The cat that adopted us

Tenderoni has this love-hate on-off affair with cats. Okay, it’s mostly a phobic relationship. She only loves and pines for a cat when a mouse invades our house.

Any other time, when my dear wife hears a cat meowing outside, she will bind and loose it – and lose it - in the name of Jesus. I don’t know where she got it, but Tenderoni swears that cats have dark supernatural powers.

I am an ailurophile. This just means I cannot pass a cat without “communicating” with it. Tenderoni and Pudd’ng cannot get it. I think that part of it has to do with my upbringing. We were taught that pets – stray or not - are God’s creatures and should not, under any circumstances, be mistreated.

Fear, just like love and hate, can be learned. In fact, most times, virtues and vices are learned via word-of-mouth or modeling, from authority figures, peers or idols.

Until pretty recently, Pudd’ng also had an unexplained fear of cats. Yup, she got it from her mama.

Late last year, a neighbour in the next apartment moved to a new neighbourhood.

She left behind her grey and white pussycat which, even before the move, would spend ample amounts of time hanging out in our apartment.

Now that her owner is gone, this pussycat spends most of her time in our apartment, moving from door-to-door, looking for food and, I believe, family. Of all the houses in the two apartments, this pussycat has a certain liking to our house and its occupants.

“Is there some food we can give this hungry cat?” I would ask Tenderoni, to which would reply that feeding the cat would make it want to hang around more.

Tenderoni is right. With cats, familiarity breeds comfort. Before long, this pussycat began treating us like her new family. We have named her, Crusher. She crushed into our crib and lives and even has her favourite her spot on our three-seater sofa.

The spot is marked with white and gray fur. Which means that Crusher has marked it, just like cats mark their humans when they rub themselves around people’s shins and ankles.

PERCEPTIVE CREATURES

Some people say that cats are dismissive creatures. But I believe that cats have their own energies.

Unlike dogs, they will not fuse into their human’s energy. They are their own “person” and will not change their disposition for your sake. I also believe that cats are perceptive. The first night Crusher walked in and ‘claimed’ the seat, it rained so heavily later in the night.

Maybe she sensed it? Last year, for a whole day, an alien orange cat refused to leave our balcony. Each time we opened the kitchen door, it tried to enter the house. Tenderoni’s superstitious nature got the better of her, and she kept screeching: “No weapon fashioned against me shall prosper”.

Me? I was like: “Woman, thou art loosed!”

That evening, it rained like crazy. The drainage in the balcony where the cat had been was clogged, and rainwater filled our kitchen. Pudd’ng slipped on the kitchen’s slippery floor and almost broke her arm.

Tenderoni and Pudd’ng are getting used to having Crusher in the house. They even feed and pet her, and just let her be.

They are learning that there is nothing to fear. That love can come in little grey and white strands of fur stuck on our sofa. They do not freak out when, at 3am when we wake up to pray and relieve ourselves, Crusher stretches from her (sofa) bed and peers at us as though saying, “Amen, fam”.