Cleo striking a pose
I picked Cleo up from the vet today. She went in yesterday to be spayed after we put up with two estrus cycles. OMG, there is nothing like a cat in heat . . . it was very annoying for the rest of the household. Cleo was acting all the little slut desperately trying to seduce Balam — a neutered male! Oh, the horror of it all! Who would have thought that my darling little cat would be transformed into Hello Sex Kitty??
Apparently, evolution selected for a very strong reproductive urge in cats . . . but in the context of contemporary US petdom . . this is a very maladaptive trait. I wanted to drown the damn cat!!!
This was my 3rd attempt at getting her “fixed” . . . the last two times she had infections (giardia) so she couldn’t undergo the surgery. Third time’s a charm! The Belmont Veterinary Center took very good care of my little baby. She is now “sex-less” . . . another animal that has been rendered sterile. A little sad to remove my kitty from nature . . . but, of course, the responsible thing to do.
When I was little I had a cat named Susan Endora (I was a fan of Bewitched). Susan Endora was a beautiful Siamese with a very nasty disposition and an even worse sense of what constituted appropriate sperm donors for her multiple broods. I grew up in a place and time that people didn’t have the money to go to the doctor for their own illnesses, much less spend money on spaying/neutering. So, Susan Endora, sleek and soft, went through the hormone induced rut that resulted in offspring. My dad says that Susan Endora had very bad taste in partners . . . allowing herself to be impregnated by the raggediest cats in our small town. As a result, my lovely cat had absurdly ugly kittens that we had to try to get rid of in one supermarket parking lot after another.
I had one other female cat we named Negrita. I don’t recall if she was spayed or not (she ran away). I do remember that she would ambush my little spawn “Onion Tears.” As are result, Onion Tears lived in fear of that cat. I probably have the maternal nature of a cat, since I found it very amusing to watch Negrita hide behind the chair and pounce on Larisa! No permanent damage was done to my progeny . . . after all, she has two kitties of her own (both female, ironically).
After Negrita, we had got a cat we named Negrito . . .yeah, we weren’t very imaginative when it came to names. Negrito was a good cat with great hunting skills and a fervent hatred of plaid. That’s right . . . he hated PLAID. If Onion Tears or I were caught wearing plaid jammies, Negrito would attack our legs! Alas, Negrito acquired Feline AIDS and we had him put down after attempting to keep him alive longer than was actually humane. Just for the sake of the narrative, the reader should know that Negrito was a Maine Coon. I think it is a breed thing . . . Maine Coons don’t like plaid.
A while after Negrito died, we got another Maine Coon — Balam. He doesn’t like plaid either. I don’t wear plaid. Balam weighs about 23 pounds and has razor sharp claws. Fortunately, I’m not Scottish. I don’t know why Maine Coons don’t like plaid. Certainly they have no aversion to paisley, polka dots or even horizontal stripes. Some believe that Maine Coons were brought to the New World by the Vikings (who were often at war with the Celts). Perhaps the cats harbor ancestral animosities towards anything Highlander. Or maybe plaid just offends their fashion sensibilities.
Balam stretched out under the fan
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