Occasionally, I am given over to impulsive whims. Last Wednesday was just such a day. My husband and I had discussed getting a kitten, and looked up what we would need to properly train a kitten and agonized plenty over what the kitten would be named and silly little details. We came into cat ownership as perhaps the two most well-read people on the subject of cat ownership.
We had both grown up with pets, including cats, but this little dickens is our first real pet, as adults, the first pet we have real responsibility for.
Last Wednesday, I decided we had done enough reading. I scoured craigslist for kittens. I contacted someone.. but the kitten I wanted was GONE. I contacted another person, and the kitten was GONE again. Madness! I contacted a third person, the kittens were soooo cute, and they had a whole litter as far as I could tell from the picture. I requested they save a girl for me until Thursday morning. The guy texted back “No can do. They have to go today.” So I made a quick calculation, and texted him “I’ll be there in an hour. What’s your address?”
I arrived at the apartment is just under an hour. The kittens were in a little cage, asleep and much smaller than they had appeared in the picture. The little kid who was holding them in the picture was sitting on the couch watching Sponge Bob, and it dawned on me that it was a problem of scale. The child was also much smaller in person.
I shrugged. The guy had said they were 8 weeks old, so I paid him a minimal “re-homing fee” and took off with the sleepiest kitten, which was also the smallest kitten and one of only two girls.
In my haste I had not yet purchased a single thing for this poor kitten. So the kitten went on her first shopping adventure on the way home.
I got two bags of kitten food, a litter box, organic flushable litter, a scratching post, and some toys.
I arrived home a giddy little kid with my tiny little kitten. I dropped the kitten off with my husband, who had arrived home from the classes he is taking over the summer and rushed off to work.
When I arrived home my husband was just a puffy face with two red eyes, laying on the floor with the kitten curled up next to him. My husband is allergic to the kitten. Luckily, we knew this already, and no one panicked.
The whole reason we needed a kitten and couldn’t adopt a cat, is we need to train this cat to enjoy water. Some of my husband’s friends have a pair of cats that shower with them daily, and he can pretty much rub his eyeballs with those cats and be fine. Our plan for pet ownership has pretty much always included abducting a kitten and brainwashing it to act like a labrador.
The following day I woke to the tiny mew of the kitten getting out of her little bed, which, by the way, is shoe box with a hand towel and a couple Ty beanie baby snuggle buddies.. I called the vet near my house to arrange for her first check up and shots, then I decided I did not have nearly enough stuff for the kitten. I decided she needed soft food and milk, because umm.. I want to spoil her rotten! Also, husband won’t let me give her regular milk. She must have kitten formula. So we (kitten and I) went shopping again, and afterward I took her to my Dad’s office to meet my Dad.
My Dad is a big softie about cats. He totally melted when he saw the kitten. My Dad and I discussed names. My nephew wanted to name her HeiBai (pronounced Hey bye), because that is Chinese for black white, and she is a black and white cat. My Dad liked Teansy. My husband and I sort of liked Calixte, which was the name on a calling card we found in our 100-year-old house. Calixte is Greek for most lovely.
Anyway, no decisions were made about the name, so when I got to the vet that afternoon I told the receptionist to put her down as Ms. Monster. All cats should have the last name of monster, so that you can say silly things, such as “there is a monster under the bed!” This is especially fun with little kids. We don’t have kids yet, but we think ahead.
The vet came in shortly after our arrival. The kitten had fallen asleep on the table. The vet picked her up and looked her over and of course said, “Well, Ms. Monster is a Mr., not a Ms.”
“Well, I guess it is good that we hadn’t settled on a name yet,” I quipped. I think the vet was none too impressed with me, despite having brought her.. I mean him to his first doctor’s appointment only 27 hours after having adopted him.. Also I think the vet disliked my craigslisting method of cat attainment. Alack. He was also uncertain about the kitten’s age, as he is sooooo small. He is just 540 grams!!! So tiny. I guess craigslist people are less than credible. Though I regret nothing!
