Ode to Cat

Introduction

If you are a cat person, you might be predisposed to like the following poem … unless, of course, you decide it fails to do cats justice, though judging me harshly might also be enjoyable. If you’re a dog person, perhaps this poem will help you to see the light and change your ways before it’s too late.

The Poem

Ode to Cat

“To be or not to be,” that’s just BS.

“To do or not to do?” is what I ask.                          2

Are weekends best for resting, to de-stress,

Or time to chase down countless little tasks?

I ponder this and then I see my cat.

As if to taunt me, all she does is nap.                       6

She looks so wise … could this be where it’s at?

I pick her up and put her on my lap.

The cruel, accursed beast—she never stays!

A rescue cat, she’s skittish as they come.               10

To run for cover’s just how she allays

Her fear (though nothing’s what she’s running from).

Some weekend mornings, I will rise at dawn

In quest of precious, peaceful writing time.           14

I creep downstairs and put the kettle on.

The stars line up: the moment feels sublime.

Warm mug in hand, I settle down and start

To gather up my thoughts—but what is this?        16

My kitty’s joined me … bless her little heart!

She kneads my lap … O what a treat this is!

But now I can’t get any writing done.

I can’t disrupt my cat, she needs this lap.              20

My little plan will have to be postponed.

I must hold still throughout this creature’s nap.

By chance I find a novel close at hand

And just like that, my morning plan’s recast.        24

Before I’d had such grand, ambitious plans

But now I want to make this moment last.

    To do or not to do: my cat knows best.

    With help from her, the matter’s put to rest.     28

Footnotes & commentary

Title: Cat

I could have written this for my cat in particular (i.e., Ode to Freya), but I want to give a shout-out to housecats in general. (Note to Berkeleyites: I know that by city resolution, the term “pet” is out in favor of “companion animal” and “owner” has been replaced by “human guardian,” so the phrase “my cat” may startle you. Yeah, yeah, I know you can’t “own” an animal. I’m tempted to apologize, but then Freya just feels like “my cat” and I refuse to be disingenuous about this. I also gather that in some quarters “Berkleyan” is strongly favored over “Berkeleyite” so I’m tempted to apologize for that, too—but haven’t you folks derailed this commentary long enough?)

Line 1: BS

Is it verging on blasphemy to call BS on Shakespeare? Hey—not so fast. I’m actually calling BS on Hamlet, not his creator. Why does Hamlet consider suicide, when he’s such a bright guy he can spew perfect iambic pentameter off the cuff? Okay, fine, his dad died and his mom is marrying an asshole … boo hoo hoo. Get a backbone, Hamlet, would you please? I can answer his hand-wringing “to be or not to be” quandary in one word: be. It’s too bad Ophelia couldn’t take a page from Paloma Faith’s playbook (well, songbook) and tell Hamlet, “Don’t say nothing/ Just sit next to me/ Don’t say nothing/ Sshhh/ Just be, just be, just be.”

Line 3: resting, to de-stress

The phrase “de-stress” irks me a bit, summoning as it does the cliché-ridden lingo of corporate America. But that’s exactly what I need to connote here, because working in this realm is what tires and stresses me out so much.

Line 4: countless little tasks

I feel like during the week, I can barely keep my head above water on the home front. This means anything extra—fixing my bike, organizing the garage, mailing a package—can feel like a really big deal. If I dig deep and take on this kind of crap, I head into the next work week more tired than ever and gradually start to augur in. On the other hand, if all I do all weekend is rest and recover, I feel like I don’t have a life outside of work. It’s an ongoing dilemma.

Line 6: as if to taunt

No, I don’t think cats are actually sophisticated enough to taunt anybody. Conversely, I’m sure they aren’t attuned to sarcasm, which is why I feel completely free to say to my stretched-out, luxuriating cat, “Freya, you really need to slow down—you can’t keep burning the candle at both ends like this.”

Line 7: looks so wise

Would we love our pets so much if we didn’t project positive traits onto them? Just like dogs appear to smile, or to have thoughtful, penetrating eyes, cats surely look wiser than they are. It’s an illusion I enjoy, so I let myself believe it most of the time.

