The Strangeness of Muffet

I live with a delightfully strange cat. People have asked me how Muffet and I have been getting along, and the best short answer I can give is "delightfully strange."

The long answer is that she's incredibly annoying and funny. If she were slightly more annoying or slightly less funny she'd be unbearable, but even when she's going completely bonkers -- ricocheting off walls five feet in the air, for instance, while emitting a constant babble of shrieks and growls -- she is still entirely lovable. And sometimes she knows to leave well enough alone (though rarely).

She's too curious and active. She needs to explore everything, and if she can't climb inside something she needs to either push it or break it. Socks must be removed from sock drawers and shower curtains must come crashing down, usually at 3am. She must also be allowed a certain time on my shoulders, a game which we call "hunchcat" and which sometimes ends with her biting my neck.

Did I mention the fighting? We're always fighting. When she rolls onto her back, that means she wants to mutilate my right hand. I am a bad parent because I do not let her win, and at the end of it all I clutch my bleeding wrist and she looks at me with hatred in her eyes, huffing peevishly.

So yes, she's annoying and requires constant maintenance and she will destroy things if I don't pay attention to her. But I love her to death, and she puts on a convincing charade of loving me. At the roller derby last weekend I sat next to a woman who had to entertain her precocious eight-year-old daughter, and I saw an uncanny reflection of my own behaviour: the coaxing, the distracting, the humouring, the happiness, and the unfeigned tolerance and love.

SIDENOTE: A few months ago she managed to climb the bookcase where I keep her treats, and by the time I caught her she'd eaten half of a full bag. I put the treats in an even higher and more inaccessible spot, and the next day she'd managed to eat the other half. She expanded into a very fat cat shortly afterward and it's been a struggle to maintain her new diet, but let's just say she doesn't get treats anymore and that my shoulders have needed to become a lot stronger.

Muffet in Tubular Crin

I give you a picture of the Demon Cat Muffet, sometimes known as Catzalcoatl, in a rare moment of rest.

Recently...

Many things have prevented me from blogging recently, not least my own laziness and ennui. My computer's hard drive totally died after my post about the importance of backups, requiring a trip to the repair shop (and then a total update of everything to Snow Leopard which does kick ass).

This misfortune was immediately followed by a five-day heatwave. Despite my perverse resistance to installing my window air conditioner -- and therefore many nights spent sweating buckets into my sodden bedding -- I learned two things about humans and heat:

1. When people who live in an extremely HUMID area -- like those of us in Southern Ontario -- complain about 35-degree temperatures that feel like 42-degrees due to the humidity, people who live in DRY areas say -- repeatedly and disdainfully -- "Ha! It's that hot here ALL SUMMER!" To which I can only say: try going out in that heat with a wet towel wrapped around your nose and mouth.
2. When people complain about the devastating heat, a subset of other people say "Ha! In the winter you complain about the cold, now you complain about the heat! You just like complaining!" This is like saying "You complained that you were thirsty, so you'd better not complain when I throw you in the pool and drown you!" However illogical it is to complain about the weather -- since nobody you complain to can actually change it -- it is NOT illogical to complain about temperature extremes.

I only mention this because people say these things all the time, and it's tiresome.

Anyway, I'm also living with a cat who is a bit like the Tazmanian Devil, only more hyperactive and noisy. She is a fearless destroyer of bookshelves. She has learned that the best way to send me leaping out of bed in the morning is to sharpen her claws on my mattress, which I imagine her doing with a big grin on her face.

As of this morning, Muffet is forbidden from entering my bedroom. This is difficult because I haven't lived with closed doors for over ten years, and also because I don't think she'll adapt quickly or quietly to this change. Her favourite window is in my bedroom, and so is the sock drawer. I foresee many challenging nights ahead.

Third obstacle: constant pain in my shoulders. Sometimes it's barely there, and other times it feels like my biceps and shoulders are being held together by old rusty rivets made out of bubbling lava.

When I told my family doctor that I was on a three-year waiting list to see a shoulder specialist, he had a fit of furious Irish passion and booked me for a series of examinations. Yesterday a delicate lady held an ultrasound paddle to my shoulders and we viewed the inside of my pathology: wavy lines of bone and fat surrounding ominous black holes of encysted fluid.

Then I crossed the hall to get some X-rays done. It was a much more respectable operation than the last place I went to, though it ALSO had a cupboard which emitted terrifying scrabbling sounds.

Most interesting was the woman who took the X-rays. She was brusque and businesslike, but every time she prepared to take another picture she'd say "Hold your breath!" in an incongruous sing-song way, like the way you'd speak to a mischievous child. I felt weird, standing there in my lead girdle, with this extremely professional lady buzzing around who would suddenly disappear into a booth and sing out -- as though she were offering me a popsicle -- "Hold your breath!"

