The Human and Millie and Me

Friends, it's a hard life being me, do you know that? This time last year I thought I had it hard, what with wooing all those mancats and keeping up my untouchable reputation, but honestly, I had no idea of how tough life could be! Now, not only do I have to manage a dull-whitted, recalcitrent human, but I have a kitten to contend with who regularly steals my food, my napping spots and, more importantly, my blog! What's a ladycat to do, friends? I've got no idea!

Anyway, life just got a whole lot tougher. You know why? Because that human, that uncaring, unfeeling human, has abandoned us today! She says she had to return to her day hunting, but I think she's secretly disappearing off to have a good time without us. Couldn't she just stay sick and at home if she cared about us? She reminded me as she gave me a big goodbye cuddle this morning that if she didn't go to her day hunting, there'd be none of those silly papers that she keeps in her purse and doesn't let me play with, and without those papers, there would be no cat food, no nice new toys, no more showing myself off at shows, none of it. I suppose she has a point, but I'd never admit that to her face.

But what to do, friends? I'm stuck at home all day now with this crazy kitten, with no decent company. Not that my human classes as decent company. More of a distraction than anything else, but you'll take my point, I trust. There's not even the addition of new stinky goodness in the bowl at lunchtime to break up the monotony of being the only sensible, clear thinking being in the house. Ok, so the human heaped our bowl full for us this morning. Ok, so there's always dry food down, so much that we'd have to eat until we were sick to get through it in a day. But you know what? I like the stinky goodness best when it's fresh. I mostly only lick the gravy off, and gravy isn't half as appealing if it's been in the bowl all day and Millie's been at it. Ok, the human'll give me more stinky goodness as soon as she gets home, but again, you'll take my point, won't you?

In my less guarded moments, I'll admit that my kitten is growing up nicely. She's not as manic as she used to be. She doesn't take every opportunity to attack me when she finds me sleeping. She doesn't stalk my tail all the time any more. In fact, sometimes she's quite fun. She's really good to play chase with all over the house, and we regularly do the wall of death around the sofas in the living room. Well, she does. You know I'm too much of a well mannered ladycat to go hairing around over the top of peoples and on their furniture, but the baby isn't well mannered at all, and she does everything to excess.

The human has been thinking about excess lately. She has found it fascinating to watch the development of Millie and compare her to me. Millie gorges on food. She's effusive in her snuggling. She plays hard, sleeps hard, loves hard. In fact, she does everything to extremes. Her purr, just like her brothers' is mega loud compared to mine. I, on the other hand, never eat too much when I'm not caring for or feeding kittens. I regulate my own weight beautifully, in fact, too well if you ask the human, as she thinks I'm getting too skinny again. I always ask politely before stepping onto a lap, and I never jump directly onto a people. My human wonders how much of this had to do with my upbringing. I was raised in a multi-cat household, in among many other breeding cats. For many years of my life, I lived in not very great conditions. Long term readers of the blog will know about this as we spoke about those conditions whenever the human first got me. I was always with many other cats, having to share food, and even people attention. The human looks at me sometimes and thinks I'm almost apologetic when I ask to do things like have a cuddle. I'll always understand if she's too busy to cuddle me, but because of this, she always makes a special effort to give me more attention, and hardly ever ignores me unless her hands are dirty or she's really, really busy. I don't even purr loudly. Even Dogman has noticed how quiet my purr is in comparison to Millie's. Millie will bounce in and out of cardboard boxes, but I don't really understand the fascination at all. I can't really work out what they're for. They're a box. Nothing special, right? Or is it because, being born and raised in catteries, I never had the chance to see cardboard boxes at an age where I would have investigated and discovered how fun they were?

And toys, there's another one. I didn't really know how to play until I came to live with the human. She had to teach me that it was Ok to catch the dangly toys that she flicked around, but when I discovered what ping pong balls were. Well, that was a glorious day! Did I have toys as a kitten? She doesn't know.

She's a good human, really. She tries to make sure I have lots of chances to explore new experiences that I might not have seen before. If I show an interest in a new toy, she'll help me get over my nervousness of it (I'm always a bit wary of new things), and she'll show me how to play with it and that it's Ok to play. She lets me try lots of different foods, and the only thing she doesn't really compromise on is that she won't feed me the low quality stinky goodness that I love so much because it's only 4% meat. It also gives the kitten a case of the runny bum, so that might have something to do with it. She takes time out of her day to spend with me, and doesn't let the kitten muscle in on that time. In short, she's pretty all right, really.

I'm so pleased that my baby is being given chances and experiences that I may never have had. It's making her a really rounded cat, and when I see the small things that my human does for her, it just reaffirms why I put up with all her idiocy. The kitten took a real fancy to a shoe box when she was a tiny baby. Her and her brothers used to play in it all the time. Now that was months ago, but because the kitten liked the box so much, the human wouldn't throw it out. Even though it was in the way, she just filled it with toys for the babycat instead, and kept it until Saturday. She only got rid of it because it was falling apart and she knew she'd have another shoe box arriving in the post that very day. Now, there's not many peoples that would do that!

My baby has the best of everything, just as she deserves. And I suppose the human's daily abandonment of me is a small price to pay for that, small when you see how confident my little girlcat is. There's nothing quite like snuggling your baby against your tummy (cuz we do snuggle now that she's stopped fighting me) and knowing that you picked the best human you could to give her a super start in life.

Now, before this gets any mushier, I'm gonna go throw up a hairball in one of the human's slippers... That'll teach her for leaving us!