Line 8: put her on my lap

In my experience, there are two kinds of cats: the kind that love to jump onto your lap and do so freely, and the kind who generally avoid your lap. I have yet to encounter a cat who is blasé or ambivalent about this, so it’s pretty pointless to put a cat on your lap and expect him or her to stay.

Line 9: cruel, accursed beast

Given what I just said, isn’t it totally unfair to deride my cat this way? Of course it is, but frankly, as foolish as my behavior is, everyone in my household feels affronted, every time, when Freya bounds away. I never said humans were wise either.

Line 10: rescue cat

What, you haven’t heard the term “rescue cat”? Well, I haven’t either. But we all hear the phrase “rescue dog,” usually spoken with just a whiff of self-congratulation. Not that I would take anything away from someone kind enough to rescue an unfortunate homeless dog. But I got this kitten from the pound … isn’t that a rescue, too? Not according to the Pet Adoption page on Wikipedia on which the phrase “rescue dog” appears six times  but “rescue cat” not once.

Here’s the Frey when she was very young:

Line 10: skittish as they come

As a tiny kitten, Freya was a stray, and this has left its mark. A car door slams a block away and she races across the room and hides. A shoe drops upstairs and she stiffens, eyes wide, threat level orange.

As a tiny kitten she liked to climb into this tiny basket. It’s amazing she even fit. I suppose she felt secure there, perhaps almost like being swaddled.

Line 12: nothing’s what she’s running from

Sometimes Freya is just bored and pretends there’s danger, just to have an excuse to race across the house. After five minutes of this she’s ready to sleep it off, of course.

Here she is in a playful moment.

Line 12 would be near the end of a standard sonnet (just before the rhyming couplet at the end). I’m not a good enough poet to condense all my content into so few lines, so I just kept going.

Line 17: bless her little heart

Though I’m not real clear on the details, I’m vaguely aware that “bless your heart,” at least in the South, isn’t exactly a compliment. That’s about right, because the first moments, when Freya has decided to try out my lap, mean nothing. This is her nervous period when I’m expecting her to suddenly change her mind and leap off my lap, so this seemingly loving expression could well be followed immediately by “you little shit.”

Line 18: kneads my lap

I have a little claw trimmer that I use to keep my cat’s claws from getting too sharp … thus, it is neither painful nor ruinous to my clothing when she does this classic pet trick.

Note how her tail is hooked around her front leg there.

Line 20: needs this lap

You might accuse me of using this phrase just for a nice poetic shimmer so soon after “kneads my lap.” After all, I’ve made the case that Freya is on the antisocial side, and it’s commonly theorized that cats only sit on us for the heat. But in this case, I had the heater going! Nine times out of ten she’ll take a heater vent over a lap, but that tenth time? Remember, this cat had a traumatic kittenhood. It just might be that some modicum of feline-human connection is actually important to her. Maybe she also treasures this particularly quiet time when she can finally relax enough to succumb to a  lap.

Line 21: have to be postponed

So often, postponing writing for even twenty minutes during this enchanted morning time means losing that twenty minutes forever. When the family is up and around, I kind of want to be distracted. When my daughter says, “Dad, let’s get a bagel!” I wouldn’t even consider saying, “I’m busy [needlessly] writing [endless prose that nobody will ever read], sorry [but not sorry enough to get over my self-importance].” Full disclosure: we’ve gone for bagels only like twice, but it’s a matter of principle. (It sure isn’t a matter of gastronomy; I’ve come to accept that you can’t actually get a proper bagel outside of NYC.)

Line 22: must hold still

Do I really have to hold so still that I can’t even type on my laptop? Most of the time, yes … especially when I’m juggling a coffee cup as well. Plus, early in the morning before the caffeine kicks in, I’m still pretty vulnerable to sloth and the cat plays a big role in that … she’s a terrible influence. If she were the kind of cat who always wanted to be on my lap, it wouldn’t be special and I’d probably make her leave so I could work.

Since I’m a sucker for “the exception that proves the rule,” here’s a photo of Freya sitting on me without preventing me from writing. In fact, here’s a bit of irony: if you zoom in, you’ll see she’s sitting on me even as I compose the very poem you just read.