In other news, I have joined the board for the condo corporation, which is a story I'll tell someday. I also joined the board for the Open Ears festival. I have added "The Toronto G-20" to the list of topics which must not be discussed in friendly company. I walked past my old apartment and saw that the vegetation grew back but the junker cars remain. I read "Babbitt" by Sinclair Lewis, "Day of the Triffids" by John Wyndham, and a beautiful book about undeciphered ancient scripts by Andrew Robinson. If I go on any sort of vacation this year it will hopefully be to Easter Island, because I want to see what their discos are like.

A Few Weeks with Muffet

Every day with Muffet is a new set of adventures and challenges. We're both training each other, and meanwhile she's adapting to her new environment AND growing into adulthood. She's bigger and heavier than before but still has the spindly, long-legged look of a furry spider.

Here are some scattered impressions from the past few weeks.

• They say that "curiosity killed the cat," and now I understand why. Muffet wants to explore everything. She would climb into a running wood chipper if given the opportunity. When I washed my first load of clothes after her arrival, I went into the basement during the wash cycle and there was Muffet, sitting in the laundry tub and staring up into the washer's outflow pipe, wondering what would happen next. I removed her but there will surely come a day...
• Yes, she has been scratching my wonderful new chairs. A liberal misting of cat repellent seems to have helped, and I've also been rewarding her each time she uses her scratching tray. As a result she spends much of her time scratching at her tray, staring up at me in confusion, and then scratching some more. It's our way of bonding.
• Play...ooooh, play. Our morning and twilight involves burning off her excess of energy, which she signals by batting at my ankles. She doesn't care for balls or tiny facsimile mice, but she gets a kick out of a plastic spring that Delirium gal A. gave her, and she REALLY likes Zsa Zsa's old "feather snake," (see picture) though that game always ends with her hiding under the bed and just watching it go by, which is boring.
• There was a time when I answered to her every beep and meow, which was a mistake. Now she's like the kid who stands at the bottom of the stairs and yells "HEY MA!!! I'M HUNGRY!!! COME HERE!!!" It will take some time to extinguish this behaviour, but until then my mornings are a little tense: she's a loud girl and talkative even at the best of times, and at 5am this is far from welcome.
• Remember that Stray Badass Cat who used to terrorize Zsa Zsa? Muffet finally had enough of him the other day, and she squeezed under the patio gate and KICKED HIS ASS ALL ACROSS THE PARKING LOT. I had to stop her even though I was secretly proud of her, and that cat doesn't come into our patio anymore.
• Zsa Zsa never noticed bugs, but Muffet hunts them relentlessly (except for bees, thankfully). Maybe this is something that cats eventually get tired of.
• Muffet is no longer terrified of my bedroom and spends lots of time there, though she prefers to actually sleep in the living room. In the morning she comes up to meow at me, and when I finally say "Okay, time to get up," she walks over to me and lies down on my chest and then goes to sleep.
• Shortly after she was spayed, Muffet became lethargic and very hot. Fortunately she had a vet appointment that day, and they diagnosed her with -- get this -- "Fever of Unknown Origin." This is apparently common in dogs and cats and not just a bad joke. She recovered completely in a few days.
  

"et and "y

Here's a post for those who like to hear cat stories, or stories about me being analytically happy, or both.

Muffet is a pretty terrific cat.

Suddenly -- instead of the laid-back, sleepy, unconcerned pet that was Zsa Zsa -- I have this quirky, spunky, endlessly-curious kitten who loves me to death and strives to be permanently attached to me. She's settling in a bit more now, but for the last week she has spent every waking moment either on my lap or a few inches to the right of my lap...at least, when she's not racing up a flight of stairs and lunging to the left in an apparent attempt to kill me.

There has been one exception to her Muffy-love, however: she's afraid of my bedroom. I don't know if it smells particularly like Zsa Zsa, or if I accidentally kicked her off the bed the only night she slept there (she weighs 5 1/2 pounds and is therefore less detectable than a pea amongst the bedding), but as soon as she enters my bedroom she becomes a new fearful creature.

By contrast, Muffet-in-the-rest-of-the-house has never seen a nook or cranny she didn't want to climb into. There is no shelf high enough to deter her. She will rocket onto ironing boards, window sills, planters and kitchen appliances without a second thought...I keep a pot-lid on the stove to place over the elements when I'm finished with them, because my biggest fear -- seriously -- is that she'll leap onto a 350-degree burn. Jeez, no.

But as soon as she crosses my bedroom threshold she's like a small child in a haunted house: a discarded article of clothing is a ghost that must be tapped and evaded, a gentle hand is an evil claw, a creak in the rafters is grounds for a mad dash into the far-off basement. The first night she came back from the vet's, she climbed tentatively onto the bed and saw my right shoulder. She solemnly pressed it with her paw and then ran away in fear.

