Sitting pretty

There are a few dangers inherent in the companionship (I dare not say 'ownership') of a super-sized cat, besides the simple truth that having a 15-pound feline make bread on your boobs freakin' hurts.

Kitters is spared a lot of indignity due to the fact that, as a cat, he doesn't need clothing. No search for big and tall sizes for him! There are other issues, however. For instance, MB and I once splurged at PetSmart and bought him a single-unit kitty condo:



We brought it home and showed it to Kitters, and tossed a toy mouse inside in an attempt to get him to check out his new digs, and then realized that the cat was about twice as large as the inside of the condo. Whoopsie. Kitters hadn't exactly been excited about the condo anyway (his reaction had mostly been one of slightly irritated "You want me to go where?"-ness), so we took it back and exchanged it for a distinctly non-fun tub of litter.


Another time, we thought it would be really nice to buy Kitters a little window perch.



You see, at our old apartment, Kitters sat on the windowsill of the big living room picture window every day and watched the cars drive by on our street below. In fact, it was his window-sitting habit that landed him in our little family in the first place. One night, we were leaving to go visit BoMB in Kentucky, and our neighbor was out on the shared exterior landing smoking a cigarette. As we were talking to our neighbor, Kitters jumped up into the window. Now, Kitters had lived with our neighbor for a year, and once he came to live with us he sat in our window every day, but somehow in an entire year, we'd never seen him in the neighbor's window. We didn't even know that the neighbor had a cat. I exclaimed, "Oh, you have a cat! He's pretty!" Neighbor replied, "You want him?" To which, of course, I said, "What's wrong with him?" Neighbor said, "Nothing! [dirty liar] I'm just not home enough to give him the attention he deserves," and so we adopted him upon our return at the end of the weekend.

Anyhow, we bought the kitty perch and installed it in the spare room so that Kitters would have a clear view of the backyard. Once it was ready, we tried to get Kitters to jump up onto it, but no amount of patting and cajoling and encouraging exclamation could convince him. Eventually, we lifted him onto the perch, all the while enthusing to him about how cool it would be for him to use it! To watch the birds! And the squirrels! Kitters rolled his eyes a few times and jumped down, but then he jumped right back up. We were thrilled for about two nanoseconds, and then the whole goddamn perch came crashing down, with poor Kitters along for the ride. As you can imagine, we felt like absolute shit. We crammed that traitorous perch back into its box and promptly returned it for more kitty litter.


Hope must spring eternal in the human heart, because when I found this on the PetSmart website tonight, my first thought was how much I'd love to get one for Kitters:

"Give your indoor cat the safe outdoor experience. With the locking PetSafe Cat Flap, you can give your cat the freedom to go in and out of the Cat Veranda as he pleases or close it to restrict his use. The Cat Veranda features a washable-carpeted interior as well as a covered roof to ensure that your indoor cat has the most comfortable outdoors experience possible."

But then I realized that this is actually a pretty cruel idea. "Hey, kitty cat! You know those birds and squirrels that you can see but never catch? Now you have to smell them, too!"

Sun Salutation



Reading: Sammy's Hill by Kristin Gore


Playing: Aha Shake Heartbreak by Kings of Leon