next_to_normal (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
next_to_normal) wrote2008-07-23 09:19 am
next_to_normal) wrote2008-07-23 09:19 am
Entry tags:
Here, kitty, kitty...
In my last post, I asked for topics to post about, and ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
beloved_77 gave me, "Tell us about your kitty and any other pets you may have had." This is probably going to get long, so I'll save the other pets for another post, and today we'll talk about Chelsea!
If you missed my picspam, there she is. I've had her for about two months now. See, I've wanted a cat my entire life, and my parents always said no because my dad didn't like cats. Which, of course, means that as soon as I moved out of the house, my parents got a cat. So, this past Memorial Day weekend, I went home to visit my parents, and that Thursday, my mom had been to PetSmart buying things for Patches (their cat), and saw the cutest little black and white kitty up for adoption. We were going to DC for my grad school interview, and so she taunted me the whole weekend - "Oh, she was sooo cute. Perfect for you - tiny and apartment-sized, seemed playful. Oh, but she probably won't be there when we get back. She's too cute not to get adopted."
(Have I mentioned that my parents are mean?)
Anyway, we got back from DC, and on Monday I went to the store, and she was still there. And I got her. So :-P on Mom. I named her Chelsea (and I can't tell you how many people have asked if she's named after Chelsea Clinton... she's not) because she's got tuxedo coloring, so I decided she needed a sophisticated-sounding name. Her name from before was Prada, but she's a cat, not a purse. She's about a year and a half now, and she'd been with another owner who gave her up.
A lot of people (mostly dog-lovers) complain that cats aren't affectionate, but they've never met my kitty. Chelsea is a cuddler, and very clingy. She always comes to the door to greet me when I come home, and gives me a firm meowing. The length and intensity of this kitty scolding is usually directly proportional to the length of time I've left her alone, especially when I do something unexpected like going out to happy hour after work (she does not approve of me drinking). I live close enough to walk to work, so I usually come home at lunch to see her. When I get home from work at night, we have to have quality cuddle time for at least 15-20 minutes, either on the sofa or on my bed. Once, I fell asleep and took a nap with her snuggled up like a stuffed animal.
She usually sleeps with me for part of the night. She gets manic late at night, darting around my apartment like a nutcase and playing with her toys. That goes on until well after I've gone to bed, but if I wake up in the middle of the night, she's usually curled up with me. And she's a wonderful alarm clock. My alarm usually goes off at 7am, and then I hit the snooze button a few times. But little Chelsea doesn't seem to understand the snooze button, because as soon as the alarm goes off, she starts pestering me to get up. First, she paws at my hand or my arm. When that doesn't work, she'll start tapping my nose. If I still don't get up, I get poked in the eye. Sometimes (like on the weekends, when I don't have to get up early), I just poke her back and she leaves me alone.
She doesn't seem to have very good coordination for a cat. She has, on several separate occasions, fallen in the bathtub, off the sofa, and off the windowsill. She can, however, open cabinets, which is a lot of fun when I come home to find tampons scattered all over the bathroom floor. She also went through a phase where she kept tipping over her water bowl, and I kept getting bigger, heavier bowls, in the hopes that she couldn't tip them. But she's a skillful one - she sticks her paw in and tips it sideways until the water sloshes out. So eventually, I just had to buy one of those water systems that has the plastic bottle (like the water cooler in work), and I was like, "Yeah, see if you can tip that sucker over."
The one thing that bothers me about her is that she's a beggar. I think her previous owner must have fed her people food or something, because she's always trying to nose her way into my food if I'm eating or cooking. This has resulted in her licking up my mother's spaghetti sauce (and then throwing it back up), sticking her head in a bag of Doritos, and getting Thai peanut sauce on her nose. She also likes to stick her paw in my water glass. Thus, we have instituted a rule that if she has to get scooped off the table or the counter three times, she gets locked in the bedroom until I'm finished eating, because kitty is kind of a pest.
So, that's pretty much my baby. The rest of her quirks in a nutshell:
Likes:
Being scratched under her chin
Little fuzzy balls, which get lost in the sofa by the dozen (worst thing you could have with a cat - sofa bed)
Climbing into the space between the arm of the sofa and the bed when it's pulled out
Sitting in the window
Killing bugs (she's not very good at it - she's only killed two, and she goes completely batshit when there's one on the ceiling that she can't reach)
Licking the sink faucets
Walking around in the bathtub after I've taken a shower
Knocking loose change, jewelry, or anything else she can swat off the bureau onto the floor
Watching the toilet flush
Dislikes:
The cat carrier
Patches
Being picked up (she'll sit in my lap for hours, but try to scoop her up, and she wants no part of that, probably because she only gets scooped when she's doing something bad)
Hair dryer
Vacuum cleaner
Strange men
Coming up: We'll finish the rest of IB's question about my other pets (I promise it won't be as long), and thendragonflylady77 asked me about books.
beloved_77 gave me, "Tell us about your kitty and any other pets you may have had." This is probably going to get long, so I'll save the other pets for another post, and today we'll talk about Chelsea! If you missed my picspam, there she is. I've had her for about two months now. See, I've wanted a cat my entire life, and my parents always said no because my dad didn't like cats. Which, of course, means that as soon as I moved out of the house, my parents got a cat. So, this past Memorial Day weekend, I went home to visit my parents, and that Thursday, my mom had been to PetSmart buying things for Patches (their cat), and saw the cutest little black and white kitty up for adoption. We were going to DC for my grad school interview, and so she taunted me the whole weekend - "Oh, she was sooo cute. Perfect for you - tiny and apartment-sized, seemed playful. Oh, but she probably won't be there when we get back. She's too cute not to get adopted."
