Committed

We got a cat. Or, more acurately, a cat got us. Here's the thing: I love cats. I have been a surrogate cat aunt to every one of my friends' cats. Except for brief periods of shacking up or rooming with someone who has cats, I've never had one myself because I've never felt settled enough. Now that I feel very nested with my boyfriend and my painted walls, a cat seemed like a good idea. Only one problem: our building doesn't allow animals. Everyone I have told this to in New York has said, "You should just do it anyway." I wasn't so sure about that.

So every day or every other day, Graham and I would talk about having a cat and how great that would be and I would do my cat language and Graham would crack up. Then we'd look out the window and stare at the grown up litter of stray cats that are in the back yards and say "Those poor kitties. How are they surviving this weather?" And I would point at one of the black ones and say how much I would love to just HOLD HIM and then we would go on with our day.

So you can imagine my surprise, not an hour after this daily exchange on saturday, I hear meowing out in the hall, outside our door. I opened the door and there stood a little dust colored cat with an orange tail. She saw me, meowed and then ran inside our apartment and proceeded to purr and MAKE HERSELF COMFORTABLE. Graham said, "Let's feed her!" But if you feed a cat, THEY WILL NOT LEAVE. I hesitated and then fed her.

She's skinny as a rail and purrs at the drop of a hat. It's obvious that she belonged to someone at some point, because she is fully domesticated. She has no desire to leave the apartment. I wonder how long she has been on the unruly streets of Brooklyn. After the last 3 days, she's scrubbed up real nice. We named her Sleater-Kitty after our favorite grrrrl band, Sleater-Kinney.

I have to admit (and isn't it OH SO INTERESTING) that I became immediately anxious at the prospect of having a cat. I mean, it's a SERIOUS COMMITMENT. We now are RESPONSIBLE for her. What will happen when we have to go somewhere? WHAT WILL WE DO? I was so FREAKED OUT about this, that I couldn't sleep on Sunday night. Add to the anxiety, the fact that she got up about 5 times in the middle of the night to poop the most NOXIOUS smelling BOMBS on the planet (due I am sure to suddenly having available food), and that was all she wrote. I lay there, clenching my teeth, like a halloween skeleton.

I was bemoaning this to my friend Andromeda on the phone last night, explaining my sudden fear of commitment, when she said, "Funny you should mention 'commitment'. Rob and I are going to get married." After I hooped and hollered, she added, "Yeah, I'm pregnant too." You can imagine how all worries over the cat were sort of SIDELINED after this declaration. It was as if some gynormous being was patting me on the head and saying, "Silly mortal."

This morning Sleater-Kitty woke us up by running around the apartment and discovering the pigeons that roost in the air shaft. Last night she attacked the kitchen rug, as if it were a creature that could fight back. The more I get to know her, the more I see that she is a total spaz. Looks like she found the right home.