Cute Kitty? Or Demonic Black Mold?

[greenbean]

Ok, so I have this little light and heat mat set up for cuttings and seeds, right? I also have a furry heat-seeking missile. You can guess where this is heading, I'm sure.

I found her (Mitzy, aka "Satan", a name given her on numerous unrelated occasions by various people) lying in the flat one day, so I decided to go with the flow and slide things over to one side for her. This way she has more room AND she is less likely to knock over the epiphyllum cuttings that are currently rooting under the lights. A few weeks later, I shot this picture of her, because she was just so relaxed and oozing out into the tray. It's like winter, when we have the wood stove going and she oozes out over the floor in front of it. Only now she has a plant tray to contain her.

I know, she just sounds adorable, right? WRONG! She's a selfish, vain little demon! She's only cuddly when she wants a heat source, you have to pass a sniff inspection every time you want to pet her, and hardly anyone passes the test, she will stop in the middle of a dead run to give herself a single lick (wouldn't want a hair out of place would we?), and she is nearly intolerant of blonds (my brother's old girlfriend (a blond) put tape on her feet when she was a kitten, I guess she doesn't care to let things go. There were 2 black kittens in her litter, and I think I chose the evil twin. And don't tell me she's just a normal cat. I've known plenty of much nicer cats. But she's mine, so I've gotta love her quirks, warts and all.

Enjoy!

[natasha]

welcome to cat lovers club. one bitten you can't live without one!

my cats love cool places, as we live in the tropics, unless its rainy season... but i think cats make good gardening companions. it seems that mine appreciate my skill in "jungle-ing" the car porch than my husband. they'll wait or bang the door till we let them out the door.

don't worry about your cat being selfish, its much better than having cat that are too busybody - will follow you anywhere, even to the bathroom! i have one and i constantly tell her "i want my privacy!!!" at least in the bathroom and don't scratch the door please

[playtime8978]

Oh my your cat brings back memorys of my Snowy, also known as devil cat among other less affectionate terms I cannot type here LOL he was the sweetest cat as long as he wanted to be but he had a split personality I swear, you would be tickling him ( on his terms of course) and he would roll on to his back for you to tickle his tummy. STOP DONT DO IT! every time you tickled his tummy he attacked you all 4 sets of claws and one big mean set of teeth implanted firmly in your hand and wrist he was the spawn of the devil but I loved him all the same, sadly he isnt with us now he passed away a few years ago, but he will never be forgotten for his killer instncts. He was born ferrel and found by a railway line and taken in by a cats protection society where we adopted him and his brother, his brother died young from FIV and he was a sweety.

[Blueszz]

Oh my gosh, reading your post was so funny and recognizable LOL
I have to live with kitty terror too... when one of my cats thinks it's feedings time, it starts to walk in between the orchids and threatens to eat them. No way I can ignore that. It started with threatning me to eat plastic bags, but it discovered my orchids for this use - and it works ;-)

Thank you for the "warning" about heat mats and lights... I plan this kind of set up for next winter, I might make a safe enclosure for the plants!

Nicole

[Louder Than Hell]

Ciao greenbean, your cat is so cute

I have to agree with natasha: selfish cats are the best, it just take some time to understand and appriciate them

When i moved to my dad he had a 5ys old cat who even used to hunt me and scratch my legs etc. Now you may think he was devil but it was just me that coulndt understand cats After years of bites and scratches we become sort of best friends, he never changed but when you understand what he's telling to you is totally different.

Also I always use to think whatever my pets do wrong is my fault: you wanted them and you grow them. They just do what istinct tells them

PS: he will never stop to sniff-test you

[greenbean]

Oh, I've always been a cat lover. I like dogs, but I am definitely more of the feline persuasion.

Natasha, my cat used to follow me around too! She used to walk around on the sink while I brushed my teeth, and I'd have to chase her out if I needed more privacy. She even used to sleep on my feet at dinner. I miss that.

She's changed a lot. It may have started with me shutting her head in the freezer (NOT MY FAULT!!! ) I was getting eggos out for breakfast and she stuck her head into the space between the door and the freezer, on the side with the hinges. I couldn't even see her until I had started to shut the door and she started scrabbling around trying to get her head out. I was mortified! I thought I had killed my cat! Luckily there wasn't any permanent damage (that I know of). But she was still a follower even after that. So I'm not exactly sure what turned her so aloof. Maybe she's trying to act all mature, seeing as how she's now the venerable age of 4.

Carrie, Mitzy used to wrestle with me, kinda like your Snowy. When she was a baby she would wrap her front paws around my wrist and nip my knuckles. It was cute when she was little. Then she started losing her baby teeth and I had to move from a light sweatshirt sleeve pulled over my hand, to a pair of welding gloves, which still weren't enough. She didn't like the welding gloves and eventually got scared of them, so that was the end of that.