That said, it’s a terrible photo, which attests to the rarity of this scenario. If this happened a lot, I’d have a lot better photo of it.

Line 23: by chance … a novel

Well, it’s not actually random chance that there was a novel within arm’s reach. My wife and I were both English majors and our house is filled with books. I read a lot—not nearly as much as I should, actually, and I could easily imagine spending whole weekend reading. The problem is, this would feel extravagant, almost profligate, since reading—for all its value and ability to improve my mind and soul—is still a form of consumption, and everything I consume dies with me. The impulse to write constantly competes: shouldn’t I be creating something, even if it’s only an amateur record of an ordinary life, that will probably be casually deleted shortly after my death when my kids neglect to pay the Internet server bill?

Line 25: grand, ambitious plans

You’re not allowed to laugh at me over my assertion that blogging represents a grand, ambitious plan. I was making fun of myself, so you’re required to laugh with me or not at all.

Line 25: make this moment last

I refuse to strike or modify this line because it happens to exactly capture what I’m doing here: I expect this time with the cat to last only a little while, and I do want to extend that as much as possible. That said, I concede that this phrase sounds pretty cheesy, like a Kodak ad. So now you can laugh at me.

Line 27: to do or not to do

This return to my opening salvo would be punchier if my poem didn’t drag out to twice the length of a regulation sonnet. What can I say? I’m no Shakespeare.

Line 28: to rest

This last word, rest, seems like the perfect way to end a poem about a cat, doesn’t it?

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Adopting a Kitten in the Modern Era

Introduction

Are you considering adopting a cat?  Has it been awhile since you did this?  Or do you just like cats and/or think I can make you laugh?  Well then, read on.  I adopted a kitten recently and have a few tips to offer.

I am not including photos.  The World Wide Web is replete with cute cat photos.  Okay, you get one:

Should I adopt?

If, like me, you are a human, you cannot conceive a kitten and birth it.  This has never been accomplished.  So you almost have to adopt.  Almost?  Well, you can always work with a breeder and pre-order a kitten; it’s kind of like having custom cabinets made for your kitchen.  I don’t know anything about kitten pre-ordering, because I’m too cheap for it.  (Plus, the members of my household could never agree on a breed anyway.)

I like to adopt from the pound, the shelter, the Humane Society … whatever they call the local clearing house for unwanted or otherwise stray pets.  Not only is this (almost) free, but procuring your cat at such a place gives you a bit of the do-gooder feeling, which in my case assuages the guilt I carry around about not donating more money to charity, not volunteering, etc.

Changes to the Adoption Process

I can only speak for California, but since the last time I adopted a cat—15 years ago—laws have cropped up that significantly change the pound/shelter animal adoption experience.  Animals are now required to be healthy, spayed/neutered, and have all their vaccinations.  I suspect this changes the general level of care they’re getting, because last time, it was a grim scene.  When I got my last cat 15 years ago, the animals at the pound seemed really stressed because there were miserable dogs howling at all times.  There was almost an underground, black-market feel to the whole thing.  I spied a little kitten who looked cute; my wife said, “Fine, grab her, let’s get out of here,” and we went to the counter.  “I found a kitten I like,” I told the guy.  He glared at me and said, “There are lots of kittens I like here.”  Abashed, I replied, “Let me rephrase that.  I found a kitten I like so much, I want to take her home.”  He said, “That’s more like it.”  I forked over like $50, he put the kitten in a box, and we left.  We were in there for maybe five minutes.

Though that was inarguably convenient, that original kitten ended up being really sick.  She had worms, ear mites, an eye infection, and a nasal infection.  She refused to eat for days, until I figured out that she couldn’t smell her food and didn’t know what it was.  When I shoved her snout into the bowl, she was like, “Oh, wow, food!  And just in time—I’m starving!”  One expensive trip to the vet and several prescriptions later, she was healthy as a horse.  Probably healthier.  Though we never knew her birthdate, she lived for about fifteen years.  Rest her soul.

