Episode 61: Cat fancy

Since the inception of this blog last August I have, for the most part, limited the characters involved to myself, the baby, sometimes Monica and the occasional lunatic that I encounter at work. I have also been teasing that some day I will take the time and effort to put all of the required media together in order to properly introduce you, the reader, to the other two members of the family- our two cats, Nugget and Little Cat. '

Well, today is your lucky day, folks.

I am, by my own admission, a crazy cat person. I think cats are great. As I have mentioned here before, I prefer them 1000 to 1 over dogs. They are funnier, less work and (most of the time) smell much, much better. That said, we have somehow managed to end up with the two most bitchy, retarded, selfish, asshole cats in America. I will briefly introduce you to the cats and then attempt to somehow describe what life is like living in a tiny second floor apartment with two idiot animals and a baby. They WILL win me $10,000 on America's Funniest Home Videos some day, I just haven't been able to catch the right moment on film yet.

This is Nugget. As you can see, she is morbidly obese and probably one gene away from a raccoon. Despite the fact that she appears to be bathing herself here, I can also assure you that she has the personal hygiene of a homeless man. The older of the two cats, we adopted her from the Animal Rescue League in Boston three years ago. She came to us on her death bed with a horrible cold and kennel cough, and she has never really been a normal cat. I cringe to think of what sort of trauma this cat encountered in the few weeks before she ended up at the shelter, but it has to be something pretty bad because I have never met an animal with more emotional problems in my entire life. If she were a person, she would be that overweight goth girl you went to high school with who had purple hair, safety pins in her ears and wore Rob Zombie t-shirts with black JNCO Jeans and dark eye make up in the shape of tears every day. Sometimes I call her Little Cat's goth big sister, Julie.

Most of Nug's day is spent sleeping, and I don't mean 'most of the day' in a typical Garfield, cat nap sort of way. I mean this thing is out cold for at least 20 hours a day. She rarely plays, choosing most of the time to just sit and watch other people or cats play, she probably eats more trash and accidentally dropped human food than a dog, and whines more than the baby does. She is, by all accounts, a fat, whiny slob. Nugget's fur is dry and coarse, she has dandruff and she doesn't properly wipe her ass when she goes to the bathroom. Worst of all, she constantly sheds like a middle aged man with a receding hair line. Again, disgusting. At the same time, Nug is a very sweet cat. When she allows you, and trust me, any affection is on HER terms only, she can be very cuddly. Unfortunately, she weighs like 30 pounds so when she jumps on your lap it hurts and she always takes the cuddling and the petting too far. The best part is, with no warning at all, she will just get up and waddle away, as if to say 'thanks for the good time, I'm going back to bed. She can also say 'hello.' This is not a lie. At night, because she is afraid of the dark, she will often get disoriented and whine 'hello!' 'hello!' until one of us, or Little Cat, go and get her.

If you were to come to our apartment, you would never see Nug. She is scared to death of other people, sometimes even us. Sometimes even herself, I think.

This is Little Cat. Her name is derived from the fact that no one could agree what to call her and she is very tiny. She also goes by the names Douchebag, Fuck Wad, Dill Weed and anything else derogatory that you would use to describe a sleazy, manipulative, little punk. I would compare little cat's appearance to that of say, Lady Ga Ga, or perhaps Maggie Gyllenhaal, in the sense that on occasion, she can look very attractive (in cat terms that is cute and lovable, not 'sexy') but if you get her in the right light she is probably the ugliest thing you have ever seen. A bizarre mix of cat breeds that shouldn't go together, including Siamese, Little Cat is way, way to smart for her own good, manipulative, bratty and destructive. She can also be the most lovable, cuddly cat you have ever met.

We adopted LC as a kitten from the local shelter here in Salem two years ago in an effort to cheer up our fat, depressed dandruff raccoon cat. She grew very slowly, hence the name, and as a full grown adult cat is now not much larger than a squirrel. Befriending Nug rather quickly, LC relished the role of being the kitten, a role that she still plays today despite the fact that she is now an adult. She is that one friend from college you have that still plays flip cup at parties, mooches off their parents and acts as though the rules do not apply to them.

