Jessica C.

Good Cat

Arthur always comes when called, but it is clear that it is not because he’s so obedient or loyal or well trained or anything like that. It’s just because he’s curious and he can’t help himself. You can tell it pisses him off, too.

I can sit on my butt and call out, “Yoohoo! Little kitty! Arthur!” and within a few minutes he’ll show up and look at me like, “What? What’s going on? You better not have called me over here for nothing.” So then I grab him and pet him and he’s like, “Uuuuggggghhhh. You dragged me away from staring out the window at birds for this?”

So, then he dashes off and goes back to his little kitty business.

But I can make him come back here any old time I want.

He just can’t help himself.

Arthur is SO grounded

When my boyfriend and I came home last night (from seeing Grizzly Bear, which was awesome) Arthur decided it would be fun to dash out the door and disappear into the dark of night.

Ugh.

Here we are, tired and ready for bed and instead we have to crawl around in spider infested bushes trying to catch a cat who thinks we are all playing a very fun game of hide and seek. It was super frustrating. So we decided to go to bed in hopes that he would get bored and decide to come back in.

But, ya know, it’s hard to sleep when you’re worrying your cat might be gone forever or hit by a car or something. We ended up getting up every hour or so to go out and call his name into the dark.

I spent a very depressing 20 minutes outside in my PJs at 3 am, trying to find him and I really thought I had at one moment, but it turned out to be an enormous raccoon… which was actually kind of scary. So, I went back to bed and thought about all the lost cat signs you see on telephone poles every day and cried a little bit.

Finally, around 4 am my boyfriend went outside and managed to catch him in the neighbor’s driveway.

Sometimes I feel like owning Arthur is giving me a peak into what it’s like to parent a teenager. He’s often moody and distant. He constantly fights with his sister (our roommate’s cat). He stays out past curfew and makes his poor mother cry.

But, then, when no one’s looking, he still snuggles up and pushes his face into my hair when I’m sleeping.

He’s still a good guy.

It’s amazing some of the ridiculous things I catch myself saying when I’m home alone with Arthur. What is it about cats that inspires me to spew nonsense?

Excerpt from the song I was just singing:

Yes, you are a little beast!

You are…

The littlest beast!

You do cute stuff all the time!

You’re a cute stuff factory!

I sang this on repeat while looking for matching socks. Arthur sat politely listening on the dresser, but I suspect he was just humoring me.