Meet the kitty in meh life, Leenah.
We celebrate her birthday in August (I can’t quite remember the exact day… or really if August is the exact month either but hey- it works for us. Don’t judge.) She came home with me in 2001 when I was going through the “breakup of epic proportions” in my life and moving in with a new roommate (who I later figured out had her photo next to “Bat-Shit-Crazy” in the dictionary.) (Unlike the roommate that followed her, who was the “Absolute-Fucking-Lunatic” poster child. Yeah, great luck with roomies.)
Although I have the tendency to prefer dogs, I couldn’t be happier with this little fluff ball. She’s been my best friend for the last 8 1/2 years and there’s no way I could imagine trading her in for a different model. Sure, there’s been some interesting times. Can you visualize shoving an anti-depressant pill down your cat’s throat daily because she’s been peeing in your laundry basket as a display of how upset she is with you for reasons you’ll never understand (due to your lack of fluency in “MEOW”?) Or conceive paying $600 (ok, only $300 because Dad paid half; thanks Dad) to have two hair-holder rubber bands removed from the kitty’s intestines because she likes to play with them and once ATE them and they folded over and became lodged in her system and she’d die if they weren’t surgically relocated to the outside of her body and you were so mad but upset the entire day you were working while waiting to hear from the vet to know that the boneheaded cat survived?!?!
But she runs to greet me when I come home. She chirps when I talk to her (and when I give her treats when I’m leaving in the morning). She likes to sleep on my hip, chest or back and she amuses me when she pokes herself in the eye and turns into what we call “pirate kitty.” (I’m trying to get a photo…). She hangs out on the lid of the closed toilet seat while I’m in the shower. She headbutts (her version of kisses.) She even does this vacuous drinking thing- she is too much of a priss to put her face down in the bowl and lap up the liquid; instead she has to dip her paw in, get it wet, then bring it up to her mouth and lick off the water (I will provide video documentation soon). This gets water everywhere and annoys me to no end. And still, I love the damn cat.
I believe there is a direct relation to the amount of photos of one’s pets to the lack of children in one’s life (I include not only one’s own offspring, but nieces, nephews, friend’s rugrats… you get the idea). Most people I know that don’t have kids in their everyday lives are happy to show the millions of pet photos they have on their phone. I’m not the least bit ashamed to include myself in that Brobdingnagian group. (New word! YAY!)