(Have I mentioned that my parents are mean?)
Anyway, we got back from DC, and on Monday I went to the store, and she was still there. And I got her. So :-P on Mom. I named her Chelsea (and I can't tell you how many people have asked if she's named after Chelsea Clinton... she's not) because she's got tuxedo coloring, so I decided she needed a sophisticated-sounding name. Her name from before was Prada, but she's a cat, not a purse. She's about a year and a half now, and she'd been with another owner who gave her up.
A lot of people (mostly dog-lovers) complain that cats aren't affectionate, but they've never met my kitty. Chelsea is a cuddler, and very clingy. She always comes to the door to greet me when I come home, and gives me a firm meowing. The length and intensity of this kitty scolding is usually directly proportional to the length of time I've left her alone, especially when I do something unexpected like going out to happy hour after work (she does not approve of me drinking). I live close enough to walk to work, so I usually come home at lunch to see her. When I get home from work at night, we have to have quality cuddle time for at least 15-20 minutes, either on the sofa or on my bed. Once, I fell asleep and took a nap with her snuggled up like a stuffed animal.
She usually sleeps with me for part of the night. She gets manic late at night, darting around my apartment like a nutcase and playing with her toys. That goes on until well after I've gone to bed, but if I wake up in the middle of the night, she's usually curled up with me. And she's a wonderful alarm clock. My alarm usually goes off at 7am, and then I hit the snooze button a few times. But little Chelsea doesn't seem to understand the snooze button, because as soon as the alarm goes off, she starts pestering me to get up. First, she paws at my hand or my arm. When that doesn't work, she'll start tapping my nose. If I still don't get up, I get poked in the eye. Sometimes (like on the weekends, when I don't have to get up early), I just poke her back and she leaves me alone.
She doesn't seem to have very good coordination for a cat. She has, on several separate occasions, fallen in the bathtub, off the sofa, and off the windowsill. She can, however, open cabinets, which is a lot of fun when I come home to find tampons scattered all over the bathroom floor. She also went through a phase where she kept tipping over her water bowl, and I kept getting bigger, heavier bowls, in the hopes that she couldn't tip them. But she's a skillful one - she sticks her paw in and tips it sideways until the water sloshes out. So eventually, I just had to buy one of those water systems that has the plastic bottle (like the water cooler in work), and I was like, "Yeah, see if you can tip that sucker over."
The one thing that bothers me about her is that she's a beggar. I think her previous owner must have fed her people food or something, because she's always trying to nose her way into my food if I'm eating or cooking. This has resulted in her licking up my mother's spaghetti sauce (and then throwing it back up), sticking her head in a bag of Doritos, and getting Thai peanut sauce on her nose. She also likes to stick her paw in my water glass. Thus, we have instituted a rule that if she has to get scooped off the table or the counter three times, she gets locked in the bedroom until I'm finished eating, because kitty is kind of a pest.
So, that's pretty much my baby. The rest of her quirks in a nutshell:
Likes:
Being scratched under her chin
Little fuzzy balls, which get lost in the sofa by the dozen (worst thing you could have with a cat - sofa bed)
Climbing into the space between the arm of the sofa and the bed when it's pulled out
Sitting in the window
Killing bugs (she's not very good at it - she's only killed two, and she goes completely batshit when there's one on the ceiling that she can't reach)
Licking the sink faucets
Walking around in the bathtub after I've taken a shower
Knocking loose change, jewelry, or anything else she can swat off the bureau onto the floor
Watching the toilet flush
Dislikes:
The cat carrier
Patches
Being picked up (she'll sit in my lap for hours, but try to scoop her up, and she wants no part of that, probably because she only gets scooped when she's doing something bad)
Hair dryer
Vacuum cleaner
Strange men
Coming up: We'll finish the rest of IB's question about my other pets (I promise it won't be as long), and then
dragonflylady77 asked me about books.
no subject
Affection is directly associated with how much contact they have with humans as kittens, and what kind. Most of the cats I've had were strays picked up as little kittens, and they're wonderful pets their whole lives. Dog people usually just don't know what to do with an independent animal...they like the needy thing most dogs have. I love dogs, too, but for different reasons than my cats. :)
I had a cat that was obsessed with fresh tap water, going for it in the sink and shower, too. She also insisted on having her own mug to drink from when she got older. My mother indulged her terribly. :P
no subject
I love it when she's a complete klutz. It's hilarious to watch her jump on the sofa, and then slide down the side because she missed her mark. It was less fun when she was dangling from the blinds, and knocked a lamp over on her way down.
I like my independent animal... needy pets are too much work! I want to be able to leave her alone all day and not worry about her.
no subject
We have 2 indoor boys, and have had as many as 13 outside.
no subject
no subject