stereotypical single woman

This last Saturday I moved myself and the boys into the second floor of my parent’s house. I’m definitely no where near being moved out of the house I was living in yet but enough essentials have been moved that they boys and I can live there. I’ve also been so busy trying to get a bunch of other stuff done in addition to the move (you know, still KEEPING BUSY) that the shock that this is all really moving forward, I’m really leaving in a few months, hasn’t sunk in yet. At least not for me. The boys, however, have finally realized that something very weird is happening. And a couple of them aren’t very happy.

I dragged all their furniture, toys, and food to my parents’ on Saturday morning. I tried to get as much as I could done in the morning because it’s been hot here lately, but my body had a problem deviating from it’s typical Saturday morning schedule - which is sitting around in my pjs, drinking coffee, and listening to NPR. So my nine am plan got pushed back a few hours but by early afternoon I had set everything up, had made everything as cat friendly as possible, and went to go get them. Once I got out their carriers Harvey and Marty charged right into them (they used to go to work with me when they were kittens so they love traveling), completely unaware that they weren’t going to be coming back. Foster was a little suspicious though, so after my sister dragged him hissing and scratching from under my bed and shoved him in the carrier he sat there wailing until he was hoarse on the drive home. I am definitely going to be asking the vet about kitty tranquilizers before the trip to Detroit.

We got home, I shooed everyone else downstairs, closed the door behind me, and opened their carrier doors. Foster streaked out of his and I didn’t see him for 24 hours. When I finally did it was in my sister’s old Little Tykes dollhouse. He was napping on the front porch, the dolls and furniture were all scattered about like he had just been on a killing spree. It looked like a scene from a very low-budget horror movie, you know, “Cow Kitten of Doom” or “Fosterzilla.” Harvey refused to get out of his carrier for about six hours. Apparently he thought this was just a pit stop on the way to work and he was fine with waiting. When he finally did get out he crawled into Marty’s for another couple of hours. So Trina picked up a Feliway diffuser and it worked - he came out of the carrier late Saturday night with a minimum of demon cat displays. Then there was Marty. He got out of his carrier like nothing was different, in fact, even though he’s never been here before, this is exactly where he thought we were going and started rubbing against everything, purring loudly, and just basically started being the little whore that he is.

My Dad had installed a cat-proof screen door at the bottom of the steps to the second floor - it’s ugly but it serves the purpose of helping circulate the air conditioning while keeping my parent’s ever-enthusiastic poodles from going upstairs and raiding the litter boxes. I knew at some point the cats would ask to be let out onto the first floor. I also knew Marty would be the first one to venture downstairs. However I did not expect it to be 45 minutes after he moved in.

Now, we all know that Marty is not the smartest cat. He’s so used to being left behind and outsmarted that he’s learned to take his defeats (mostly) graciously. But then Saturday night he came downstairs and met the dogs. He quickly discovered that he was their mental superior and the power has gone to his head. Upstairs he’s just the dumb cat but downstairs he’s treated like a god. Why should he ever go upstairs again when downstairs he can be The King of the Poodles? He is their leader and they worship him - his infinite feline wisdom, his awesome jumping ability, and his really sharp claws. None of them can get enough Marty time - and it doesn’t matter if it’s affection or abuse, they just keep coming back for more. When he’s not allowed downstairs he sits on one side of the screen door, his subjects sit on the other, waiting for the divine foot of Marty to be placed on the screen so that it may be licked clean. It’s going to be tough for him to move away from this type of adoration.