"an elegant tapestry of quotations, musings, aphorisms, and autobiographical reflections" (James Atlas)



Thursday, March 17, 2011

Our new housemate


You're probably over reading about our new kitty, so you'll have to wait for the next post for something hopefully more interesting! For those who don't mind an update about our new feline housemate, read on.
We've already got a pet who's in our face 24/7 (Claude), and now Pretzel is shaping up as another one! The Pretzelator loves nothing more than attention, and being told he's the prince of cats, the most handsome, intelligent, sweetest, most interesting cat in the world... and he likes to be told about every five minutes, while being cuddled and patted. If he goes without attention for too long, boy, does he let you know! I've never had such a talkative cat, and worry sometimes if something's wrong, but the vet was happy with him. I've never heard such noises coming out of a cat! Especially in the evening, he starts what I call his 'cat song'. He likes to 'sing' in the bathroom - his voice reverberates so nicely in there! It reminds me of my father-in-law, who said he had a great voice, just a rough passage! Well, Pretzel might be the Pavarotti of cats, but his repertoire is quite limited. He and Mitzi are on howling terms at the moment. They've had two close encounters, I think Mitzi won the first, Pretzel the second. We still keep them apart to some degree; I'm happy if there are no fights. Noisy conversations are par for the course.
Pretzel walks quite nicely on a lead; we go for walks at least once a day. Half the time he sits and takes it all in, or winds around my legs, or watches Claude do silly dog things, but the little devil sure knows where the road and the fence are! I steer him away from that particular temptation, but I'm sure he'd hit the road in a flash if left unrestrained. I feel sorry for him being an indoor cat, but then he's safe, loved, and cared for, so it has its compensations. And he won't bother the wildlife! Claude likes his new little mate, he's very excited when he comes on cat-walks with us. Of course, Pretzel completely ignores him - the natural order of things...