Cat Sitting

It seems cats are my destiny.  Or, at least, cat sitting is my destiny.  For the last week I have been watching a 4 month old kitten named Snoop for a Lebanese guy who had family visiting who were allergic to cats.  I didn't mind at all.  With all of the stress about switching companies, a little fluffy ball of softness is just what I needed.

Snoop in her armchair

When she  first arrived, she was pretty shy.  She sniffed her way around the apartment, but seemed more like an old cat than a young kitten with energy.  I worried a little when even after the first day she was apathetic to her balls of catnip and seemed more annoyed than interested when I dangled a string for her.  I shouldn't have worried.  After another day and a half, she had completely taken over my apartment.  She decided that the armchair I used as my desk, was actually her armchair, and would meow angrily when I tried to move her onto the floor.

We finally agreed on an arrangement where she would sit on the arm of the armchair and watch me type on the computer.  This worked for a while, until she decided she was a much better writer than I was and insisted on taking over the typing.  Here is a sample of her work....

 igdhejwo aiiiiiiiiii oooooooooooooooooooooooooojiewhfewi                iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiahfkdhsofffffffhnneeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeekajosppppppppppppppp
Now, maybe I shouldn't judge, but it's a little too wordy for my taste.  I mean, she doesn't even bother with punctuation.  Who does she think she is? ee cummings?

When we weren't fighting over the computer, we fought over my food.  She had a perfectly nice bowl of kitty food, but seemed far more interested in what i was making.  She would sit in her armchair, and watch me chop onions or tomatoes.  Her head would follow the knife up and down like she was nodding approval, and every once in a while she would sniff at the food disdainfully and then turn away.  I don't think she was much of a vegetarian, at least, not until I had cooked it.  Once the food was ready, she definitely felt entitled to trying it first.  I suppose she was doing me a favor, you know the royal food taster checking for poison and all... but I can't help but think her motives were less pure.

I say I was watching the cat, but really, she was watching me.  If I went into the bedroom, she would follow.  If I went back into the kitchen/living room, she followed again.  She even followed me to the bathroom.  She liked to sit outside, staring at me from the slots in the bottom of the door, waiting impatiently for me to flush and open the door.  Then she would dash into the bathroom and wait for me to flush and frantically try to get at the water rushing down the drain in the bathroom floor. I'm not sure what she was after....  but she had a strange fascination for her own poo as well.  Every Time I would clean our her litter box (with a spatula, he forgot to leave a scoop and a spatula was the closest thing they had on our shopping trip) she thought I was playing a game with her, and she would try to knock the poop out of the scooper before I could get it in the trashcan.  Sadly, she was pretty good.  I always eventually won, but she blocked at least 1 of every 3 shots.

She also like to come after my feet, but only once they were safely tucked away under the covers in my bed.  She would jump from one foot to the other, while I moved them back and forth.  Sometimes she would look at me as if asking for help... she seemed to be implying that it wasn't fair she was doing all the work when there were two problems to deal with, and two of us to handle it.  Eventually she would settle in, but she didn't want to have to share the bed with me, especially if I had fallen asleep and wasn't petting her.  She prefered to sleep on the nightstand, which was slightly higher than the bed, so she could look down her nose at me while I slept.

She was an early riser, and obviously felt that I too, should wake up around 3:30 in the morning to help her chase down real or imagined bugs that were leading her on a chase all over the apartment.  When I declined to take part, she would jump into bed and insist that I pet her as a reward for all that hard work.  After a few minutes of petting, she would jump down and start the whole process over.

Her second favorite place to sleep (besides my armchair) was on my shoes.  She usually only slept on them right before I needed to go somewhere.  I don't know how she knew.  I guess dogs are kind of cool because they can fetch your slippers.  But who wants slobbery slippers?  I have something much better, pre-warmed shoes.  Which would be a lot nicer if I lived in the tundra instead of the desert.

Snoop also liked being held, which is kind of unusual for cats.  I've had cats who thought they were parrots and liked to sit on my shoulders, but I had never had a cat before who insisted on being held like a baby.  She liked to lay on her back and stick her paws up in the air and have you rub her belly.  It was strange, but we watched many an episode of Modern Family this way...  that and playing with a string that once held my pants together.  Eventually my arm would get tired of the string game and I tied it to the legs of the table, and she had a sort of kitty tetherball arrangement going with it.  Similar to real tetherball, she sometimes hit herself in the face with the knot at the end of the string, or got it wrapped all the way around the pole.  I would reach over with my toe and give it a little kick in the other direction, and off she would go, chasing it around until it was completely unwound and ready to hit her in the face again.

By the end of the week, we had become pretty close, Snoop and I.  I wasn't looking forward to giving her back.  I knew the apartment would feel a lot emptier and quieter when she had gone.  I think the Lebanese guy understood how hard it might be for me, so to ease the pain, he brought over a delicious Lebanese meal.  I had tabuli and grilled meat and yogurt with cucumbers in it and some sort of pastry with meat in it that was delicious and a lentil soup and lots of humus and some crazy delicious creamy garlic sauce.  The whole time he was apologizing because it wasn't authentic Lebanese food, just a Saudi approximation, so it wasn't great but it tasted fantastic to me.  The food helped for sure, but I still felt sad when I gave her one last cuddle and put her in her carrier case to go home.

After they left, I kept forgetting she was gone and would look around for her whenever I heard a noise.  I'm in bed now, and I just caught myself sliding my feet back and forth waiting for her to pounce on them...  I think I will suggest that my Lebanese friend  take a trip to Bahrain or Abu Dhabi soon.  He should really get out more.  Of course Snoop can stay with me while he's away...