Scratcher of heads, rubber of bellies
After adopting Trixie I was curious to see if we would see any signs of tortitude – the supposed tortoiseshell attitude – in our tiny little cat but none has manifested itself. I call her Little Lover as she is very affectionate and loves to snuggle, both with us and with the other cats. She had been with us less than a month when I took this picture of her in my lap last winter.
It’s been a lovely 4th of July weekend. The weather has been perfect, warming to the 70’s during the day and cooling off into the 50’s at night. There haven’t been many neighborhood fireworks so far so we’ve been able to keep the windows open except during the hottest part of the day. To minimize the stress on the pets we’ll keep the windows closed when it gets noisy tonight and retreat to the bedroom where we have an air conditioner.
Despite having the day off for the 4th I got up at the normal time I get up for work, and by mid-day decided to take a little nap on the love seat in my office. Apparently I wasn’t the only one, as my wife came in and took this picture of me with our three cats all sleeping on me. Boo is the black-and-white cat curled up in the crook of my arm, Trixie is the tortoiseshell beside him, and Sam is the orange tabby in my lap, his favorite spot. Trixie’s beloved pink mouse even made it into the bottom of the frame. Our dog Ellie is not in frame but she was in her bed just below us.
Wonderful.
Boo demonstrates excellent form in the closed pike position as he tucks and dives into a deep sleep on Ellie’s dog bed.
There’s a long-running trend in photography of people photographing models in fancy dress in dilapidated buildings, a style I’ve never liked although it is quite popular. But even I couldn’t resist a shot of my lovely model in a run-down location, Boo in the old cat tree that we moved in front of the larger picture window. This part of the cat tree is showing signs of wear but it’s the bottom that has suffered from the love of five different cats, the carpet now in tatters. It’s a shame because we’ve never found another design that we (or the cats) like quite as much, although the newer one in my office does the job.
Boo and I spent the morning enjoying our favorite sport, Formula 1 racing. Boo was so excited he had to sprawl across my legs and take a nap.
I was walking past the dining room when I saw Sam sleeping in an unusual spot, perfectly framed on the hardwood floor by the sunlight poring through the large picture windows on a warm spring morning. I ran to my office and grabbed my camera and got the lovely picture below, one of my favorite cat pictures ever. But then Trixie came in after me and jumped up onto the window ledge, her shadow so perfectly positioned that her head is next to his and her tail curls back towards me, as though his shadow had come to life and turned around to greet him. Thankfully I got the picture above as the moment didn’t last long. I like both pictures but the top one illustrates much of their relationship in an abstract form, Sam relentlessly pursued by his younger sister who adores him. I couldn’t have posed them any better as more than anything she loves to cuddle up face to face, which he’ll often tolerate when he’s sleeping on my legs.
Sam decided he was getting a little too much attention, between the clacking of my SLR’s shutter and the newly arrived Trixie in the window, so he got up and we all retreated to my office.
Sam and Trixie hold hands while snuggled up on my legs.
When we adopted Trixie in late January, we kept her in isolation in the guest bedroom for the first couple of weeks, then slowly began her introductions to the rest of the household. We took her introduction slowly not for her sake but rather for Sam and especially Boo, who were not happy with the arrival of their new sister. On the other hand, and despite the appearances in the top picture, Trixie wasn’t afraid of our dog Ellie, and Ellie gave her no reason to be.
We put a baby gate at the door to the bedroom so the cats could greet each other without the stress of being in the same room, but the scrawny little Trixie could slip right through the bars. It did slow her down, so we could mostly keep her in the room, but it served best at keeping the other pets out and making sure Trixie always had a sanctuary she could retreat to.
When I think of those weeks I think of this scene as much as anything, Ellie snuggling beside my legs. Not because that is unusual, as it isn’t, but because of what was happening on the other side of my legs …
I’ve loved Ellie since the day we adopted her, but I don’t think I’ve ever been more proud of her than during Trixie’s first few weeks with us. She was extremely patient with the young cat, even when Trixie tried to initiate play by swatting her on the nose. She’d chomp her jaws together when Trixie was upsetting her and, even though they started out speaking different languages, Trixie soon learned what Ellie did and didn’t like. Sometimes in her excitement she’d forget her lessons but these two got along right from the get go, a relief since my wife was out of town for a week and I had to manage time with all the pets. She willingly put up with kitten mania as long as she could be by my side and befriended the kitten long before the other cats did.
And how did Trixie adapt to having a dog inches away from her? It didn’t keep her up at night. Or at all.
As the weather has gotten colder, Trixie has discovered the joys of this spot beneath the big picture window. Underneath the wooden grate is a heating vent, blowing warm air onto your belly as you sleep. When we moved to this house in 2002, our two cats were Templeton and Scout. Scout (the black-and-white cat) was the first to discover the vent, but Templeton (the gray tuxedo cat) soon discovered Scout’s secret and began sleeping here as well.
I’ve photographed most of the cats on this vent over the years, although it didn’t get as much use once we bought them heated beds. For some reason they haven’t used the beds as much since Scout died a few years ago (she adored hers and insisted it be kept beside me in my office), although they do sleep in Ellie’s beds quite frequently.
I’m amazed at how far Sam has come in accepting young Trixie.
It has been a long and slow road to be sure. She is relentlessly affectionate and if he gives her an inch of acceptance, she takes a mile. Back in the summer he started letting her curl up next to him (at times), then gradually over the months he’d let her sleep with her head on his legs, then against his chest, all leading up to what she really wanted: sleeping face-to-face. And I mean literally face-to-face, she pushes hers right into his. And bless him he’s allowed her to do it on multiple occasions now, I could hardly blame him if this was a bridge too far.
Which is not to say there aren’t occasionally tears. Sometimes he’d prefer a little more space, and while Trixie has gotten better about reading his moods, there is still more work to be done. And sometimes our young cat just has a little too much energy for her older brother.
They’re curled up next to each other on my legs at the moment after earlier hanging out together under the Christmas tree. How thankful I am that this is the new normal.
Boolie 