Another Quick Kitty Tail, er Tale

I was walking with a friend to her place last week. We heard a meow behind us a few times. We turned around and heard a ringing bell as the cat came over to us.  I petted the cat a bit and we kept walking but the cat started following, staying particularly close to my friend. So then she also petted the cat. After that I gave the cat a pet one more time and we started walking again. This time, satisfied that we had both given the cat its needed love and attention, it let us continue on our way.

A Quick Kitty Christmas Anecdote

Last week I bought a friend’s cat a couple of Christmas presents. One was a set of three balls with bells inside, the other was a ball with a feather on one end and a rope on the other. The former intrigued the cat but the other really got its attention. My friend removed the packaging and the cat started having a grand old time playing with his new toy.

In the other room the TV was playing a commercial.  In the commercial someone belched.  Upon hearing the belch the cat stopped and looked up as if to think “What was that all about?" and then he resumed playing with his new toy.

Live Cat Show Trumps Movie

I was living on Stikine Street in Kitimat at the time and had done some raking of leaves during the day, so that the leaves were under a tree.  My parents and I were watching an old movie. It Happened One Night, I think.  There were cats that used to hang out in the yard sometimes before a neighbour got a couple of temperamental dogs. But this was before the dogs.

As we were watching the movie one cat chased another cat up the tree with the leaves.  Seconds later one of the cats dropped down into the leaves feet first and then the other did the same. It was a good sized jump and the cats stood perfectly straight during the jump. A perfect feet-first jump for both cats.  While the movie was decent enough, there was something about a live show of cats being cats that was far more interesting and I don’t regret missing a little bit of the movie to enjoy the live show.

Dramatic Travelling Cat at Cancer Ward

Just a short one today because it’s been a crazy day and I want to get this in under the wire.

I was visiting my mom in the cancer clinic in Vancouver.  They had a friendly cat there. One time I saw it on top of a shelf.  It did the most dramatic stretch you’d ever seen, like it was about to embark on a great journey. It walked to the other end of the shelf… and sat back down. Kitty’s great journey had come to an end for now.

A Great Cat in Armstrong

Sorry it’s so late in the day that I’m posting this. I was with a friend most of the day.

A few years ago I was in Armstrong with my dad and we visited Shamrock Books. The store has two cats last I checked though at the time I think it only had one. It greeted us as we entered. I petted the cat and we walked around the store and looked around a bit. My dad read the title of one book, “Great Cats”. The cat promptly meowed and came over to our aisle.  It was almost as if the cat was saying, “Oh, you want a great cat? Here I am! Request filled.”

Cats at Duncan Pets

Some anecdotes regarding Duncan Pets, a pet store along the Trans-Canada Highway: Once I saw a cage with a cat beside a cage of budgies. The birds didn’t seem too comfortable. Another time a cat that was not in a cage was entertaining itself sitting in front of the budgie cage. In both cases I think the birds were actually pretty safe. Another time I bent down to pet a cat and he decided to climb onto my back and stay there a while. I actually got a little concerned because this left me a bit immobilized and I needed to be somewhere within the hour. Luckily he found another customer to greet soon enough.

Cats on Dunn St

When I lived on Dunn St in Kitimat, there were cats on either side of my house. The cat on my right was the older of the two, a Siamese named Molly. Molly would only drink out of a glass. My mom told me once that her owner said she could no longer jump on fences due to arthritis, whereupon Molly proceeded to do exactly that.

I can’t recall the breed of the other cat (Whiskey). I do recall he weas fond of taking lengthy vacations. But my favourite story about him was of the "at home" variety. We had budgies and one time I heard a tapping on the dining room window, which had a fence leading up to it. My mom moved the drapes and Whiskey was on the fence knocking to be left in, presumably to meet the birds.

Both cats had a territory war under one of our trees; given the yowling both were determined to defend their territory from the other cat. It was clear that there was some sort of land claim dispute happening, though both were agreeable to humans using their land.

Cats Flushing Toilets

When I sent the invite to this blog to friends, I mentioned cats flushing toilets in jest. But then I decided it was hardly fair to say I would post on this and then not do so. So...

On YouTube there seems to be two types of videos of cats flushing toilets: ones where the cats actually do their business in the toilet and then flush it, and those that flush the toilet just for the whirlpool effect.

In the former category, I definitely admire the intelligence of the cats, and their willingness to give up some of their independence to make their family's life a bit easier. But I can't say i get much enjoyment watching such videos. Really I don't enjoy seeing humans doing their business and I don't enjoy other creatures do so either. I'm not offended by the act; we all do it, it's natural. It's just a pretty private thing for me. I do understand some people get amusement by it and some get turned on, especially if it's humans. And I also realize that, conversely, that many cats enjoy watching humans do their business. Again, though, it's a personal choice and not my thing.

The latter case, though, I do quite enjoy. I love the sense of wonder and fascination with stuff that many cats hold, and I enjoy the sense of wonder and fascination that some cats hold for what is pretty mundane for humans. It's hard not to try to get into the cat's head and try to figure out what the fascination is. Is the cat trying to figure otu how it works, or does the cat simply find the whirlpool effect relaxing? I can't begrudge it if the cat does: there is something relaxing about a water fountain, and when I watch the International Fountain in Seattle, I find I get very relaxed. I think the repetition is interesting too: the fact that the cat will repeatedly move to the handle to flush the toilet, then back down to watch the whirlpool efffect, then back up to the handle, etc., seemingly never getting bored by this.

I think that in doing this cats reveal that we should never take even the little stuff for granted, that we should never lose our sense of wonder. Most of us have less than a century to experience life. We should find the joy in it wherever we can, even in a toilet bowl.