The cat is like a lodger you pay for.

The cat is like a lodger you pay for.  One day she was there, nervous, cagey.  She kept to herself mainly, slowly emerged from the cellar for food only to scurry away again and hide in a box and bolt out of that terrified.  4 years on, she changed.  The day goes as follow, she wakes us and baby up kindly around 6:50am, ten minutes before the baby has the pleasure.  I tend not to set an alarm anymore, I work like the native Americans, either the animals wake me or I do by having drank way to much juice the night before. 

I trounce down to the kitchen, sleep still fused to my eyelashes and stand outside the door to the kitchen, greeted by what sounds like a tiny zombie trying to break to door down.  I turn the handle and watch as a screeching, furry mammal scurries around my ankles like a greasy weasel.  As I walk to the cupboard where her food is kept, she cranes her neck upwards and blocks my path, tripping me.  I feel as if she doesn’t want me to go over to the kitchen, like she’s hiding something.  As I pour the dry food into her bowl her inhabitations leave her, she’s lost control, she must eat head-butting the pouring food from my hand.  I go to refill her water bowl, as she gobbles away.  I bring the water bowl back to her feeding spot, she clocks me, her pupils narrow as if she’s thinking “more food!”

The food she has is special, I think of her as a bulimic cat.  She cannot eat off the shelf wet food, as she inhales the stuff and then chucks it up in some inaccessible location, then begs for more.  She cannot eat off the shelf dry food either, as her inferior digestive system turns it to sludge which appears in and around her litter tray with impressive audible and visual presence.  She has special vet food which must be served in 30g measures twice a day, the cat roughly knows when too.  My mum thinks this is not enough and when she visits, sneakily feeds her more. 

Post feeding she may clean, she may run to one of her many contemplation areas, these include on top of pieces of paper, on top of freshly ironed clothing, the babies play matt, the counter top, on top of a large cupboard, a chair I just got up off and intended to return to.  She can happily sit there for minutes before going to one of the other spots.  Where she sits she leaves a ring of fluffy hair around it that tumbles around the home. 

She is not outdoorsy.  We have no cat flap so we are her doormen.  She meows at the door, looks at us, then the door, us, the door, meowing all the while. We open it, she stares out petrified, frozen to the spot.  She edges 4mm closer to the door, the wind blows and she shoots off in the opposite direction.  We sigh and shut the door, she returns to repeat the process a few times.  This time, she is ready, poised, she slithers through the gap we have opened for her, bounding across the stepping stones to sit in one of her outdoor contemplation spots.  The flowerbed, the fence, the windowsill, the tree.  The windowsill is her, let me in spot, she will stare at us through the double glazing silently meowing, her paws on the door handle.  I pretend to ignore her, as eye contact only makes the meowing louder, but she knows I know. 

She has conflict issues, when she is outside when the temperature is right and it is dry and calm, she may sometimes encounter what we have come to call, ‘Hitler cat’ are large tabby type cat, all white with a tiny toothbrush moustache in the appropriate Hitler nasal zone.  This cat, much like her inspiration provokes our cat.  Her response is to again freeze, allow her tail to inflate only before turning and running. 

She sleeps frequently throughout the day as all cats do, but when we go to bed (we being the humans) we must trick her into staying downstairs by plopping a few nuggets of food in her bowl making a tinkling noise.  This tinkle will tease her from whatever spot she is in as we cross paths, the cat heading to the food the human heading for the door, she turns to look at us when she realises there are only 3 food nuggets in there.  We do this every night, she hasn’t figured it out yet.