Minuit went mental when we went to live in New York for 6 months. She had been fine until then. We'd housed her when she was about 16 weeks, in that gawky, teenager stage of kitten. She was snuggly and playful and svelte - until we went to New York. She didn't seem to mind the trip down. Her innate curiosity came out. She didn't hide. She sat either on our laps or on the stack of pillows beside Rissa in the backseat... She chirrupped and purred contentedly.
The minute we opened the door of the apartment in New York, Minuit had a mental breakdown. She disappeared for a week - the only proof of a cat residing with us was a used litter box. She didn't eat. She would run from newcomers - skittered past David as if he was the Great White Cat-Eater - so fabled in cat mythology. By the time we left New York - our svelte little kitten had morphed into a jittery mass of feline pulchritude.
Minuit remains terrified of David, even though, during this last move, he was the one to sit on the bottom cellar stair for quarter of an hour stretches to coax her to eat. He was the one to cuddle her into his arms and carry her upstairs into our bedroom. He was the one who put the electric blanket into the cellar, because he worried that she'd catch a chill. If David so much as takes a breath near her while she's eating, Minuit high-tails it back upstairs under our bed. Which is kind of hard for her now, seeing as her back end doesn't have full mobility since her spontaneous paralysis during the move in March.
"Can you grab the cutlery, hon?"
"I can't. Minuit's eating." David stands stock-still in the middle of the room, barely breathing.
When David is in the 'office' (loosely named - we can't fit a desk chair remotely close to the desk area), it takes Minuit a full 5 minutes to make her way past him.
Her head appears at the top of the stairs. She ceases all movement when she spots him. Impossibly balanced on her weak back legs - methinks it's through sheer force of will - because she has to sit side-saddle to eat now. One paw moves imperceptibly, then the next. Eyes wide, terror-filled, glued to the monster that stands feet away from her. She hugs the wall until she is within inches of him and then careens past at Mach 10, chased, she is certain, by the Hounds of Hell.
Steve, started talking to himself in the new house. He prowls and yowls. He's jonesing for the cellar. Ever since we stopped letting the cats downstairs, he now wanders the main floor crying to himself. Rolling on the floors and wallowing in his despair before then sitting at the cellar egress door bawling.
"Why? Why won't you let me down there? WHY?!? WHY?!? You hate me, is that it? You despise my very being... WHY?!?"
I don't know what was so damned exciting about that damp, dank cellar - but it's the only place that Steve wants to be now.
And Lola? Lola has started licking her nether regions bald since we moved here.
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| That is NOT a white patch on her stomach. It's where she is now bald. |
(It must be an after-the-move thing, because we had another cat, Bardolph, who licked himself bald from the waist down when we moved to our last house.) She has also because an expert in cat parkour. She likes to demonstrate her abilities in this area between the hours of midnight and 5:00 a.m. She bounces off walls, bounds across our bed - only our bed, mind you - emitting blood curdling cat sounds. She'll jump on my pillow and then bound from there to my feet.
This house is 1/2 the size of our last one and yet she manages to get lost in it. We'll be upstairs in bed and hear her wailing in the night.
"Lola! LOLA!!! We're up here!!"
"Prrrrrrrowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwl?"
"Up here dopey!"
"Prrrrrrowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwl?
At which point I usually leave the bed to stand at the top of the stairs "Puss-pussing" until she sticks her head around the corner of the bottom of the stairs.
"Come on you dope. It's bedtime..."
That's when Lola usually tears by me and bounds across the bed, using David's stomach as a trampoline. We then shoo all three cats out of our bedroom, but that only works to a point, because our bedroom is Minuit's safe haven and at 5:00 a.m. she's the one strong-pawing the door. Putting her shoulder into it.
Thud. Thud. Thud. "Please let me in. Please, please PLEASE, let me in!!! LET ME IN! LET ME IN!!! LET ME THE HELL IN!!!"
So, if you're finding that your cat is just a little too sane for you? Send it our way - we'll set you up.
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