Tagged: momma’s boy

Taco, the Cat Jekyll and Hyde. Part 2.

So now you know why Taco is the devil incarnate. But for every evil, there is a good. Taco kinda takes both sides to the limit. He’s not big on moderation.

Taco’s saving graces:

  • He doesn’t just sit down. He hurls himself onto the floor. It’s a melodramatic “WHUMP!”
  • He melts. I have never seen a more melty cat. When he lays down he BECOMES whatever he’s laying on.

    This is one of his deep sleeps.

  • He snuggles with me at night. I’ll wake up to find him stretched alongside me, at which point I have to start petting him because he’s so damn cute. Then he starts purring, which wakes Jason up because he’s like a motorboat. This is a point of contention between us, I find it soothing. Last night he melted on my chest. This MAY be why I am so tired today — who can sleep with a PURRING KITTY PUDDLE on you?
  • He purrs all the time. I love it.
  • He happy meows. Whenever you touch him, he does this thing that is a mix between purring, meowing, and that weird “MRRRRP” noise cats do. My favorite is when he does it when he’s half asleep, it turns into a gurgling yawn.
  • When he sniffs the floor, he comes back up with his mouth slightly open.

    This kitty is “special”

  • He can jump chest high. Literally. And when he does, he hurls himself into the air with absolutely no control, getting sideways and shit. He once hit his head on the bottom of the counter. It also makes for some very awkward landings.
  • We think he’s part bengal. His fur is, as my vet called it, luminescent. His colors are so vivid. From afar he looks like a regular brown tabby but when you get up close you can see how beautiful he is (I realize I am like every other mother in the world who thinks their child is the best, don’t care, I’m right).

    Both cats love my closet. Go figure.

  • He’s the alpha male of the house, even though Moosh is bigger and older.
  • Despite his alpha male status, he’s a pussy at the vet. He shakes the whole time.
  • When he and Moosh fight, it’s like watching the Matrix.
  • He can catch bugs like no other. Sometimes even at the expense of a stinger in the mouth.
  • He is chock full of personality.
  • He has a little freckle on his left temple.
  • He hates when Moosh sniffs his butt. I do too. It’s so unbecoming.
  • When he jumps on the bed, he usually does it with a full running start, a meow and a leap. Sometimes he overshoots.
  • He has a brush-like thing shaped like an arch that is meant for the cats to rub on and therefore remove loose hair, but Taco puts his head upside down (JUST his head) and chomps on it. No clue why he needs to do it upside down or how it could possibly feel good in his mouth.
  • Did I mention the melty thing? God, he’s cute. I mean, really cute.

    SO PRETTY

    At the end of the day, the cute thing is probably what saves his ass. Oh, and I love him. Jason does too, when he’s not giving him the silent treatment for peeing on the couch.

Fat Fatty McFatterson

He’s large and in charge.

Fatty’s the OG black kitty. I was 16, totally into punk rock and rebelling (while still being a mostly good kid as far as teenagers go) when my mom and I were at the thrift store for Friends of Strays. So convenient that they had kittens there as well.

I don’t remember why Mom relented and was so easily talked into a kitten, but Fatty (his name was Ernie then) was a tiny black fluffball with fu manchu whiskers and a purr that would melt ice.

I decided Chaos was his name, because, as I said, I was into punk rock and rebelling. It didn’t strike me at the time that this wasn’t a particularly great cat name. Not until we got another kitten two years later and he somehow morphed into Fatty while the kitten morphed into Little (CREATIVE ALERT).

Fatty likes to eat. Like, REALLY likes to eat. In fairness, he is a medium-haired cat so some of his bulk is fur. Aside from that, though, I have, on occasion, caught him laying on the floor with a bag of food knocked over and a fat paw casually scooping morsels into his mouth.

Sure, you fit in that.

He’s also a momma’s boy. In retrospect, I guess they all are. I take a certain pride in that. He’s been there for almost half of my life. When I moved out of my mom’s, I visited every weekend for months even though he was so pissed at me he wouldn’t come near me, resulting in months of weekends of tears and wailing “My baby doesn’t LOVE me anymore!”

He’s had his share of costly vet stuff, like the oh-so-common-in-male-cats crystals, but last week got really sick with severe anemia. It heartbreaking to see him so lifeless. So he got a blood transfusion, buying him some time for his body to start building up his own blood cells again. This is not a guarantee. Fortunately, he’s made a lot of headway getting better, so much so that he fights off his pills with claws of fury. Here’s a million-dollar idea: start a mobile “cat pill feeding” service. Taco figured out the pill pocket trick and won’t touch them and Moosh is such a picky eater that he turns up his nose at the pill pockets anyway.

Mom and the getting-better Fats

I luvs me some Fatty, even if he does love food more than he loves me. I never thought I would be so happy to see him wolf down food.

Moosh Moosh Was Meant to Be.

Moosh Moosh likes to flaunt it.

Moosh is turning 4 this month. Sadly, he started life being thrown from a car along with his litter as kittens and rescued immediately after. When I found him, he was with a shelter called Second Chance for Strays (amazing people, please support them). I was in desperate need of a kitten, having been without one since having to put our baby Jager to sleep. After you lose an animal, there’s a period of time when you can’t imagine having another. Once that stage of grieving is over, you feel like you have to have a new one immediately to survive.

I wanted a kitten-kitten, Jason wanted anything but a black cat (Jager was black, he thought it would be too hard to have that reminder, which sucked, because all I wanted was a black cat — or a bazillion of them), and what I found was a black 7-month-old teenager cat, the last to be adopted from his litter.

Jason is not a guy who does a lot of grand gestures, but he surprises me sometimes. And so begins the story of Moosh. I couldn’t find any kittens, so I was looking in between jobs and online. I saw Moosh (except his name was Oz). I thought, “K. This is a black cat and not as kitteny as I want. Buuuuut I’ll just try him out anyway. What’s the harm?”

As if he’d been training for this moment all his life, he nuzzled his face into my neck and I was in love.

I called Jason and said something like “iknowyoudontwantablackcatbutireallyreallyreallyreallyreallylikethisoneandwillyoupleaseatleastlookathimilovehim.” He managed to decipher this. I guess he’s used to it. I get excited a lot. Mostly about cats. He’s usually prepared with a NO before I get out the first two words.

Love.

I got home from work that night to find Moosh. My darling boyfriend went to see him, unbeknownst to me. Moosh laid the charm on thick with the ol’ man. Put a paw on each side of his neck and nuzzled in. Jason thinks he’s a tough guy but he’s really a pushover for kitty snuggles. He’s going to kill me for making this public. But his friends won’t read this, and in the event they do, they’d have to freely admit they looked at a blog about cats. Catch-22, suckaz.

Anyway. That’s when he took him home. Moosh is mostly a momma’s boy, so every once in awhile Jason reminds him who took him home (he still loves me more).

Seriously, black cats are the best.