Cat Joy

The joys of a cat.

• Stalker: He follows me around the house, always wanting to play or snuggle. I really expected him to curl up and sleep all over the house, and I would have to search him out. I wonder if this is just his personality or because he is a kitten. Either way, it is quite gratifying to be the center of his universe.
• Alarm Clock: He has a very accurate sleep body clock, or what-have-you. He wakes me up without fail around 6:00 am every morning. And most of the time there is still food in his food bowl, so I'm not sure what his deal is. However, he has done it every morning we've had him. Instead of an annoying ringing sound, I wake up to a kitten rubbing his head on my face. A much softer way of waking up.
• Battle scars: He has his claws right now, and I have many, many scratches to prove it. I don't know how to play with him without getting scratched, and I can't just ignore his need to play!
• Bad example: Jill is a good mimic. She used to just imitate her daddy and I, but now that we have a cat, she follows his lead as well. She has tried to climb up on my shoulder, and recently she has fallen in love with standing or sitting on windowsills. They are one of Cosmo's favorite places to soak in the sunshine.

And this morning, Cosmo showed a new side of himself. While I was getting Jill out of her crib, Jeffrey heard Cosmo meowing by the side of the bed. So Jeffrey meowed back at Cosmo. After hearing Jeffrey, Cosmo jumped up on the bed with a lizard in his mouth! When I came back to our bedroom with Jill, Jeff said, "So, have you given Cosmo a toy lizard?" My reply, "Nope. Why?" Jeff, "Well, he's playing with a lizard." Yes. It was a dead lizard. A real lizard. That Cosmo was playing with on my side of the bed and on my pillow. Blessedly, its body was intact, so no guts were oozing out over my bedding, but still.

So yes, that was very unexpected. Cosmo has never been outside since he's lived here (other than when I'm holding him), so we really have no idea where he encountered the lizard except for accepting the obvious—that it came from inside our house somewhere. We hadn't ever really realized that Ohio even had lizards previous to this. It's the first one I've seen here. Now we know though. And we acknowledge that it was sweet of Cosmo to bring it to us as a gift rather than hide it somewhere to stink up or leave it somewhere for me to step on.

May you rest in peace, ugly lizard.

And because Jill is cute, here are some pictures from the Reds game we attended last Saturday. Go Reds! (Am I a bad fan because I like them better when they're losing, because then tickets are less expensive?)

Jill and Daddy

Jill, Anayancy, and Santiago