out, Renn is not the only cat in my household to have a fascination with water. Noah (perhaps fittingly, given his name) also likes to mess about with the liquid, though, to be honest, it has to be water with a special attraction. In this case, it was a cube of ice.

The temperatures here have risen again, so I have been putting ice cubes in the water-dishes. The ice melts quite quickly and, while I was hoping that the addition, as long as it lasted, would provide some amusement for the cats, I didn’t think it would, really. Mine are a lethargic bunch. My big boy probably would have studied the phenomenon, if he had had the energy to leave the armchair where he was stretched out like Superman flying through a summer sky.

Instead, the new boy hurried over when he saw me slipping something into the dish. He was intrigued and puzzled. There was clearly something floating in the water, but he had no idea what it was. He tried fishing it out with his paw; he tried biting it. It proved elusive.

Noah is a smart cat. He peered at the ice through the glass of the bowl, and attempted to seize it from underneath. It was only when he decided that there was nothing for it but to tip the bowl over and empty the contents that I intervened.

The photographs are a bit blurry as he was in motion for most of the time. I think they convey the events, however. As you may perceive, the wonder of the world astonishes not just human children, but cat-children as well.

Roly Poly Guessing Game

My cats keep me guessing. I understand them well, I think, but there is much that is hidden from me yet. Sometimes what is concealed is rather esoteric; often, it is mundane, but still puzzling.

Tucker is a very sensitive animal, even for a cat, as I may have mentioned before. Periodically, when under stress, he relieves both this stress and himself outside the litter-boxes. This he does usually on the floor in the basement which, since I replaced the carpet down there with linoleum, is not such a big problem. Even so, I dislike having to clean it up and, more than that, I dislike him being under stress, and puddles on the library floor are signs of this.

Noah’s advent led to some instances of wayward wetting. They have grown fewer and farther between, though Tucker still does it from time to time. (The irony is that the roly poly is the one who bosses the new boy, not the other way around. Evidently, Tucker finds staying on top an emotional struggle.)

Last evening, Tucker ambled down to the basement, where the litter-boxes are kept. I thought little of it, except that he was down there an inordinate amount of time. I worry when my cats do that, as both Tucker and Renn did that when they were having urinary tract issues. (Tucker’s necessitated major surgery; Renn’s vanished without a trace.) So eventually I descended myself, to find Tucker hiding behind a chair. He does this when he thinks he’s in trouble. He is not adept at hiding, due to his size, but it gives me an indication of his emotions.

I naturally thought that he had wet where he shouldn’t have. When he does it, he is always embarrassed by it, certainly regretful. He knows he shouldn’t do it, but it’s a compulsion, so I can hardly punish him for it. Anyway, I searched, but could find nothing untoward. I made sure that the roly poly one did not feel that he was in trouble, and we climbed the stairs together.

Later, the scene repeated itself. I found my sausage of a cat at the bottom of the staircase as I was coming down. He looked guilty, but then he often does. It’s that big moon-face of his and the wide eyes. But again, I could see no evidence of wrong-doing, or even of bad aim. (He is, in fact, not only my most regular of cats in terms of bodily functions, but my most accurate.) I explained to Tucker that he was not in trouble; he purred, I puzzled.

Come ten o’clock, and I was putting Noah to bed. We played a bit, then I carried him to his bedroom (the downstairs shower-room) and bade him a good-night. As I was about to go upstairs, I saw a centipede scurry across the chequered linoleum floor. This provided a clue to the mystery. If Tucker had seen this multi-legged little fellow - and he could have, even in the dark basement - he would have been mesmerized by him for some time. He would not, as other cats may have, killed the creature. He is too timid for that; he instead would have watched it. He would have lost track of time until his human came down to investigate.

This may not be the solution to the problem. But Tucker was not doing what he ought not, and that was to my satisfaction. If he wants to be astonished by nature, that’s up to him, though I can’t see him studying it like Renn. I picture him watching, his eyes bigger than normal, his mouth open, his fuzzy face agog. After all, if I’m kept bewildered by my cats, they should be bewildered by something in their turn.

The Cats at Dawn

I rise early to go to work. It’s a necessity, not a wish. I do wake even on my days off earlier than I did when young, but getting up at 5.30 on weekday mornings is not something that I like doing. The cats wake with me, of course, and most of them seem much more eager to begin their day than I am.

Most look forward to their soft-food breakfast. They each have their spots - Tucker in the kitchen, Cammie on the first step to the basement, Josie in the sitting room; Renn rarely eats breakfast, and my foster-cat, Noah, eats in the parlour, with the door closed, to keep him from distracting, and being distracted by, the others.

But after breakfast, and a trip to the litter-box for one or two of them, they settle down for a nap. After all, they had to wake far too early for breakfast. Though it’s only the beginning of August, I’ve noticed that the day is not so light when I wake as it was. Similarly, when I write at the dining table in the evenings, I sometimes need to turn on the electric light. The summer, though still hot and strong during the middle of the day, is starting to show its age at its edges. There are, however, so the cats think, still some hours at this time for snoozing before they get on with the serious sleeping of the day.

Noah is active, even at this hour, as befits his childish energy. I provide him with a Trac-ball toy and some diversions in the way of fuzzy mice, but I suspect that he spends his day at the window, watching the world.

The perma-cats find their places before I go to work. Cammie is usually on a cushioned chair, if Renn is on the cat-tree by the bedroom window. If the princess can seize that high ground, my big boy rolls over on the siting room armchair. Josie is often on the bed, while Tucker wanders; he has a bite of hard-food, plays with a toy and watches me go.

I imagine that they all spend the morning and afternoon asleep, periodically waking to eat or attend to other bodily functions. Their day is quiet and boring. They may play, observe the wide world, investigate the house, or bother each other. I envy them.