Long before Olive came along, two cats joined our family. The first was Arwen, a Russian blue that Ethan picked out. She was soon followed by CiCi, a white and gray scamp with an astonishing capacity for dreaming up mischief.
In truth, I never wanted a cat at all, but my two children wore me down with their relentless pleading. We'd all suffered a staggering blow when Bill and I divorced, and I wanted to give them a little joy as we embarked on our new life in a single-parent household. Arwen and CiCi fulfilled every misgiving that had fueled my arguments against owning a cat, and they had additional vices I'd never even imagined. Even so, Arwen quickly stole my heart, but that is another story.
CiCi came to us as a baby whom I could hold in one hand. Although she was impossibly cute, she was all claws and teeth, and much of my affection ebbed away each time she drew blood in the fight to keep stolen food, or used her claws to communicate her desire to be left alone.
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| Baby CiCi and Allyson |
Orphaned as a newborn, CiCi has been a talented scavenger from the start. We soon learned there is virtually nothing she won't eat; for example, she licks out empty cans of tomato paste the moment I set them on the counter. She shares my love of carbohydrates but has an advantage over me in that she can literally sniff out tortillas and loaves of bread within seconds. For that reason, we can never leave grocery bags unguarded, or else we will find holes in the wrapper and hunks of bread missing, or a perfect half moon cut out of a stack of tortillas. But her favorite food is anything she can fish out of the toaster, such as my beloved pancakes.
CiCi is also a connoisseur of charger cords, and there are very few safe places where we can hide them from her keen hunting skills. She also loves to poke holes in everything from couches to leather Bible covers. (I often remark that CiCi hates the Bible.)
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| The junk drawer is not a safe hiding spot! |
Allyson has always been able to look past all of these flaws to the sweet kitten underneath. Fluent in reading CiCi's body language, Allyson can not only pet her, but even hug and kiss her; occasionally, she can even cradle her like a baby. And if she pushes her luck too far and is rewarded with a scratch, she quickly forgives and takes responsibility for provoking her kitty.
If not for Allyson, I might have looked for another home for CiCi years ago. In fact, a few of her most painful scratches led me to contemplate re-homing her, but I never felt right about foisting her on some other hapless family.
Ultimately, I turned a blind eye to her transgressions and tried to feel some affection for her because of the joy she brings to Allyson.
In return, CiCi gave me a bit of affection some days, probably due to me being the Food Giver. Over time, she started to sit beside me and purr loudly, and to submit to two or three strokes of her luxuriant fur.
For many years, I kept one cat-free sanctuary: my bedroom. Early on, I'd tried letting one or both cats sleep with me, only to be awakened by noisy tussling or clumsy wandering over my dresser in the middle of the night. On a few occasions when I left my door open in the daytime, someone had decided that a laundry basket full of freshly washed clothes--or a pile of laundry on my bed--was a lovely alternative to the litter boxes in the garage.
Fairly certain that Arwen was the culprit, I gradually became less vigilant about keeping CiCi out.
I found that she was actually great company during my workday, especially when she perched behind my head during virtual meetings, charming my colleagues. Sometimes she was a bad influence on me with her indolent ways; her extravagant relaxation often made me long for a cat nap.
At bedtime, though, I meant business: my room was a cat-free zone. As a former insomniac, I had learned to guard my sleep as fiercely as CiCi guards a purloined muffin.
This only strengthened CiCi's determination to find a way in, probably from nothing but pure contrariness.
On numerous occasions, CiCi lay in wait, observing my predictable movements at the bedtime hour. Just as I arrived at the bedroom door, she would surge forward like a cheetah chasing its unwary prey. Too late, I'd perceive her swishing against my ankle as we crossed the threshold together. She always headed immediately for the safety of the cavernous space under my bed. I tried driving her out with thunderous, incessant clapping, but that tactic only works on Arwen. Inevitably, I had to trudge to the laundry room for a wide dust mop, which I used to dust her right out from under the bed. Hissing and growling, she emerged from the other side of the bed, but before I could get around to force her out the door, she'd dart back to her sanctuary. Unless Allyson was home to help me, it often took several minutes for me to wear her down and triumphantly slam the door behind her. All of that excitement would have been quite fun if it hadn't been 11:30 or so at night.
One workday morning at the beginning of this past November, I started my workday with a very unpleasant, though not terribly unusual, surprise. CiCi puked up her entire breakfast just moments after she'd finished it. Thankfully, she vomited on the wood floor instead of on the rug or the furniture, but racing to clean up her mess before my shift started was far from enjoyable. As I logged on to my laptop, I pondered whether CiCi had just eaten too quickly, or whether she might have eaten something spoiled or picked up a bug. I figured it might be a combination of those things; CiCi has always had a delicate digestive system.
