Crazy Cat Lady= Lady With Crazy Cats
I know I'm not supposed to, but I always liked Ernest Hemingway. Sure, on the one hand, there's a lot of evidence to support that he was a raving misogynist, but I figure if he was able to get a woman like Martha Gellhorn to buy into his nonsense and marry him, there's nothing wrong with me enjoying his clean, sparse prose and structurally sound short fiction.
And he liked drinking and boxing and cats.
He liked cats a lot. If you go to his old house in Key West you can see the descendants of his cats still roaming around the place, cared for and protected by a loyal museum staff.
You might also visit the marina and get to scratch a manatee's tummy and feed it lettuce, but that's another story for another time.
The direct descendants of Hemingway's cats are all easy to spot, because they're polydactyl. That means they all have extra toes, so they look like they're wearing catchers' mitts... or boxing gloves. The legend goes that Hemingway got his first cat from a sea captain, and it was polydactyl, etc. There was a time when sea captains prized the cats with extra toes because they're allegedly superior at mousing, which comes in handy on a ship.
This is also why They say polydactyl cats are more common in New England and maritime Canada.
It was the Hemingway thing that created the tipping point when I was at the shelter looking for a companion for Laurel (code name: Mayhem) when we moved to the now not-so-new house. Separated from The Suz's cats after we left The Old Apartment, she was getting isolated and weird, so I adopted Minerva (code name: Chaos).*
Minerva has seven toes on either of her front feet. We don't have any mice here, so I have no idea if they provide her with a strategic advantage over rodents. But two of the toes are essentially non-functional, so the claws never wear down. This means Minerva gets more frequent pedicures than I do.
While a pedicure is a bit of a treat for me, it takes on the tenor of a minor military operation for Minerva. I have to do a bit of reconnaissance to determine the best location to trap her, then I have to use treats and guile to lure her into that location. From there it's a matter of brute force-- balanced with some delicacy so I get to keep all my fingers-- to get her into the crate for transport.
She hurls herself around the crate during the short drive to the vet, yelling the whole time
Once in the waiting room, she continues to make a fuss, alarming dogs, other cats, and small children while we wait for a technician.
"Is this Minerva? Did I pronounce it right?" asks the technician.
"Yes and yes. Um, I don't know if it says so in her chart, but she's... difficult."
"Yes, I see that here. We'll be fine." The technician picks up the crate and carries her off to the back.
The animal hospital is a reasonably large facility, but Minerva's yowls and screams are clearly audible in the waiting room. I suspect they're clearly audible in Fresno.
I don't have pictures, because I'm not allowed in the back, but the techs tell me they have to wrap Minerva in a towel, put on the Cone of Shame, and call in backup to pin her down and clip her toenails.
The tech returns with an even angrier cat in the crate. "She tried to kill three of us."
"Yeah. She does that. She'll try to kill me later tonight." And now that the toenails have been cut, she'll have stealth capacity. She's a baby ninja.
When I get her home she will go upstairs to sulk for the next four days. She's entered her adolescent years now, so that's what she does anyway. Sits up in her room alone. Wears only black. Complains that nobody understands her. She'd listen to Coldplay, I'm sure, if she could figure out how to use the Ipod.
I'm not sure where I went wrong in raising Minerva. The Kiwi was her primary influence in her first year, and the Kiwi is a calm, Zen sort of person. Not all senseless violence like me. But The Kiwi, like me, has a very low tolerance for bullshit, so I guess that was what Minerva absorbed.
As we're waiting to check out, a little girl in the waiting area peeks into Minerva's crate and tells her she's pretty. "Look, Daddy," the kid says to her father, "she looks like a Halloween kitty."
I hear a low growl from the cage.
Insult to injury. And now I know I'll be sleeping with one eye open tonight.
*Laurel and Minerva both got their names from the staff at the shelters where I adopted them. I was too lazy to think of anything better. They got their code names from Special K during a particularly harrowing weekend of pet-sitting.
