On Monday, my husband and I went to get the loveseat and coffee table I've been looking at for the sitting area in the diningroom. For pretty much forever. I'm very excited to have them, and love how the room is looking. Thankfully the material/color of the loveseat hides cat hair fairly well. I can assure you I took that into consideration, with both a black cat and a white/brown tabby cat. (The chocolate brown living room furniture, purchased before the adoption of the white/brown tabby cat, is not holding up as well.) In retrospect, however, the glass-topped coffee table may not have been the best choice. I love the piece, and intend to have something displayed under the glass, but...footie-prints. This morning I've already wiped it down once, made a pot of tea, then turned around to find more footie-prints. Well, at least I'll be able to clean it before company comes over for holidays and whatnot.
I am losing patience with the third cat, Mystery. Myssie lives in my art studio, because she doesn't get along with other animals and is afraid of men. I adopted her back when she was 6 years old, because her family was moving and couldn't take her. I knew that she was nervous but took her in anyway because otherwise she was going to the pound, and I highly doubted there was much demand for anti-social adult cats.
I have been patient. I have been kind. I have changed how I move and speak. I have given her nothing but love and the best care I know how to. And still--still, after six years in my care--she is almost as scared of me as the day I got her. She's come far, yes--she's actually a nuisance when it comes to wanting petting--but if I forget to move carefully enough she will still hiss and scramble away as if I'm going to beat her. I still can't pick her up, or make any kind of sudden movement, or loud noise, or fekking walk toward her. I have tried not to take any of this personally, but after 6 goddamned years it's feeling pretty goddamned personal. I'd have given her another home long ago, if I thought that anyone else would take the time to understand her--reallyunderstand her--and that anyone else would or could put up with her...idiosyncrasies. Just this morning she actually crashed into the leg of my desk in her haste to get away from me as I walked to her litter box.
I wonder, not for the first time, if it would have been better for her to go to the pound all those years ago. She would have ended up being put down, I'm sure, but at least then all of her fear and emotional pain would have been over and done with. I am not, of course, going to take her to be put down just because she's (tremendously) inconvenient. I just wonder if I actually did her any favors, all those years ago.
Comments