A Tale of Two Kitties

In my house lives a cat named Silas. Silas is an orange tabby and almost as big as my house. He just turned two, so it's time to take him for his physical and see if he's overweight, which I'm pretty sure he is. 

Left: Kitt looking down on Silas before the tables turned. Top 

right: Silas trying to fit his rear in a space too kitties 

too small. Bottom right: Kitt's fanny fitting nicely even though

she's supposedly overweight. Image copyright, Teece Aronin.

The reason I'm not totally sure, is that his head has been mistaken for a basketball by people catching it in their peripheral vision, and if his head is that big, maybe the rest of him should be big, too. 

Then again, there's the article I just read saying cats should have an "hourglass" shape when you look down at them. Silas has an armadillo shape, so that lands me back at square one, thinking he must be overweight.

My kids and I have another cat, too, a gray tabby named Kitt. The vet recently told us Kitt's overweight, but because she looks like a grape in comparison with Silas' watermelon, we weren't aware of it. We have since put both cats on a feeding schedule instead of letting them graze and bought them food puzzles so that they'll burn more calories than they do by whining, which is the only effort they had previously put out in order to eat.

There are some interesting differences between the two cats because of their size difference. When Kitt "knocks" at my bedroom door, it's a dainty little tap-tap. When Silas knocks, bolts rattle, knobs come loose, and door jambs splinter.

When Kitt jumps onto the cat tree, she's like an agile dancer doing a stag leap. When Silas jumps onto the cat tree, he's like an aging athlete trying to do what he used to do and can't quite do anymore. Or better yet, like King Kong taking a running leap at the Empire State Building. 

When Kitt jumps to the floor, she makes a girlish little oop sound. And when Silas jumps to the floor, he makes a sound frighteningly similar to the human, "ugh!" When Kitt jumps to the floor, you hear a tiny thump, but when Silas jumps to the floor, it sounds like a drunk at a wedding falling on the dance floor.  

Both cats enjoy lying on my bed. Kitt takes up a fraction of the space Silas does, and Silas always seems in danger of falling off both sides of the bed at once. 

As long as they're healthy, I don't care how fat they are, because I love them just the way they are.

Come to think of it, that's what I'd want people to say about me - just not when I can hear them.  

Honey, People Like You Should Never Go to Those Places By Themselves

Recently I lost my mother. In its grief, my brain scrambles to recall details of her more recent self while things that happened years ago spring to mind in stark detail. My father, who died nearly 15 years ago, is often part of these recollections.

Image copyright, Teece Aronin

I have a cat named Kitt (hang in there; my parents will be back soon) who lives for the times she can spring onto a newly purchased or freshly laundered bedspread, smear her scent all over it, knead it, and just generally break it in for me. 

I also own a quilt, hand-stitched by my great-grandmother but stored away because Kitt would love to break it in for me, too.

The other day I brought home a store-bought quilt that reminded me of the one I keep in storage. The bonus was the sewn-on strips of colorful fabric and the rumply texture that would make any breaking-in Kitt could do less noticeable. 

The second the quilt hit the bed, so did Kitt. She rolled and stretched and followed her usual routine until the other usual thing happened: she got a claw caught in the quilt. With her arm stretched over her head, she freed herself with a thread-popping snap and I thought how badly I wanted to roll her up in the quilt and chuck her like a padded torpedo straight into a dumpster. Then I remembered a mess I got myself into with cats more than 20 years ago - and this is where my parents come in. 

I had just bought a little house. What would be nicer, I thought, than to adopt a cat to share it with? One weekend I drove to the nearest animal shelter and saw that the place was loaded with caged cats. An employee strolled over and pointed out a cage with four cats inside. Those four cats, she whispered, would be put down the next day if they didn't find homes this afternoon. I put my hand against the cage and one of the cats pressed its paw against my palm. I told the woman I'd take them all, keeping two and finding homes for two. It seemed so reasonable. 

Before I knew it, I was driving home with boxes of cats in the backseat. "Ninety-nine boxes of cats in the car! Ninety-nine boxes of cats!" I sang. The cats sang too. It felt good to save a life and saving four lives felt four times better. I got home, carried the boxes into the house two by two, then opened them gently so that the cats could become accustomed to their new environment. Cats are funny that way, you know; very timid when introduced to new surroundings.

After charging from their boxes like a swarm of killer bees, the cats made what appeared to be a coordinated attack on my house. One of them shimmied up the drapes where he hung like a spotted aerialist before flinging himself against the blinds. 

"Oh, my God, they're feral!" I screamed, as afraid of them as if they were bats or bears, even. I called my parents and blubbered into the phone. Somewhere in there, my mother caught the words cats and feral and figured out the rest. 

"Don't worry," she said, "I'll make some phone calls. We'll see you tomorrow."

The next morning my parents were at my door wearing reassuring smiles and leather gardening gloves. They helped me get the genies back in the bottles and loaded them in their car. My mother had found a woman who took in stray and feral cats. 

Before they left, my father gazed down at me with a loving but serious expression. "Honey," he said, "people like you should never go to those places by themselves." 

I don't get myself into feral cat predicaments anymore, but the reason for that is . . . well, I don't know exactly what the reason for that is because I adore cats, even ferals provided I know what I'm in for. But I like to think it's because I always listened to my parents. 

If they were with me now, I'd gladly listen to them all over again - even if the topic was feral cats.