Wisp E. Monster is amazing. He is already litter box trained. We are going to start on toilet training soon, so there will be no litter box! He loves car rides and visiting new places and people and dogs. He is FEARLESS! My friend brought over a giant lab-shpard mix and Wisp was totally undaunted. The dog was nervous, but Wisp was unfazed.
He has also taken several baths at this point and only complains about them a little. I am working on making bath-time more fun. I got bath toys, though I am still seeking a wind up fish that floats just under the water’s surface, so he can practice fishing.. I think he would like that. He kind of likes ice-cubes because they are like little fish, but they melt before he is ready to make an offensive move. The best part is husband can pet Wisp now and not turn into a puffy red mess!
Wisp loves to surprise me. I can never find him, because he is so little and my periphery is not great, so unless I catch him streaking through my central field, I miss him a lot. I listen for the little dickens. I think, somehow, he has picked up on this. He will call me into a room with a mew and then pounce on my feet. He does this all the time. He will also hide and wait until I’m looking for him to spring out while my back is turned. Little dickens.
How to describe a kitten picture and the internet’s obsession with cat pics for r/blind…???
Well.. Wisp is wispy, soft and warm. You can feel the delicate structure of his bones under his soft fur. When he is awake his eyes are wide and inquisitive. They are blue and green like the planet seen from an immense distance. The pads of his feet are soft as rose petals. He is clumsy still, falling over when he tries to scratch an ear, running into furniture when he chases his ball. His cry is soft and high. He cries when he is hungry, or tired, or lonely. He is always wanting to be held or played with, his wide blue-green eyes looking up pleadingly. “Love me?” they ask “Take care of me?” My hand, vast and giant in comparison, sweeps down his back, appreciating in one smooth, gliding motion the intricate perfection of his bumpy little spine. “Of course,” the hand says, “always.”
Later, when he throws up all his food and then keeps throwing up even though there is nothing left to throw up, a fluttery nervousness clutches me about the throat. I buy him canned food and a different formula and monitor his eating habits more closely. I know it is so silly, I know he is fine, but I also know what it is to love. Everything and everyone you love is a hostage to the fickle winds of fate and chance, including this tiny little life.
The Buddhists would say that the answer to this conundrum is detachment, to let go of this wanting, to rid yourself of desires for things, your desires for the best for your loved ones, the joy of your beloved, in order to find enlightenment and freedom. They say that without detachment, life is a continual cycle of pain and suffering.
I don’t agree with the Buddhists. If anyone, I would agree with the Taoists, also known as the Daoists. Let me explain, it will take a parable…
There is a Chinese scroll of three old men tasting vinegar. One is looking sour, one is looking bitter and one is smiling. The one looking sour is Confucius, who attests that life is about duty, honor and respect for your forefathers. To him, life, like the vinegar, is sour. The one looking bitter is Buddha, who attests that life is a continual wheel of pain and suffering, a bitter, hard experience. The smiling one is Laozi, the father of Daoism, he attests that life is life, just as the vinegar is vinegar, and joy is found in appreciating it for exactly what it is.
To love is sweet, but it is also worry, and pain. To avoid that, to deny that, is silly. It is what it is. We worry for our loved ones. We cry at their parting. I know why my going blind is so hard on my parents, even though I am grown. They love me and worry for me. They wonder if there is anything they could have done, anything they might have changed. They know it is an irrational thought, but they think it just the same. I am a hostage to fate, and they are watching and feeling helpless.
To worry for one another, to be worried about, these uncomfortable emotions, these hard things to feel, they are what make relationships deeper and more beautiful. The joy and the sorrow, the hope and the fear are the tangled fibers of a single thread, which, if unraveled, will tell you the story of all things.
I think we humans enjoy cats pictures, because a glimpse of a cat in its life, is like a glimpse of Laozi in his; a being at peace with what the world is, a being we all can appreciate and aspire toward, a sort of openness to experience and an honesty about our own emotions…
To live fully, is to feel everything without turning away from what is hard. To do otherwise would be to paint with only one color or sing with only one note.
Going Blind 