Thursday, January 29, 2009

The Secret Life of Cats

Tiny keeps getting new toys. I'm not actually buying any of these toys but they keep showing up. The other day I came in a found him batting around a furry mousie, a nice big furry mousie. And not one of those cheap little ones they sell at the register at the pet store or in bags of six at the grocery . I haven't brought a furry mousie into this house in years! And yet there it was  I can't even imagine where Tiny found it and where The Kitty had been storing it all these years.  The Kitty was not really down with toys, he would play with things but he almost never got excited about dedicated cat toys. He would play with plastic rings from milk containers, plastic straws, wadded up balls of paper but he wasn't really into store bought cat toys. As far as I  knew.

What he relayed to me was that he was into reusing and recycling and buying local. Do you know your average furry mousie travels at the very least 10,000 miles to get to your door? It's outrageous. The Kitty was really horrified by all that. He liked the outside, it made him mad to see it brown.

But anyway. He still had all these toys. I thought I got rid of all his toys a long time ago. I gave them to Mini Kitty  when it became obvious that The Kitty had lost interest in such pursuits. He did seem to derive  enjoyment from watching  his  toys while she clearly showed a preference to play with  toys instead of  watching  toys . So bourgeois!

And now Tiny is playing with The Kitty's toys. I'm sure the toys feel very fulfilled now, and somewhere The Kitty is really pissed or maybe he's happy that someone is using them, maybe he guided Tiny to find them. I mean, The Kitty must have felt something for these toys or he wouldn't have hidden them and saved them from my good intentions. I should study the toys he unearths now, see what was so special about it that The Kitty intentionally hid it and the others away. Was he afraid I was going to take them away as well? Could he know that I gave his stuff away? Did I make him bitter? More bitter? Bitterer?

Some of the toys Tiny finds I remember, but there are others that I think The Kitty bought himself - perhaps online while I was at work. I should have studied my bills more closely.

 Tiny  for his part plays with everything, he doesn't require specially designed  cat toys to entertain him. In that regard he takes after The Kitty, but at the same time, he seems to really relish the furry mousie and the other store bought toys he's unearthing upstairs while I'm at work.

I don't remember The Kitty playing with anything upstairs, he slept upstairs, he looked out the windows and curled up on the cat tree but I don't recall him scurrying around chasing stuff or doing much scurrying at all. During the day he must have been a crazy person! Why didn't he want me to know this side of him? The playful side, the scurrying side? Did he think this side of him would disappoint me? Did he not want me to think of him as a  scurrying cat as a cat that could have fun? He was a fun cat, he was way too young to be the cranky old man persona he presented to the world. But gawd! what a cuddler! Tiny is a cutie, but he's years away from the level of cuddleosity that The Kitty had.  He was such a good cat.

The Kitty was a great kitten too - When he wasn't throwing himself at my door all night  keeping me awake or his daytime pursuit - smashing crockery to bully me into feeding him. But in a really cute way! In the sweetest, fluffy-est way possible.  He did it out of love. He was hungry and he couldn't talk. My little baby kitty! I really miss him. Tiny is awfully sweet too but so far he hasn't tried to communicate with me. I might try to teach him sign language, its a lot quieter and less destructive then smashing breakables.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I bet it's a toy that arrived inside Sweetie's catbox for one of her visits and then got lost under the bed.

Unknown said...

No, oddly, all the mystery toys are appearing upstairs. The Sweetie toys are all downstairs. It's wild.