The other thing that’s different now is that you can scope out your prospective pet in advance, online.  I suppose it’s a bit like online dating, though that’s just a wild guess (I’ve been married since before the World Wide Web was popular).  My older daughter is the one who discovered the online pet photos.  She found one kitten that was so insanely cute we all fell in love with her—only to discover that she was at the pound in Albany, Minnesota, not Albany, California.  (My daughter is still honing her online search skills.)

Of course my kids jumped the gun on the kitten search, which meant we saw a couple animals malingering.  I think it’s a bit sad seeing the same kitten online every day for two weeks … nobody wants her, I thought, so maybe we should just rescue her.  But is that any way to choose?  (According to this logic, we should all be adopting the old, haggard, dandruff-y cats.  But I’m not a saint.  I don’t want a used pet.)

The pound’s website isn’t perfect.  First of all, the kitten we thought we wanted—because she looked the cutest in the photos—didn’t end up having a tail.  I’m not saying this was a bait-and-switch, just that the photos didn’t happen to capture that characteristic.  I prefer a cat with a tail.  That doesn’t make me a bad person, does it?  Surely somebody will want the adorable Manx kitten.  Anyway, the other shortcoming of the website was that there were lots more kittens at the pound than were represented on the website.  I think these shelters are almost always on a shoestring budget.  They’re no Amazon.

Some hoops to jump through

 Our pound has some weird “adoption hours.”  They’re closed most days, and don’t open until 11 a.m.  Maybe their idea is to make sure no deadbeats try to adopt.  If you can manage to show up at the right time, you’re obviously fairly organized.  Maybe you’ll remember to change the litter box.

Another hurdle was their pre-adoption questionnaire.  My brother had warned me about this.  Perhaps the current generation is so often asked to participate in focus groups and such, their guard is down and they think companies are just curious about their buying habits—but make no mistake about it, the pre-adoption questionnaire is more like an application.  I suspect that if you answer wrong, they can disqualify you from adopting, just like with humans.

For example, the form says, “What do you plan to do if a member of your household becomes allergic to cats?”  This must be a common excuse people use for getting rid of a cat.  I guess it would ease your conscience; you can think, “Hey, I was prepared to give this cat a loving home, but it’s more important to protect my child’s health.”  I’d guess that response on this questionnaire would be a deal-breaker.  I considered responding, “I will find a large, vacant field and abandon the human there.”  But I didn’t want to seem like an aleck (smart or otherwise) so I just put, “I would treat the human.”

The form also asked (rather casually, I thought), “Have you considered declawing your cat?”  Of course not.  Trick question.  Answer yes on that, and you’re going home with a stuffed animal.  (At least, you should.)

The weirdest question was, “Why do you want a cat?”  My first impulse was just to write, “Well, DUH!!!!!!”  That’s not very precise, though, so I considered writing, “I am moved by their essential felinity.”  But there were several unpaid interns milling around (recognizable by their “UNPAID VOLUNTEER INTERN” t-shirts) and I wasn’t sure the abstract response would be properly construed.  I started to feel a bit irritated by this question.  Chances are there were wrong answers (i.e., that could get me disqualified), but what would they be?  “I hope this cat will shore up my marriage.”  Or, “I actually don’t want a cat.  My kids do.”  Or, “Cats may be kept until needed or sold.”  Figuring out the worst possible response became a game:  “Cats are useful when you dabble in the occult.”  Ultimately I wrote, “We love cats,” and then—for good measure—“We will love this cat.”

The microchip

The various documents we were given mentioned a microchip.  I’d heard of this before.  I consider it one of those options, pet insurance being another, that I would eschew.  But when we went through our pet adoption tutorial, given by a staffer, we learned that the microchip is not optional.  These are implanted in every animal as a matter of course.  Our kitten already has one.

I suppose this makes sense, and explains why the questionnaire didn’t ask, “In the event your pet is lost, will you print hundreds of full-color posters and plaster them on every lamppost and telephone pole in your neighborhood?” 

I actually find the idea of the microchip a bit creepy, and I have to wonder whether the company that maintains this system will actually delete my kitten’s info from the database when I refuse to pay the ongoing, lifelong registration fee.  That would be kind of mean.

