Eyes of Shimmering Gold
It's been two weeks since Varinia came home, and she has been wonderful. I'm not saying our relationship settled in perfectly; it took her a little training to understand that the middle of the night is not a good time to ask me for affection or playtime, but if that constitutes my biggest issue with her, I'm doing well.
The aspect of cat care I was dreading the most was the litter box, but I was pleasantly surprised by the advances in cat litter technology since I last sifted a box. Indeed, I was shocked when I went to sift her box and found out how productive she'd actually been. I wouldn't exactly call cleaning the cat box fun right now, but it certainly isn't the tedious, sickening process that it once was.
It has been a joy to get to know her better. While she is certainly laid-back, she is still quite young and the larger spaces of my apartment have given her more room for her inner kitten to come out and now she is quite active. I bought her a few toys which she loves to "hunt," which she likes to do in the living room (which suits me just fine because she sometimes likes to play at night). While she's not much for watching movies or television, she likes to hand out and keep me company when I'm on the computer or cooking.
She doesn't have much use for human food, and she won't come on to the dining room table when I'm eating. She eats but isn't really food crazy; like most cats she governs her intake. She'll usually eat when I first put the food down, but not always, but she always eats decently. She isn't terribly interested in the garbage either, although I wonder if that doesn't have more to do with my penchant for cooking with lots of vegetables, particularly those pungent onions (which cats detest) than anything else as she is certainly very curious about the rest of the apartment. She likes to pull things out of other things, and so she might go under a piece of furniture and dislodge a tiny dust bunny, which will then float up and she will catch in midair with her front two paws. It's actually pretty impressive to see.
At night she curls up on my bed by or on my feet. She will sometimes leave to go play in the living room, but she is always back by morning. Except for the brief two-day period where she kept trying to play with me at 2:45 A.M., she doesn't really bother me until I've already wakened. I usually come to some form of consciousness right before 6:00 A.M.; she'll notice and say "hi," and if I pet her I can "snooze" her twice for about five minutes each time. No, I have not used my alarm clock once since she came home.
The pleasures of having her far more than eclipse the difficulties of the responsibility which, on a day-to-day basis, consists primarily of feeding her and sifting her litter box, neither of which is really that arduous. My first real conscious thought in the morning is a "hello" from her and my return home is greeted with great gladness. She periodically will come up to me purring just to say "hi." The net result of all of this is very calming to my person, and I've been feeling very, very mellow of late. And I've been liking the mellow.
A friend of mine forwarded me the link for the poem "For I Will Consider My Cat Jeoffry" by Christopher Smart.
After I posted this to Facebook, it was reposted by jailnurse's brother Andy with the comment, "That rare geek and drug mix that works (if you don't laugh your balls off at the little smile Data gives Geordi at the kick-off, you probably won't enjoy this)"
Click to viewTECHNICALLY WORK SAFE (but with outré implications)
This documentary was produced to promote John Barry's Moviola album, which was a collection of his "sweeter" themes. Barry reflects on his career and process, with comments from Kevin Costner, Richard Attenborough, Sydney Pollack, Kathleen Turner and Jane Seymour.
You can watch this video on www.livejournal.com
John Barry: "Moviola' from video on Vimeo.
WORK SAFE