This made me paranoid, especially when my father said "Cats are known for detecting cancer and injuries before anybody else can." The next night she climbed onto the bed, gave me an evil look, and pressed both of her paws against my forehead. Then she ran away again.

Brain cancer and mounting vet bills aside -- not to mention her occasional 5am scream-fights with the Neighbourhood Badass Cat -- life with Muffet is wonderful. She is beginning to learn how to entertain herself. She smells things in that idiotic open-mouthed way that cats sometimes have. Catnip turns her into a whirling dervish. She is clean and healthy and strong and active.

Zsa Zsa reminded me of a middle-aged film star, a sort of Liz Taylor creature who preferred to lounge and smoke and share fond memories about former lovers. Muffet, however, makes me think of a Peter Greenaway character; a Cissy Colpitts, maybe, who collects esoterica and doesn't notice when her vag is showing. Which, because she's a domestic shorthair, is always.

In honour of cats and those who love them, and also in honour of British eccentrics, here's "Cat House" by forgotten indie-minx Danielle Dax. If you haven't forgotten her then simply telling me so will bring more joy to an already joyous weekend (and it hasn't even started yet!)

Muffet

When I wrote my initial post about Muffet I was in the process of dropping into the depths of grief, panic, and depression. That is not a good time to adopt a new pet, particularly not when that pet is in heat.

Fortunately I was able to book an appointment at the vet's the next morning, and while waiting for my saintly parents to drive us there, I finally saw the GOOD side of Muffet.

Previously she'd been a manic, yowling demon...a drunken, sex-crazed lunatic without any pants or underwear to disguise the sight of her insatiable desire, a creature who I was afraid to even touch lest I set her off into another seizure of rolling and screaming and perhaps even spraying. In the morning she was still that, but she took time out to explore, purr, sit on my lap, and demonstrate her considerable intelligence.

To elaborate on Muffet's smarts:

• After two attempts to sharpen her claws on my new chairs, and two gentle removals to her scratch pad, she returned to the scratch pad and has been using it exclusively.
• "That's my litterbox? Okay, I'll poop there."
• I couldn't figure out why she kept climbing around in my laundry basins, until I realized she recognized them as places where water comes from. Carrying her to her water dish has done the trick.

Since then she has been a constant observer of everything. Nothing I do escapes her notice. She even watches me in the mirror. Right now she is sitting on my desk in front of the computer monitor, watching me type this blog entry and no doubt learning to spell.

Anyway, I took her to the vet, and after a rigorous checkup (and a rabies shot) I was told that they could keep Muffet overnight and spay her, then I could pick her up on Saturday morning. Buck Animal Hospital, you people are WONDERFUL.

They also said that here's no way Muffet is two years old...more like one year old, which would explain her zest and zeal. Her narrow face, skinny body, and long legs also imply that she's part Siamese, hence her frequent and expressive (and potentially excessive) vocalizations.

I felt bad leaving Muffet with the vet for two days, but I was rapidly turning into a basket case, and for the interim I wept and wept and gradually pulled the pieces of my life back together.

And now, on Saturday, she's home.

First things first: Muffet likes and trusts me. From the moment I picked her up to this very moment now, she has come to me for comfort and affection and play. She purrs and purrs and purrs when I am around. This is wonderful.

Secondly, she's frightened of the environment -- the wind outside, the furnace noises, and footsteps on the stairs in particular -- but every hour she is more confident of this house. She still retreats to the basement whenever things get too hairy for her, but I no longer have to spend any time coaxing her out; I call and she comes (usually with a barrage of meows).

Third, she's still a raging ball of hormones, but not nearly the way she was before. Apparently it will take some time for her sex drive to go into neutral. This, coupled with her extreme reaction to catnip, makes me worry a bit about the state of her incision; I'm trying to distract her whenever she gets too wild, and she actually slept for a while in her fuzzy cat bed.

Finally, my other worry is her food: she isn't eating her Science Diet or the soft food that the vet provided, but in my experience cats don't eat like pigs anyway; I assume that when she's hungry she will eat, and eventually I'll fall back on the super-expensive kibble that the vet gave me (and which she happily ate in her crate when we were driving her home).

Muffet is a wonderful cat. I am returning to a point where I can even be a wonderful owner. She will be a handful: energetic, hungry for affection, and playful in a very kittenish way. She will be impossible to outwit, and she's so active that I'll need to be permanently watchful. In these ways she is nothing like the relaxed and stoic cat that Zsa Zsa was, whose response to adversity was "Oh well, I didn't care about that anyway."