I think LC's most annoying, bratty trait is that she likes to jump up on to the counter and knock things on to the floor. The exact opposite of Nug, LC is quick, agile and energetic. She sprints around the house, leaping up on things, drinking the water out of the fish bowl and wrestling with shoelaces and baby toys. When she wants something from you, she knows how to get it. In the morning, provided the baby hasn't woken us up already, LC will jump up on the bed and get in your face. If you ignore her, she will jump up on to the dresser and start knocking things off, not because she wants to play with them, but because she knows she will wake you up. If she wants to sit on your lap and you are using the computer, she will lay across the keyboard so you can't type. She is, like I said, a brat.

This is Nug and Little Cat cuddling. They are best friends, like Peaches and Herb or Felix and Oscar. They are, unequivocally, in love. The above scene is recreated on a daily basis. Sometimes they sleep like this, other times they spoon, some days they even give each other baths. It is creepy and, on occasion, over the line. Yes, if they were not both fixed I would say they were lesbians. In fact, I am going to say they are lesbians. I have seen them in some pretty compromising positions and, sometimes, when one of them takes the cuddling too far (usually Nug) they get in to lover's quarrels. I have heard cat screaming coming from the bed room only to rush in and find Nug's paw on LC's head, forcing it in to the bed while she licked her. That is real. I was just as disturbed as you are right now.

As is the case with any couple, their lives are not all cuddles and borderline rape at nap time, the two have their fair share of fights. Usually it is because one stole the other one's food, or one woke the other one up, but about once a day they can be found chasing one another around the house, tackling and swatting, usually until something breaks. Normally I would consider putting a stop to this, but it is really the only time Nug gets any exercise so I pretty much let it go.

Like any cats, the pair do all sorts of funny, idiotic things like stand in front of the TV and try to catch the things moving on the screen, bat small pieces of cat food across the floor like toys and occasionally fall off of tables because they lose track of where they are. They are the dictionary definition of house cats, they would be killed within seconds of going in to the wild, but they still act as if they are the toughest pair around. Sometimes LC even squints her left eye to look tough when new people are in the house. Seriously, at first I thought she had some sort of problem. Now I realize that it is just her stink eye. Unreal.

That is, essentially, what it looks like when the baby and the cats get together. (Notice anti social Nug is no where to be found). Av prefers LC, because she is smaller and cuter, but she is also quicker and more skittish, so really the only way to get them together is if there is a toy involved. Notice also how the red laser trick works on both a baby and a cat equally. Best $4.99 I've spent in a while.

LC pretty much hated the baby at first, that whole 'I'm not the kitten any more' thing (which shouldn't happen because, you know, she is a cat, but like I said, she is smart and manipulative) but over the past year she has grown to like Av. I do think that this is only because she wants to play with her toys, but I'll take it. Unfortunately, no matter how much they want to play with each other, LC is too afraid of the baby still to make it happen. It will though, it will. Just give it time.

The baby has much more interaction with Nug, if only because she is fat and slow and can't get away. Nug can be found most of the time sleeping on the bed, so if the baby wants to she just walks right in, yells "DITTY!" and goes to town. The baby is still kind of apprehensive about touching Nug, and when she does it is not always gentile (sometimes she rips out entire handfuls of fur) but Nug is often so starved for affection (for no reason, mind you, she gets plenty) that she will let the baby get away with quite a bit before she waddle-runs away. Lately, the baby likes to climb up on the bed and lay next to Nug, almost like she is cuddling but I think she is more making fun of the cat for always laying around. I think this because she usually laughs and then tries to grab Nug's ear. (Part of the reason that the cats don't like it when she goes near them is because she will try her hardest to stick her finger in their ears. It's weird, I know, but that's the way it is). At any given time during the day if a cat walks by the baby will yell "DITTY!" and go on the prowl. Unfortunately for her, they are usually three rooms away before she even figures out which direction they went.

So, there is a brief synopsis of what it is like living with a baby and two idiot cats. There are tens of thousands of things that happen every week that make me shake my head and you really can't get the full effect without living here, but hopefully this post shed a little bit of light on my every day existence, and from now on you will have a few visuals of what I am working with when I share their idiocy with you.