By the bedtime feeding, I had forgotten the whole thing, but it all came back to me when CiCi scarcely touched her food yet still threw up the little that she had eaten. The poor thing surely had a stomach virus. I cleaned up the small mess and went on to bed. CiCi had no energy for a bedtime skirmish on this night, and I slept soundly. I figured she'd be fine by morning.
The next morning, though, she wouldn't eat or drink. I worried about her all through my workday, wondering if I should take her to the vet. If she were my child, I reasoned, I wouldn't take her to the doctor just because she had vomited a few times. I decided to watch and wait.
She threw up a tiny bit a couple of times that day, but her stomach was empty so it didn't amount to much. At bedtime, I knelt beside her and dipped a finger in the meaty water that covered her small serving of wet and dry food. I pressed my finger to her lips, but she turned her head. My chest tightened with anxiety. How long could a cat go without drinking?
Because it was a Wednesday, Allyson was at her dad's. Most nights, CiCi slept with Allyson, but tonight she would have to sleep alone. What if she needed help in the night? I agonized for a couple of minutes and then did something that probably shocked and confused poor CiCi: I opened my bedroom door and called her inside. Before lifting her onto my high bed, I laid out the waterproof mat that we usually kept under Olive's water bowl. Then I gently laid her on the mat and curled up beside her, stroking her cautiously. I needn't have worried about getting scratched; she simply stared at me listlessly.
Panic flooded my body. Why hadn't I taken her to the vet? Now, I feared she might pass away during the night. Would I have to tell Allyson that I had stood by and done nothing while her precious kitty lay dying? I laid a hand lightly over CiCi's back and prayed fervently that she would recover. I reminded God how much she meant to Allyson and asked Him to give her this good gift.
Satisfied that I had done all I could do for CiCi at the moment, I dropped into a fitful sleep. Over and over throughout the long night, I woke and peered at the tiny sleeping form on the other side of my bed, often touching her to be sure her belly was still rising and falling. In the middle of the night, CiCi threw up one more time, but my only reaction was worry. I wiped up the mess with an old towel and stroked her gently. "You'll be okay," I whispered.
When I registered the shock of not only having a cat in my bed, but having a vomiting cat in my bed, it dawned on me that Allyson was not the only one who loved this naughty kitty with all her heart. "Please, God," I repeated. "Please heal CiCi."
When the alarm went off at 7, I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and examined CiCi. She hadn't thrown up any more, and based on her soft purr, she might have been feeling a bit better. I hurried to the kitchen and scooped about a teaspoon of wet food into a bowl with a tiny bit of water. "Don't get used to this," I said when I placed it in front of her on the bed.
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| Breakfast in bed! |
To my relief, CiCi ate about half of the food and lapped up some of the water. "Good girl!" I crooned, perhaps for the first time ever.
Her strength apparently fortified, she jumped down from the bed and wandered into my bathroom. Figuring she wasn't up to the animosity she still felt for our part-time dog, Olive, I shut her in the bathroom with the rest of the food. When I checked on her an hour later, the food and water were gone. I gave her another teaspoon of food, and she ate it right up.
"I think you're on the mend!" I said. "Oh, thank God!"
The following morning, I sent Allyson an update via text message:
Me: CiCi ate all her food last night.... But Arwen wouldn't eat hers. Must be a bug of some sort.
Allyson [15 hours later]: hmm, is she doing better tonight?
Me: Yes, they are both back to their food stealing ways :)
Eight months have passed, and the tenderness I felt while nursing CiCi has stayed with me. So has my new roomie--at least on the nights when Allyson is away. I was shocked to discover that I like sleeping with a cat! I never know what to expect, though. Some nights, CiCi settles at the foot of the bed without so much as a whisker touching me. Others, she circles a couple of times on my chest (with unsheathed claws!) and folds her front paws under her contentedly, usually with her tail in my face. But I let her stay as long as I can stand the awkward weight because the loud vibration of her purring against my heart is profoundly calming. My favorite nights, though, are the ones when she curls up with her back against my back. It's like spooning with a husband... without the battles for the covers.
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| CiCi has slept on Allyson's chest for years |
In the morning, she often greets me with an Eskimo kiss, barely brushing her nose against the tip of mine and tickling me with her breath. Actually, she's just smelling my breath to see if I ate anything interesting, but I still find it endearing.
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| One of CiCi's early Eskimo kisses |
Although CiCi still gets on my last nerve frequently with all her creative mischief, now I always remember what a gift she is. Sometimes you don't realize how much you love someone until you face the possibility of losing them. Especially when that someone is a cat.
In Other Pet News
While Amy and I were in Indiana for a family reunion last month, Olive stayed with her favorite person in the world, Morgan. When we returned, Morgan told me that they had decided to keep Olive full time, but we will keep her whenever they go on vacation. Although I miss Olive, I can't be sad because I know how excited she must be to be with Morgan every single day. Amy is really sad, though. She'd love to get another dog, but I don't know. We'll see.
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