But Muffet is also delightful and pleasant and sociable, and I see some indication that she can entertain herself when necessary. She's a much-need attraction and comfort, right now, when I absolutely need to be kept busy.

Muffet, thank you. You're not Zsa Zsa -- however much I probably wanted you to be a few days ago -- and you're not going to reduce the stress in my everyday life (especially as it relates to the huge wads of money I've spent and will need to continue to spend), but I'm very glad to have you and I'll do my best to be good to you.

Hot on the Feline Heels and Hot to Trot and Anxiety

If I hadn't gone out to find a new cat companion, I would probably be in an agony of depression right now. Instead I'm in an agony of worry, which is really no better or worse I suppose.

My mother and I went to the Humane Society after being unable to find a suitable cat at Petcetera. The Humane Society was full of people checking out the cats and climbing into their cages to sit with them, so I was already feeling a sense of urgency.

When I walked past the cage of Muffet, she reached out and gently pawed at the glass, so I asked to sit with her and evaluate her personality.

Muffet was very outgoing, wanting to be rubbed and making lots of vocalizations. At the time she seemed like the right cat, so after ten minutes or so with her I asked for the adoption forms.

But as I was filling them out I began to realize that Muffet's rolling-and-meowing routine wasn't stopping and -- frankly -- was getting a bit annoying. When the Humane Society volunteer returned, I said I was having second thoughts, and she said "Oh, I see what's happening...Muffet's going into heat."

She reassured me that getting her spayed would fix the problem, and also that veterinarians will spay cats in heat. Relieved, I filled out the forms and handed them in...

...but something was in the back of my mind. As I stood waiting for everything to be entered into the computer and processed, I began to wonder if I should adopt a cat who I had only interacted with while she was in heat...what if her personality radically changed afterwards, or what if she continued to be this manic? Something in me was struggling, I wanted to say "Wait, maybe not," but adopters were wandering around the halls pouncing on cats and I was afraid that if I waited I would lose a potentially great companion.

Then, after I paid, the receptionist heard that Muffet was in heat. "Oh, you're adopting a cat in heat? Bless you!" she said, laughing.

Oh shit, I thought. What am I getting myself in for?

The woman at the pet store had equally ominous "cat in heat" stories to tell, and everybody online talks about what a disruptive and annoying experience it is for cat owners. They also say that vets may refuse to spay a cat in heat, so I may be looking at two weeks of this "ominously-described" behaviour.

I say "ominously-described," because Muffet hasn't really done much yet. She's still getting used to my house so -- in between coaxed exploration -- she's hiding in the basement crawl space. No "caterwauling" yet, but when I pet her she begins to rub herself all over me in the "cat in heat" way, and I automatically get anxious...

...and is an anxious pet owner a good pet owner? Am I already souring our relationship? Is Muffet going to do things before I can spay her that will make me dislike her?

I say this as a person who is quite obsessed with my routine, my sleep, and my stretches of "quiet time." A cat in heat sounds, to me, the way that kryptonite probably makes Superman feel.

So I'm WORRIED. Part of this is because this is a new situation and I don't respond to new situations well. It's also that I kick myself for not giving it all more consideration before I took Muffet home (I feel irresponsible), and the knowledge that if somebody had said "Muffet will yowl loudly and constantly for hours on end at all times of day and night," I would not have consented. I didn't know what was involved.

I tell myself that if I can't get her spayed until she's out of heat, and if her heat-behaviour drives me over the edge, I can surrender her back to the Humane Society and accept the lost money (and the additional outlay of the surrender fee), and also accept that this is not fair to her, it's annoying for the Humane Society, and it will probably negatively-impact my chances of adopting another cat.

The thing is, when I'm on the brink of uncertainty I absolutely torture myself with worry and anxiety. As an adolescent I would work myself into full-blown, incapacitating panic attacks, and while I no longer (it seems) react in such an extreme way as an adult I still do put myself into a bad state. This coupled with a crushing grief about Zsa Zsa and the additional anxiety of a Saturday-night drag show and a (next-) Wednesday-night spoken word stint.

I'm writing all this out because I recognize that my anxiety is based on cognitive-reasoning flaws, so when I express everything (as I have here) and see that it isn't half as catastrophic* as I thought it was, I can calm down to a point where I can (hopefully) sleep eventually. You blog readers -- and "you blog" itself -- are at this moment substitutes for a friendly, logical, reassuring voice.

What, ultimately, do I need to recognize in order to calm myself down? The same things that I ALWAYS need to recognize but I so often manage to forget:

1. I can deal with the situation.
2. The fact that I got into the situation in the first place does not make me a bad or worthless person.
3. If I CAN'T deal with the situation, there is a solution.
   

In my head I believe all three of those things. Now if I could only convince my adrenal glands...

* Pun!