The Cuteness of Boots
Jun. 1st, 2007 05:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zeborahSome time ago I promised my sister to post the observation that: Boots is a very vocal cat. She has a particular 'word' that expresses mild annoyance, such as when one strokes her while she's trying to sleep. (More severe annoyance is expressed by a remonstratory nip, and for really grave occasions there are the claws, but these are passing rare.)
She also has a word which I discovered while carrying her in her cat box to the vet. That one means "Wherefore, o cruel human, hast thus so unkindly imprisoned an innocent young feline? Hast no pity in thy breast? Have mercy, o human, I implore thee!" and it makes me look around nervously for people phoning the RSPCA to have me arrested for abduction, neglect and torture.
And then there's the 'word' for "Ooh, you're moving in the general direction of my food bowl. Are you going to feed me?" And the word for "Please feed me. See how hungry I am?" Not to mention the word for "I see you're getting my food ready for me. Don't get distracted in the middle of the task, will you? Because I'm still pitifully hungry."
So -- which is the bit I'd promised my sister to post -- a couple of weeks back I was in the general vicinity of Boots' food bowl, and she purred a 'word' I hadn't heard before. "Boots!" I exclaimed joyfully. "You've learnt a new word! ...Means the same as the old word."
I have my alarm clock set religiously at 6am, and religiously at 6am I turn it off, briefly visit the bathroom, and feed Boots. Routine is good in a cat's life, right? Particulary because if I attempt to sleep in much longer than that, she starts miaowing at me, nipping any exposed flesh, and chewing on power cords in order to get my attention.
So, 6am. Except for the past week-ish, she's started to get importunate, and begin miaowing at me at 5:45, 5:30, and so forth. Also walking over me, poking her whiskers up my nose, and attempting to push me out of bed with her nose ("... Need... bigger... fulcrum!") So far I've been applying the "Don't reward bad behaviour with attention" technique, mostly because at oh-dark thirty pretending to be asleep just comes naturally.
This morning, though, after being up late last night after our new minister's induction, I appreciated her antics less than usual. I still managed to mostly ignore her and get back to a fitful sleep. When I woke next I discovered it was 7am: I'd slept through my alarm, and standing had given me a headrush. What's more Friday is my early morning, on which I have to leave no later than 6:54 in order to open the library on time. So as I stumbled towards the bathroom I was trying to text my manager to let her know I'd be late; fingers wouldn't work properly on the small keys and I slowly realised that I wasn't just tired, I was sick with the same bug that had my colleague off work for three days earlier in the week. Finally phoned my manager instead of texting; her partner answered and asked, "So she wasn't too annoyed then?", which confused me until I realised that it was now so late someone else must have told her I wasn't there.
I went back to bed and the cat curled up with me with a purr that clearly meant "The problem with you humans is that you don't spawn and eat your children." Then I saw part of a TV program in which a boy didn't even attempt his exam, and was accordingly disappointed when a classmate told him part of it had been about a really hot girl called Artemesia; said classmate recounted the start of the story, which faded into a dramatisation (starring Artemesia's father, his second wife, and his two sisters):
Second wife comes home and still in (elegant 1890s) street clothes goes straight up to greet husband
Sisters: accusingly [Name of first wife] always changed her clothes.
Wife: peaceably I wanted to see him first.
Sisters: She changed her clothes and then saw him.
Wife: I see him and then change my clothes.
Husband: appeasingly You can see me as often as you like, dear.
And then my alarm was ringing and Boots was leaping from my bed and I realised that I clearly wasn't sick so had to go in to work after all. Sunrise as I turned the lights on in the library was kind of pretty, but honestly I wouldn't have minded not seeing it.
She also has a word which I discovered while carrying her in her cat box to the vet. That one means "Wherefore, o cruel human, hast thus so unkindly imprisoned an innocent young feline? Hast no pity in thy breast? Have mercy, o human, I implore thee!" and it makes me look around nervously for people phoning the RSPCA to have me arrested for abduction, neglect and torture.
And then there's the 'word' for "Ooh, you're moving in the general direction of my food bowl. Are you going to feed me?" And the word for "Please feed me. See how hungry I am?" Not to mention the word for "I see you're getting my food ready for me. Don't get distracted in the middle of the task, will you? Because I'm still pitifully hungry."
So -- which is the bit I'd promised my sister to post -- a couple of weeks back I was in the general vicinity of Boots' food bowl, and she purred a 'word' I hadn't heard before. "Boots!" I exclaimed joyfully. "You've learnt a new word! ...Means the same as the old word."
I have my alarm clock set religiously at 6am, and religiously at 6am I turn it off, briefly visit the bathroom, and feed Boots. Routine is good in a cat's life, right? Particulary because if I attempt to sleep in much longer than that, she starts miaowing at me, nipping any exposed flesh, and chewing on power cords in order to get my attention.
So, 6am. Except for the past week-ish, she's started to get importunate, and begin miaowing at me at 5:45, 5:30, and so forth. Also walking over me, poking her whiskers up my nose, and attempting to push me out of bed with her nose ("... Need... bigger... fulcrum!") So far I've been applying the "Don't reward bad behaviour with attention" technique, mostly because at oh-dark thirty pretending to be asleep just comes naturally.
This morning, though, after being up late last night after our new minister's induction, I appreciated her antics less than usual. I still managed to mostly ignore her and get back to a fitful sleep. When I woke next I discovered it was 7am: I'd slept through my alarm, and standing had given me a headrush. What's more Friday is my early morning, on which I have to leave no later than 6:54 in order to open the library on time. So as I stumbled towards the bathroom I was trying to text my manager to let her know I'd be late; fingers wouldn't work properly on the small keys and I slowly realised that I wasn't just tired, I was sick with the same bug that had my colleague off work for three days earlier in the week. Finally phoned my manager instead of texting; her partner answered and asked, "So she wasn't too annoyed then?", which confused me until I realised that it was now so late someone else must have told her I wasn't there.
I went back to bed and the cat curled up with me with a purr that clearly meant "The problem with you humans is that you don't spawn and eat your children." Then I saw part of a TV program in which a boy didn't even attempt his exam, and was accordingly disappointed when a classmate told him part of it had been about a really hot girl called Artemesia; said classmate recounted the start of the story, which faded into a dramatisation (starring Artemesia's father, his second wife, and his two sisters):
Second wife comes home and still in (elegant 1890s) street clothes goes straight up to greet husband
Sisters: accusingly [Name of first wife] always changed her clothes.
Wife: peaceably I wanted to see him first.
Sisters: She changed her clothes and then saw him.
Wife: I see him and then change my clothes.
Husband: appeasingly You can see me as often as you like, dear.
And then my alarm was ringing and Boots was leaping from my bed and I realised that I clearly wasn't sick so had to go in to work after all. Sunrise as I turned the lights on in the library was kind of pretty, but honestly I wouldn't have minded not seeing it.
