January Again

I’ve written about my kitty before. I wrote about how January came into my life before, but she was just a little kitten then. She could crawl into my diet soda boxes and peer out at the world like a queen in her palace. She’s way more of a queen now than she ever was, even if she prefers to lay on my laundry basket, which is right by my desk.

She’s really good at setting and holding her boundaries too. She totally deserved that red label she had at the shelter, but she is also wonderfully loving and brilliant. I might be biased, a bit.

They say that pets take after their humans, but I think I am learning to take after her too. She will defend her space like a chicken powered claw tornado. There is nothing in her that tells her she has to put up with stuff she doesn’t like or accept less than her perfect.

I want to be like that. I mean we always have to get through life starting where we are and there are days that are rain and mud, but my old pattern on those days would be to just hang my head and trudge on. The comic in my head of January dealing with that same situation is her just exploding kitty rage and scaring the mud off her paws, and up into a tree, hiding under the leaves, glaring at the rain. Rain never lasts forever. Then she’ll jump down from that tree, stroll in the sunlight, roll in the grass.

All that’s metaphor, but resilience skills are still super important, cat or man. She actually does have a fancy cat tree that looks like a tree. Three levels from which to hide behind the leaves and judge her kingdom.

She’s the softest cat that ever lived with me, my first kitten since I was a child. She’s so vocal too, which I wonder if that came about because I talk to her all the time. The year of plague had a lot of us home all the time, a lot of us getting new pets. I did have her before the plague came, but that didn’t stop me from talking to her like she’s my only friend.

Her affection means more too, because she gives it on her own terms. When she curls up on my blankets, the warmth of her small being laying next to me makes me not alone. Sometimes she’ll even climb under the covers and make me her pillow, just purring along to be near me. She shares my life and this room I rent with more grace than I have sometimes.

Though there are those times when she’s got the zoomies. She’ll parkour across my desk, over the bookcase, through her tree, along the window, up the other book case, across my face, down the bed, and around again. The first time she landed on my head, my loud surprise shocked the both of us. We probably looked like the monster in a Scooby Doo movie who comes face to face with Scooby and everyone’s screaming and terrified. She’s missed my head every other time she’s made that jump.

She’s no monster, even with that red tag they gave her in the shelter. My independent vocal little kitty is the best friend I could have asked for. As I write this, I take a break, reach back to pet her and she reaches out her little kitty paws to me, arching her back, and laying her paw on my fingers. I hope I will always be able to be the best friend she could ask for.