Double Trouble

For some reason that will forever remain unexplained, we decided to celebrate Valentine’s Day by adopting another cat. Okay, maybe pressing myself to the glass in the pet store had something to do with it. I adore black cats! And Shadow had such a regal manner about her. She was beautiful.

So we made enquiries…and brought home not one, but two new cats, both of them black.

Now we have four roaming the house. Four. And I’m still wondering why. But, confusion aside, I’m enjoying our new guests. Sisi and Shadow had bonded at the store and separating them would have been upsetting for all involved. Shadow is the more shy of the pair and I really believe Sisi helped her adapt to her new home. She already had one friend. They’re very sweet cats and after only a handful of days, they’ve made friends with our other two, Jack and Java.

Sisi and Shadow are one and a half and two, and Jack and Java are ten and thirteen, so we have a bit of an age gap to bridge. I thought Jack and Java were playful, for their age, but after exhausting myself dragging the feather stick around for Sisi and Shadow, I’ve come to appreciate how settled the older two have actually become. Jack and Java take regular naps. I can set my clock by them. And they most often sleep all night—Jack most notably at my side where he employs his anti-gravity generator in order to become the heaviest object in the universe.

They do play, fitfully, but often abandon the action once they figure out the source. Once they see you moving the laser pointer, they lose interest in the little red dot. They love their catnip toys. When the house is empty (but for me and the cats), I often hear one of them sucking it. Yeah, I know, that’s pretty gross, but those of us who live with cats know that’s about the least of it. Between the litter boxes and fur balls, cats are not the tidy creatures they’re made out to be.

Sisi and Shadow want to play ALL the time. They want to play at 5:30 am when I’m trying not to trip over four cats, they want to play at 8:00 pm when I’ve already decided that horizontal is the best position I’ve assumed all day, and they want to play somewhere between 1:00 am and 3:00 am when I’m stumbling toward the kitchen for another antihistamine. (After a week or so, I’ll get used to the new fur.) Luckily, I have a twelve year old daughter who is happy to entertain them. Might sound kind of sappy, but listening to her giggle while she waves the feather stick around makes me smile. I like to know all my children are happy.

Four cats feels like a bit of a herd, but unlike a herd, they rarely all head in the same direction at the same, unless I’m shaking the treat bag. Encouraging them to do so otherwise is absolutely futile. I’ve been living with cats for forty years, I should know this, but I spent an hour this afternoon trying to group them together for a photo. Yeah, I really did. I went through a lot of treats for the couple of blurry shots I got. Later, I did manage to get two of them in one reasonable shot and the two others separately. I’m going to share those. Then I’m going to go and take a nap. All that galloping and trilling between invitations to play is wearing me out.