Powerless Over Kittens
The kittens own me now. My thirteen-year-old who “loves them so much” shuts them out of his room on the regular, but Brownie and I have less rigorous boundaries.
For example, I’m starting to become resigned to the fact that the kittens will drink our drinks and eat our food. I’ve used water spray bottles to fend them off, but the cats return. I’ve put cloth napkins over my water glasses, but they claw them off and slurp straight from the glass, reveling in their cat-ness.
If I shut them out of my room, they scratch and meow at the door until I let them in. When I open my laptop, they scurry over to hang out on the keyboard.
Brownie is an open-minded doodle. She seems to have made friends with Misty and Lucky. They do awkward playing with stuffed animals together, cuddling, and general following each other around in a pack.
Tiger she could take or leave, mostly leave. That said, their relations remain cordial if distant. Tiger could not give one f-ck about Brownie.
In the morning I make a lap for Brownie, Misty, and Lucky to all gather in and around on the green sofa. Misty and Lucky the cats get to grooming Brownie while I pat all three of them and drink my coffee.
The cats work furiously licking Brownie’s curly doodle fur which will not be tamed. I imagine the cats thinking while they lick and lick and lick, “This is one strange cat with some very messed up fur.”
Brownie and I gaze at each other while the kittens attempt to groom her and I tell her she’s a good sister while I pat her, which she likes. She doesn’t seem distressed, but she’s not super into it either.
Does she know she could just get up and shake them off? Hard to say. There’s some inner dog calculation that mom lap + kittens licking is greater than no mom lap + no kittens licking.
At night Brownie and I get our cuddle time without cats, who repair to their private bedtime suite in the garage. I’ve had to draw the line at the frisky kitty late night party vibe.
Take the food, the water, the lap, the keyboard, scratch everything, groom my dog, but don’t take my sleep. I’m gonna keep going.
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