Shasta Embarrassed Herself

Peanut, the early days

I have a cat in my face. It's easier to type without one, but Peanut absolutely, positively must sit on the mousepad. He's always loved to do that. When he was a baby it was gosh-darned adorable. But now that he is a fully-grown ten-pound cat, he's in the way. He doesn't care. He just gives me that patented, "If you really loved me, you'd let me sit on the keyboard" and rubs my face. Every movement sends a cloud of soft fur into the air. He is adorable, in an annoying way. Peanut is part kitten, part puppy, part little brother. Kittens are playful; puppies are cuddly; little brothers are (I hear) a pain in the neck. In no way at all is he part cat. Cats are cool, sophisticated and more than a little condescending.

Shasta is all cat. Any love she gives is strictly on her own terms. And you'd better be appropriately appreciative or you won't get any for weeks. She shuns better than the Amish. Humans have their uses, she'll acknowledge, for instance, we're much better than she at opening Fancy Feast. That is our primary function, cleaning litter boxes is second. As long as we remember our place, we get to live. Peanut doesn't care, he just wants his belly rubbed. In other words, just like my children, my cats have very distinct personalities. Despite (or maybe because of) this, they are super close. Peanut seems to think Shasta is Mom. Shasta thinks Peanut is her pet, although he does embarrass her, after a particularly clumsy move, she looks away as though to say, "I don't know you." It is very important to Shasta that she always be elegant & dignified.

Shasta, the way she prefers we think of her.

One thing cats really like to do is hunt. Peanut hunts Shasta ~ if she's in the mood to play, they chase each other around the house, then wrestle until Shasta has a couple of paws-ful of Peanut fur, then she's ready to quit. Peanut is rowdier and therefore, usually, the instigator. But this morning, Shasta started the fight. She was atop the china hutch (the tallest piece of furniture, natch). She saw Peanut on the floor and hopped to the bookcase, the entertainment center then, thud, skid, crash ~ she landed most clumsily behind a chair. When she reappeared, her tail was huge. I commented on its size, and Dave replied, "What do you expect, the floor just kicked her ass."

Everything in this house sucks except the vacuum!

That's a quote, from my mother-in-law, God bless her soul. Sue was a funny lady. It was their anniversary last week, and that got me thinking of her ~ they'd have been married 51 years if she were still alive. What reminded me of the vacuum quote was a fight with my own vacuum. It may be dying. Accidentally feeding it a cat toy probably didn't help. It kept turning off.

For some idiotic reason, I own an upright vacuum. I have maybe 100 square feet of carpet in my house, most of that a sculptured Berber, the best design ever for holding on to crap you're trying to suck up. Never, ever buy a sculptured Berber. Most of my vacuuming needs are in corners behind furniture, under furniture, the drapes, the ceiling ~ you know, places where cat fur and cobwebs collect. There is a hose on my vacuum, fully extended it's about six-and-a-half feet, I have eight foot ceilings. Vacuuming cobwebs means lifting my upright 18 inches off the floor. Assuming, of course, that I can get the vacuum directly beneath the cobweb. Usually, I lift the bloody thing at least three feet then stretch to the side. It's like yoga, with weights. And no grace.

Would you mess with this cat?
She'll protect us from the evil vacuum monster. 

So, I'm lugging the darn thing around the house, trying to clean up after the now-miserable cats. Peanut, in a rare show of common sense, high-tails it out of the room . . . oooh! I just got that expression! Shasta, on the other hand, follows me, hissing. I don't get it. She hates the vacuum with a passion unbound, but stays near it. Like Vito Corleone, she seems to believe in keeping her friends close, but her enemies closer.

I went into the bedroom and spotted a centipede (gads, I hate those, ewww) on the wall. "Aha!" I think, "Nothing can live in a vacuum!" So I lifted the vacuum up, reached across the dresser with the hose and sucked up that bug. Feeling proud of my martial skills, I carry that vacuum around sucking up cobwebs, until I realize that the uninhabitable vacuum probably refers to space, not a Dirt Devil.

I put the vacuum down. Not picking that thing up again. How long can a centipede live in a vacuum bag? Aw, crap! That cat toy was filled with nip. Do centipedes eat catnip? There's a lot of nip. The toy was at least as big as the bug. If it eats all that catnip, it will be huge. It'll be a jungle sized centipede. I really don't want to change that bag. The vacuum is back in the basement. It'll be awhile before I can touch it again. It was behaving badly. Maybe it's time to buy a new vacuum. We could just throw the old one out.

Where's My Treat, Bitch?

I have two cats. Peanut is friendly, affectionate, playful ~ he thinks he's a puppy. Shasta, on the other hand, is pure feline. Shasta is strikingly beautiful, and knows it. She has thick, lustrous black fur, with a charming white necklace and playful white bikini. She's elegant, graceful, condescending. We all know what female dogs are called, but do you know what a female cat is called? Queen. Shasta is well aware of this fact and finds it perfectly reasonable. When H. Rider Haggard wrote of She Who Must Be Obeyed, he was really thinking of a cat like our Shasta.

She spilled the catnip. Then rolled in it. She looked like the
ceiling of a planetarium.

She does have a weakness, one thing that will cause her to humble herself. Shasta is a nip-ho. She will do anything for nip, even tolerate having her claws clipped (she bitches, but only scratches once or twice). In effort to get her to file her nails on something other than my couch, I rubbed catnip all over her long-neglected scratching post. It worked. She loved that post. She molested that scratching post. It was the best thing ever. Until the nip wore off. Then the couch returned to primary target status.

Dave had a "better" idea. He somehow got her to scratch once, then gave her a treat. Those Temptations are almost as good as catnip. The next time she used the post, another treat. Pretty soon, the sisal on the scratching post was frayed, she'd scratch & scratch and get those treats. But, it didn't really look like she was into the scratching. She scratched shorter and shorter times before seeking that treat. It began to look as though Shasta had trained Dave to give her treats.

Now, she's a man's gal. I am allowed to exist only if I serve her needs. This has been long apparent ~ if I turn on the faucet when she's thirsty, open those Fancy Feast cans, etc. she won't kill me in my sleep. Sometimes she goes to the post, drags one paw down its surface, sits in front of me and gives me a very clear look, "Where's my treat, bitch?"


I need to take good care of my opposable thumbs, if I can't open those cans, I'm in a world of hurt.