Nicole, you're welcome for the warning. If I had something more valuable under my lights right now I'd probably have protected it in some way too. When I have the tray filled with seeds and starts for spring, she doesn't actually get in the tray, she just contents herself with huddling up against the edge of the mat. But maybe your cat is more aggressive. At least Mitzy doesn't eat my plants! (Anymore, that is. She started, but then we began keeping a pot of cat grass, from seed you can buy at a pet store, in the dining room. Now she has her own plant just for her to chew on.) Occasionally she has a clumsy moment and knocks something over, but she knows it's bad news for her if she does something on purpose. Unfortunately I had some problems controlling my temper with her early on (don't worry, no harm or abuse, just too much shouting), propably another reason she turned out the way she is. My fault.

Louder Than Hell, thanks for the compliment. That's actually not a very flattering picture of her (makes her kinda chubby-cheeked ), but it's hard to take a bad picture of that cat. She spends so much time cleaning herself that she has the most silky smooth fur of any cat I've ever met. My old cat was really soft too, but she was fuzzy, not silky. She was also a WHOLE lot more cuddly.

I prefer independent cats, too, but it would still be nice if she permitted us to pet her a little more often after passing the sniff test. She's really never cuddly, at all. I can barely touch her. But it also doesn't help that I've been gone so long for college, so I can't blaim her too much.

[Amanda L]

What a cute kitty. I would be very nervous about one of mine being that close to my plants though!! Since a couple of mine are jealous and have knocked 2 of mine in the floor.

I have learned that there is no such thing as a "normal" cat. I have 5 and every one of them is different.
One follows us around, I guess he doesn't want to miss anything. Gets in your face and demands attention. And always seems to be plastic deficient, since he chews on every plastic bag he can get.
One never comes out of hiding and hisses at me all the time. Must be the nail clipping and occasional bath.
One is old and likes the kitchen. She can hardly meow anymore. It's sad and funny at the same time.
One likes to "sing" and give us humans a new hair style with complimentary washing.
Then the baby. She is too sweet for words. Although, she seems to forget all of her domestication when you try to groom her. She becomes the cat from H3LL!!

I love them all though!

Thanks for sharing you kitty with us!

[natasha]

oh yeah, i forget to tell, one of my cat 'boy' likes to "eat" my chid roots, those old ones still in their nursery pots. so i have to trim those unruly roots before boy took the pot off the shelves... he also love to rest below the shelves.

[greenbean]

I'm not sure what I would do if my cat developed a taste for orchid roots! Probably have a heart attack or go into a coma!

Of course when I came to I would have to either build a greenhouse or other separate area for my orchids, or find a spot for my new cat-skin rug.

Well, maybe that last one is a little harsh. She and I do make a good mousing team. She doesn't have the killer instinct, so she rarely even pounces on them. This morning I found her in the living room pacing around a lamp table between two recliners. I got down on the floor and looked under it and there was a mouse, just out of reach. I got a stick and a jar to catch it.

My cat watched as i chased the mouse from the lamp table, to my dad's recliner, to one section of the couch, and finally cornered it under the second section of our couch. I got a butterfly net (the jar was just not cutting it), lifted up the couch section, and nabbed the mouse. I took it outside and *cough* disposed of it. Hey, don't want it coming back in the house, do I?

Naturally, poor little Mitzy was disappointed that she was deprived of her "kill" (not that she would have killed it anyways, and if she did it would have just left a mess on our already ugly off-white carpet). I consolled her with extra treats. I think she got over it pretty fast.

We've done this once before. A year or so ago, I found her in the kitchen one night hunkered down staring at a mouse right in front of her. The mouse wasn't moving, so she wasn't really interested. It didn't even give me a run-around like the one today did, just sat there as I got a jar and scooped it up. Yep, we make a good, if unorthodox, team.

And so I leave you with this to think about: if there is no such thing as a "normal" cat, then all cats are abnormal. And if all cats are abnormal, then abnormality is the norm, meaning that an "abnormal" cat is a "normal" cat. Therefor all cats are "normal".

Sorry, sometimes I can't help but over-think things just to try to make someone's head hurt.

[natasha]

i read somewhere that chids make good garden material for cats - i mean cat-friendly garden since they are not poisonous. i love spending time with my cats, and also love gardening esp now with chids and chids around. i am planning to have a bigger one to accommodate my ever increasing orchid collection, perhaps will look into buying a bigger landed property than my terrace house.

for me eating the roots are fine, since i don't use any pesticides yet, and those roots are usually dead roots that need trimming anyway and repotting. but don't you knock down my chids! esp those small unbalanced dens still in very small pots!