I know I'm not supposed to, but I always liked Ernest Hemingway. Sure, on the one hand, there's a lot of evidence to support that he was a raving misogynist, but I figure if he was able to get a woman like Martha Gellhorn to buy into his nonsense and marry him, there's nothing wrong with me enjoying his clean, sparse prose and structurally sound short fiction.
And he liked drinking and boxing and cats.
He liked cats a lot. If you go to his old house in Key West you can see the descendants of his cats still roaming around the place, cared for and protected by a loyal museum staff.
You might also visit the marina and get to scratch a manatee's tummy and feed it lettuce, but that's another story for another time.
The direct descendants of Hemingway's cats are all easy to spot, because they're polydactyl. That means they all have extra toes, so they look like they're wearing catchers' mitts... or boxing gloves. The legend goes that Hemingway got his first cat from a sea captain, and it was polydactyl, etc. There was a time when sea captains prized the cats with extra toes because they're allegedly superior at mousing, which comes in handy on a ship.
This is also why They say polydactyl cats are more common in New England and maritime Canada.
It was the Hemingway thing that created the tipping point when I was at the shelter looking for a companion for Laurel (code name: Mayhem) when we moved to the now not-so-new house. Separated from The Suz's cats after we left The Old Apartment, she was getting isolated and weird, so I adopted Minerva (code name: Chaos).*
Minerva has seven toes on either of her front feet. We don't have any mice here, so I have no idea if they provide her with a strategic advantage over rodents. But two of the toes are essentially non-functional, so the claws never wear down. This means Minerva gets more frequent pedicures than I do.
While a pedicure is a bit of a treat for me, it takes on the tenor of a minor military operation for Minerva. I have to do a bit of reconnaissance to determine the best location to trap her, then I have to use treats and guile to lure her into that location. From there it's a matter of brute force-- balanced with some delicacy so I get to keep all my fingers-- to get her into the crate for transport.
She hurls herself around the crate during the short drive to the vet, yelling the whole time
Once in the waiting room, she continues to make a fuss, alarming dogs, other cats, and small children while we wait for a technician.
"Is this Minerva? Did I pronounce it right?" asks the technician.
"Yes and yes. Um, I don't know if it says so in her chart, but she's... difficult."
"Yes, I see that here. We'll be fine." The technician picks up the crate and carries her off to the back.
The animal hospital is a reasonably large facility, but Minerva's yowls and screams are clearly audible in the waiting room. I suspect they're clearly audible in Fresno.
I don't have pictures, because I'm not allowed in the back, but the techs tell me they have to wrap Minerva in a towel, put on the Cone of Shame, and call in backup to pin her down and clip her toenails.
The tech returns with an even angrier cat in the crate. "She tried to kill three of us."
"Yeah. She does that. She'll try to kill me later tonight." And now that the toenails have been cut, she'll have stealth capacity. She's a baby ninja.
When I get her home she will go upstairs to sulk for the next four days. She's entered her adolescent years now, so that's what she does anyway. Sits up in her room alone. Wears only black. Complains that nobody understands her. She'd listen to Coldplay, I'm sure, if she could figure out how to use the Ipod.
I'm not sure where I went wrong in raising Minerva. The Kiwi was her primary influence in her first year, and the Kiwi is a calm, Zen sort of person. Not all senseless violence like me. But The Kiwi, like me, has a very low tolerance for bullshit, so I guess that was what Minerva absorbed.
As we're waiting to check out, a little girl in the waiting area peeks into Minerva's crate and tells her she's pretty. "Look, Daddy," the kid says to her father, "she looks like a Halloween kitty."
I hear a low growl from the cage.
Insult to injury. And now I know I'll be sleeping with one eye open tonight.
*Laurel and Minerva both got their names from the staff at the shelters where I adopted them. I was too lazy to think of anything better. They got their code names from Special K during a particularly harrowing weekend of pet-sitting.
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