Sunday evening kitten post

So now I’ve had Tig3.0 for just over a week, and he’s already become a huge part of my life. He makes it a lot more difficult to work in my office. I’ve had to escape him by moving to the laptop downstairs for significant chunks of time. But it’s the only way to keep myself from getting accidentally mauled by a kitten who is too small to jump into my lap, but instead, leaps most of the way, digs in his claws, and climbs the remaining distance. My legs are simply covered with scratches. I will be unable to shave my legs for at least a week without requiring a blood transfusion afterward. Worse still, I’m allergic to my new kitten. I’m told it will take about two weeks for me to get acclimated to the new cat in my house, but in the meantime, I wash my hands a dozen times a day and try very hard not to scratch itchy eyes while I’m in my office.

We’re in the discovery phase. I tend to try cheap, ready-to-hand cat toys first, like rope (string is anathema; cats eat it—quarter-inch rope is a great toy) and paper wads. He loves them both. But I also found Tig and Gracie’s old stash of toys. They didn’t really play with them anymore, except for the metal chains (keychain-type chains), which happen to be Gracie’s all-time favorite toy, but which she likes to drag around at inconvenient hours of the day and night. I am a light sleeper. Cat toys that make any kind of noise have been banned from my home for decades. Anything with bells on will not be purchased; if received as gift, the bell is removed. And really: What non-cat-owning moron ever thought up putting noisy things on cat toys, anyway? Bells on collars? Please.

I bought a few cat toys while shopping last week. I have four soft sponge balls that Tig loves. And I have a poofy thing on a spring that he attacks sometimes. He liked it fine until he discovered things that really move across the floor, like the paper wads or ping pong balls (found those in Tig’s toy stash, too). He’s running around like a mad thing right now as I write this, going after a paper wad and picking it up in his little kitten mouth and trotting with it three feet then dropping, hopping, and attacking. Sometimes he plays quite happily by himself, requiring only my presence in the room. Sometimes he needs to attack me. I wear my winter boot-style slippers now to prevent slashes on my feet, and my thickest pair of jeans, and a long-sleeved shirt. I’m a living cat toy, apparently. My role in life has changed. I am also a cat-sitter. Tig is still confined to my office (Gracie is now boycotting the upstairs; I’m not sure what to do next), so when he yowls, I take a look inside and sit with him if I have the time. That’s all he wants, half the time—my presence in the room. Things will be much better when he has the run of the house. But I’m off to northern VA tomorrow, so there’s no point in letting him out for another few days.

Yesterday, Tig was introduced to the laser pointer. He loved it so much that he literally cried when I turned it off. I had to turn it back on and let him down gently. He ran around the room looking for it, even leaping at the hole in the wall for the cable that a previous tenant left. Today, I tried to see if I could get him to run in a figure eight with it. I didn’t close the eight, quite. Next time, maybe.

It is a rare thing when we actually get exactly what we want. I wanted a Maine Coon kitten mix that looked like my last Tig. I wanted a sweet, affectionate, goofy boy that would make me laugh, and bond to me the way that Tig bonded to me. I had resigned myself to not getting anything near what I wanted and was going to settle for a young adult orange Maine Coon. And now, running around my feet chasing a rolled-up piece of paper, is exactly what I wanted. Even moreso. Tig3.0 gives kisses. His predecessor did not. Right now, of course, every time Tig3 licks my chin he’s also giving me exactly what I’m allergic to: A huge dose of kitty saliva, which carries the allergens inside it. He’s injecting me with his venom, I tell Sarah. But then again, it’s helping me build up the antibodies even while it makes my chin itch.

My home is happy again. I have a Tig that makes me laugh, every day, just like I had for the past eleven years. Yesterday, while talking to Sarah on the phone, Tig leaped off my computer backpack into a spot between the box next to it and the wall. There was nowhere to go, so there was just a kitten-butt and tail sticking out of the hole, waving around while Tig mewed and tried to figure out what to do next. He finally backed out of the hole and went running around playing somewhere else. It took me a minute or two to stop laughing long enough to tell Sarah what I was laughing at.

Yes, I got what I wanted. Here’s hoping for two more decades of Tig.