There is another benefit to the microchip, by the way.  If you access the web portal—the same one where you put in your kitten’s name and address—and add a credit card number to your profile, you can use your kitten as a mobile wallet, at any retail location where POS terminals support Near Field Communication (NFC).  (Yes, of course I made that up.)

Highlights of the tutorial

The person who gave us the tutorial on pet care was very knowledgeable.  I had not known, for example, that cats who are allowed to roam outdoors as they please will live, on average, only 5 or 6 years.  We explained what we did with our last cat, which was to keep her indoors for the first 2 or 3 years, after which we started letting her outside since she never left our yard anyway.  “Being indoors early on kind of shrunk her world, so she wasn’t inclined to stray far,” I explained, suddenly feeling a bit worried that our adoption application would now be revoked.  To my relief the staffer said, “That seems like a really good strategy!”  (I did not add, “Well, I understand it’s becoming very common with human children as well.  They call it ‘failure to launch.’”)

The staffer asked us, “Have you owned a cat before?”  Was this another trick question?  I think the perfect response would have been, “If you’re asking whether we’ve been the human guardians of a companion animal previously, why then, yes, we have.”  These are the terms that the City of Berkeley officially adopted years ago in favor of those hopelessly outdated and thoughtless terms, “owner” and “pet.”  But before I could decide how to respond, my wife and kids said, “Yes!” and the tutorial continued.  Whew!

The staffer recommended we keep the kitten in the bathroom for the first couple of days, lest she become overwhelmed.  We certainly hadn’t done this with our previous kitten, who was given full run of the place right off—not that she took advantage of it.  The whole first day she’d hid under a bed, and on the second day, when we saw her walking around—“On all four legs, just like a cat!” I blurted out stupidly—we were filled with a strange sense of pride.  Anyway, we were quick to agree with this bathroom strategy, but I felt I should come clean about something:  because our house has only one bathroom, it’s like Grand Central Station in there.  But before I could say this, the staffer said, “It’s good with all the coming and going because the kitten can gradually get to know you.”  Fair enough, though with the smells we humans make in there, I don’t see how this is putting our best foot forward.

One other question that caught me off-guard was, “Do you think it’s a good idea to touch a kitten’s face and ears, which she might not like, right off the bat?”  Given the advice about sequestering the kitten, I figured the answer was “no.”  But my kids blurted out, “Sure, why not?” (thus proving they had ignored my earlier lecture about not getting up in the new kitty’s business).  The staffer said, “Right!  Go ahead!  Do touch her face and her ears, because she needs to get conditioned to it right away.  This will make her more comfortable with it for her whole life, and makes trips to the vet easier.”  Who knew? 

Pre-named companion animals

Something I really hadn’t anticipated is that all the animals at the shelter come pre-named now.  Maybe this is just to keep them straight on the website (since using numbers would seem so bureaucratic and institutional).  Or maybe focus group studies have found that it’s easier to fall in love with an animal, or at least harder to resist adopting that animal, when he or she has a name.

“Our” kitty’s shelter name was “Jasmine.”  But we’re not going to stick with that name.  It doesn’t really fit.  The jasmine shrub is native to Eurasia, Australasia, and Oceania, so this name would be more suitable for a Siamese cat, I think, than for “our” kitten, who is a Tabby, which I associate with Africa.

Besides, we want to name “our” “own” cat.  Not that this will be easy, with two kids.  Decision by committee hasn’t worked well historically.  My older daughter had all kinds of suggestions before we’d even met this kitten.  “Look, we’re not calling her ‘Panini,’” I admonished, “and for the hundredth time, you can’t name a cat until you get to know her!”  

Then it dawned on me how silly this rule is.  After all, my wife and I had both our daughters’ names picked out in advance.  To do otherwise just isn’t practical, because a baby’s personality can take a while to come out.  For the first couple weeks, babies are just these crazy sucking, crying, and sleeping machines.  Maybe newborn kittens are, too.  I wouldn’t know … “our” new kitten is almost three months old.

Okay, fine, you can have one more photo: