The Cat in the House

There was a chance of freezing rain last night. It wasn’t supposed to last long because things were going to warm up and turn to all rain. But it was enough of a chance to issue and advisory and send the local stations into a frenzy of activity on social media. I think they live for bad weather. 

As it turned out, the warm air came sooner than expected and we just had rain. I’m not complaining. Ice is far worse than snow. The rain is a good thing because all the streets and sidewalks were caked in salt and this will clean things up a bit. My car was a mess as well but I got it washed yesterday so now it is back to its grey color instead of being streaked with white.

Tigger the cat has now lived with us for several months. Bringing another creature into the house does change the dynamic quite a bit so we’ve all had some adjustments to make. I did grow up with cats but my parents were their primary source of food so they tended to pay more attention to them than to us kids. It is different when the cat knows you are the food giver.

As time has passed, we see a lot more personality out of him. He would play a bit when we first brought him inside. Now, it is generally what he wants to do first thing in the morning. Well, after breakfast because food always comes first. I’m always up first so it falls on me and that changes my morning routine since I’ve always used that time to get a few things done.

But if I don’t show him enough attention, he goes to the bedroom door and starts making noise. I know he wants to get in because that is the best spot for watching birds and that is his mid morning activity. He’s not a big fan of closed doors especially if one of us is behind the closed door. So I have to keep him occupied for a bit so he doesn’t wake my wife up before she wants to get up.

Before him, we had dogs. Dogs are different. We really didn’t have to worry too much about them getting into things that they weren’t supposed to. They would occasionally raid a wastebasket if there was an interesting tidbit in there but they generally kept out of trouble. Plus, you could hear them coming so you typically knew where they were. And there were limits on where they could go so, if there was a long period of silence, it was easy to go find them to see that they weren’t getting into anything.

The cat is different. He’s silent. If you aren’t paying attention, he can just walk right up to you without you even knowing he’s there. Plus, he’s an explorer so the whole house is his territory (the dogs tended to stay on the same level with us). And he can jump meaning that he can reach tables and other places that the dogs never could. 

Unlike the dogs, he really doesn’t care if we don’t want him on the table. He’ll get off when I tell him but it doesn’t stop him from jumping up if we aren’t around or aren’t looking. The dogs generally wanted to make us happy. The cat just does whatever the cat wants to do and then gives us the side eye when we stop him from doing certain things.

But he’s learning things as well. We don’t let him sleep with us because of allergies and we don’t want to wake up with a cat in our face. So he gets shut away for the night. He’s never complained about it although he’s always ready to come out in the morning. But it meant I had to carry him downstairs when it was bed time. In the last week, some little light came on in his cat brain and now, if he’s sitting with me and I get up and put him on the floor, he heads downstairs by himself and goes into his room. 

Would still love to know his story and how he came to end up on our front porch on that rainy night. But he’s made himself at home and we’re happy to have him.