Destiny With Fur

The clock says 4:01am Tuesday morning. I can't sleep. I just noticed I've written that statement a few times within the history of my blog. Those have been the only instances of sleep, not apnea, but more ineptitude, when mentioned. I'm excited about my trip. This is a quality I've had since childhood: barely containing excitement over an upcoming event, rendering sleep futile. With no sleep, though, I feel a great rush in the brain, or at least I think I do, but in the mirror... Wow!... That's a whole other can of worms... quite literally. And of course Chicken's not helping matters.

Chicken is my fifteen year old neutered male cat. I've had him since he was the size of my palm. Would you believe that the HUMANE Society refused to give me a cat when I was 21? I say! I had to go through the personal ads in one of the local dailies to find him. Free Kittens, it read. I drove... I drove... I... I don't remember where I drove to. I remember it was a veterinarian's office. There was a pleasant, dark haired woman who presented a cardboard box *filled* with soft, little mewling creatures! In the center of the maelstrom was the loudest, most demanding, huge mouthed feline I'd ever bore witness to.

The Comrade: (to the nurse) [resignedly] I guess I'll take him.

I don't remember her giving me a recyclable carrying box. As I'm ancient, though Alzheimer's hasn't kicked in yet, I think those clever carrying devices were created decades later, as was the concept of recycling. The Kitten Chicken stayed clear of the holding cell I had provided: a hard and impersonal corrugated paper board confinement tank. Even though I'd placed a little baby's blanket in the box for him, he wanted nothing to do with it. Well, no wonder! It smelled like me. Or at least something that was at the back of my closet. He didn't even know me yet. I was a stranger. I took him away from his brothers, his sisters, his Mom.

I'm your new Mommie now.

Creep factor high.

I didn't know what to call him when I brought him home. On his birth certificate (okay, that's fictious), he is Kitty. Uninventive, yes, but names are personal. I figured a personality would have to be discovered before giving him a real name; something that would stick.

In his fifteen years, he's been kind enough to answer to Funny, Queeter, QueeQuak, Sweedle, Sweetoo and now Chicken. His full name is Chicken My Sweetoo, though mostly I call him Funny. When he's bad I yell "Chicken". Sometimes I'll mock chew his belly and call him Chicken Sandwich. He's the only cat I can think of who purrs when I tell him, "You're a fucking asshole!"

The reason I call him Chicken, and it's certainly not because he's a fraidy cat, is because he likes to be picked up under the armpits and elevated into the air, just as Mufasa did the Lion King, while all of his arms and legs stretch in opposite directions. When a good stretch is had he'll separate all his little toes and bits, thus creating the illusion of chicken feet.

Hence Chicken.

Well, it's not that he's the bravest thing either. There was this one time when he'd just discovered he could climb trees. Like a newborn discovering his toes, Chicken had discovered his claws. Claws grip. Claws grip bark... really well. So he runs up a maple tree, gets caught in a crook, suspended about 30' in the air and starts screaming at the top of his little lungs, as if I'd just poked him in the eye. I didn't know what to do. Just like the first time I got married I had gone to the doctor's office to get a blood test. My doctor asked me why. I said, "Well, isn't that standard premarital procedure?" He said, "You're watching too much television." Further proof that the boob tube is full of lies. Anyway, Chicken's caught in the tree and who do I call? The fire department. They just laughed at me and said the same thing my doctor said.

I've given up my televison and I'm now writing posts about my cat.

In his little life he's been in fights where he's incurred abscesses (plural), but not during the same fights. He's been a shaved pussy, subsequently. He's killed innumerable creatures of God and then played with their decapitated heads. He's had Feline Urological Disorder (FUS), where he nearly died. He's been hepped up on goofballs where it didn't feel as if he had a spine. It didn't feel as if he had any skeletal structure whatsoever. That was one scary night. But he lives and he lives well and happy.

My little man.

He gets tamer as he gets older.

He is no longer embarrassed of his mother who only walks on 2 legs.

He still scratches the hell out of my legs because it's *comforting* to him. He hasn't lost the need to knead.

He tolerates my dirty clothes by sleeping on them, but prefers it when they're all Downy smelling. It makes him smell that way. Better that than smelling like the brothel his mother usually smells of. Laying on my clothes post evening out or when I've just been hanging around the house chain smoking and swilling beer, he fully emanates his mother's "scent". Dunhills and Grolsch.

He has plaque and gingivitus which gets no better no matter how many "plaque removing" treats I whip his way. I do recall trying to brush his teeth a couple of times. That didn't go over well.

He loves to lick the top of my nose, my eyelids and any skin that's remotely near my sensitive olfactory system. PU!

We share everything. He drinks water from my glass and licks anything that I have laid in front of me, considering a meal.

He turns his nose up to storebought toys. He too is a Proliteriat. His favourite toys, in no particular order, are: shopping bags, twist ties, hair elastics, round light switches that have fallen off the wall, Pounce chicken flavoured treats (cannibal!), unsuspecting, slightly retarded mice who did not pass Darwin's test of survival of the fittest and my arm.

He loves to touch me... constantly. He's either sitting on my knee or on my arms while I type. When I read on the couch he curls up around my neck, introducing his fine little rump to my good eye. When I cook he's yelling me, running around my legs. In bed he actually knows that if I'm reading or working there he is to just nestle around my legs. This took years of curbing natural behaviour. As soon as lights are out, though, look out!

Purring like a madcat, he sneaks onto my pillow, sits for a bit, hatching his plan. I am usually lying on my side. He'll tenatively place one cold, straight from the box, smelly, padded paw on my cheek. Then the other over my eye, claws mostly retracted. Then he'll slide his arms across my head, which feels strangely wonderful, flops his face against mine, nestling his cold little nose straight into my ear. Either ear wax or the inherent scent of my brain is very attractive to him. Then he really starts to purr. Purring straight into the ear is rather distruptive to proper sleep patterns. This is made doubly bad by his tendency/need to create moisture in his mouth. He sounds like some old man sucking on a candy. Straight in the good ear. Sigh. If I flip over and offer my bad ear, what I notice is that what I've lost in sound detection, I've gained in sensation. It tickles. I laugh like a 6 year old in the middle of the night. With a cat on my head.

I get him back for sleep deprivation by mauling and smooching him loudly... in his ear.

Over the years, I've learned his language. Subsequently, we have conversations all the time.

He is not without his ability to communicate. Beyond the language that screams out of his mouth, he expresses sheepishness, guilt, zero remorse, flashing anger, utter adoration and absolute contentedness. He is a happy cat who, like his mother, prefers gentlemen's laps, though suffers mine in the interim.

He has seen me through 3 boyfriends, 2 husbands and a few lovers. He now looks at any man who walks through the door like a piece of lap meat. Over the years we have had other people share our bed, but mine is the only head he sleeps on. So, I guess I chose correctly that day at the vet's office. Yeah... as if I had a choice.