Helen the Cat

I was forty-five years old, had never owned or lived with a cat, but on November 2, 2004, Election Day Tuesday, I adopted a cat from the Humane Society. 

I named her Helen.  She is all black with golden eyes.  According to some kind of reading of her teeth, she was five years and one month old the day I picked her up.  She weighed nine pounds and six ounces.  The vet said she was very healthy.  I thought cats twitched their tails.  Helen flaps hers like a beaver or a platypus.  She looks intently in my eyes.

I don’t understand Helen.  I don’t know why she sleeps through the roar of the hair dryer but bolts when I change the trash bag.  I don’t know why she climbs the footstool, then the chair arm, then stares at me, then settles herself into the middle of the notepad on which I am trying to write.  I don’t know why she climbs onto my bed, lies down beside me, and seems to want to be petted.  I pet her, then she bites my hand. 

I don’t know why she eats about seven granules of cat food at a time, will play for about fifty-four seconds each with only one or two of the ten toys I carefully selected for her, then quit, or why she drinks nothing at all for hours, then goes lick-lick-lick in her water bowl (with matching stripes on her food bowl), for two to three minutes at a time. 

I don’t know why she hasn’t put her claws into any of the three scratching surfaces I bought her, except for an afghan hand-knitted by my grandmother and my thigh through my nightgown.  I don’t know why she drapes herself across my ankles while I’m reading a book in bed.  What is she doing and why?  What does she want?  Is she happy?

Comments

[Lara]

I so enjoy reading about Helen the Cat.
I can't wait for the next installment.
I share my home with a cat, too. Her name is Garpo. Britt and I dote on her endlessly. I can relate to the feelings of loneliness in the story of Helen. Garpo's presence in my life definitely gives me some sense of being less lonely. She is 15, and diabetic. I can't believe she is so alert and wanting to live, even though she is ill with diabetes. I sense that she wants to keep living because of the attention and love we pour on her. Without it, I think she would have died by now. I love her very deeply. Cats are amazing.