I'd been dreaming about Monday, Monday with other cats and cats generally
all week. When I woke up saturday morning it felt right to drive over to
Bide A Wee,
our local no-kill shelter,
to see if anyone special was waiting for us.
John and I were introduced to a big,
beautiful 3 year old purrball they called Precious and it was love at first
sight. She came right over to us, all purrs and headrubs and kitty kisses...
how could we resist her? When we got her home, our new kitty hid for about a half hour, then
slowly began to explore the apartment a little bit at a time. By evening she
had eaten her first meal, found the litter box and was snuggled up with us
on the bed. I feel like I've known her a long time... maybe she's one of
those "soul family" felines :-) After spending some time with her, we've
renamed her Princess Honeybear... she's like a big, gentle bear and John
keeps calling her "princess" instead of "precious" so we're just going with
it. Maybe the name was also triggered by a dream I had this week: I was
shopping and saw a statue carved out of amethyst (my birthstone) of a bear with a cat on
it's back. And as my totem is a cat, and John's is a bear, it's a
good family name.
That first night "The Princess" as John calls her ran under the bed around 1am and hid out
there most of the night. Around 9:30am (probably feeding time at the
shelter!) she jumped up on the bed and crawled in between us, kneading and
purring.
She's really settled in now.
When we adopted her, she had been spayed recently and was still recovering, I think.
But every day she seems to have more energy and she's quite
the "hunter".
She's a big kitty... 13 pounds... and
looks sedentary, but she has a lot of energy... she runs like lightning and
can jump pretty dern high for a cat her size.
One of these days we'll manage a
picture of her in mid-jump.
She loves chasing the laser lightbeam... maybe it looks
like a big glowing insect to her...
and her bird-like feathered cat dancer. Sometimes she seems to be
chasing nothing, just running around the apartment wildly;
maybe she's playing
with Monday's spirit :-)
She's starting to stake out favorite
places... on our bed, in the window in the bedroom, in a little "cat
shelf" John built by my sewing machine. She sleeps with us on the bed
now and wakes us up in the morning with tiny little mews.
She seems to have a whole vocabulary of
meows: long, short, soft, loud, etc.
Maybe I'll figure out her language one of these days :-) Some of her body
language is very specific. To learn if she likes a particular kind of dry
food or treat, just sprinkle a few on the floor in front of her. If they get
a Paws Up, she'll eat them right away. To denote Paws Down, she pushes them
behind her, kind of like scratching in a litter box, LOL! She loves attention
and being stroked and brushed and will turn her body to make it
easier for us to do a good job. But she's not a lap cat,
preferring to cuddle in next to a person instead of on top of them.
BELOW: If there were a feline Olympics, our Honeybear would definitely go out for the high jump.
She's after the beaded fringe on my dress. And of course after all that exercise, every
cat needs a good long nap. Even her tail is exhausted!
Thanks to Digits.com we know that
you're thecatpurrson to cross our
path
She's starting to stake out favorite
places... on our bed, in the window in the bedroom, in a little "cat
shelf" John built by my sewing machine. She sleeps with us on the bed
now and wakes us up in the morning with tiny little mews.
She seems to have a whole vocabulary of
meows: long, short, soft, loud, etc.
Maybe I'll figure out her language one of these days :-) Some of her body
language is very specific. To learn if she likes a particular kind of dry
food or treat, just sprinkle a few on the floor in front of her. If they get
a Paws Up, she'll eat them right away. To denote Paws Down, she pushes them
behind her, kind of like scratching in a litter box, LOL! She loves attention
and being stroked and brushed and will turn her body to make it
easier for us to do a good job. But she's not a lap cat,
preferring to cuddle in next to a person instead of on top of them.