Today I’m linking up with the lovely Elle for her Story Behind the Picture linkup. And since my family doesn’t make visual appearances on my blog and I’m anti-selfie (except in certain circumstances and also when someone forces me to. cough-Steph-cough), we’re going to examine a picture of my cat.
Specifically, these pictures (which you might have seen on Instagram)
So, yeah. That’s my cat climbing up our screen door, desperately trying to get back into the backyard. And you can tell by the look on her face in the bottom picture that she is none too pleased with me. That’s her “fuck off, Mom” face.
She uses it a lot.
Here’s the story–when we rescued Boots five years ago, she was feral. Took 3 months of feeding her and providing her with a place to sleep before she would even come near us (and by “us”, I mean “me” because I’m the crazy one that needs her love). We didn’t try to force her inside because the one time we did, before she was ready, didn’t end well. I was adamant about not scaring her off as I needed to make sure she remained fed and safe. And for the next three years, she slept and ate in our little backyard, using the common area kids’ playground as a litter box (which actually really funny)
When we moved in 2013, there was no way I was leaving her behind. She’s not the type of cat that will let you pet her, never mind pick her up and put her in a carrier for transport. So we had to trap her. Fortunately, we still had the trap the TNR (trap, neuter, release) left behind when the brought her back (after they catnapped her for three weeks. That’s another story) and we left the trap on our neighbor’s back deck until she was ready to move to her new home.
At this point, she’s very content as an outdoor cat and our (much larger) backyard is her queendom. She roams freely about the new neighborhood and the neighbors are happy because Boots is a serial killer and no one has a mouse problem anymore.
Things are good for everyone.
Enter winter 2014. Polar vortex. Motherfucking cold. I couldn’t bear the thought of her remaining outside in that weather (even though she has a very well insulated, well protected house, it was just too cold) so I did what any sane person would do. I tricked an outdoor cat who, incidentally, hates any sort of affection including but not limited to touching, petting, playing, and trying to feed by hand, into coming inside. Then I kept her there, letting her out only to go to the bathroom (after an unfortunate incident involving my daughter’s backpack) and roam for a few minutes (so she doesn’t murder me in my sleep) until the polar vortex broke. After awhile, she realized it’s better inside anyway and we didn’t have any problems for the rest of the winter, maintaining a delicate balance of letting her have her outside time and me not feeling like she’ll freeze to death.
2015. Present day. My conditioning worked!! She now sleeps inside just about every night, and spends a couple of hours most days inside as well (since that’s where the food is. We had to move it inside due to a squatter issue). But she likes to play games. She acts like she wants to come inside so I let her in and then she meows to go back out. It goes on for awhile.
It’s not a fun game.
On the day in question (and by that, I mean, the day I took the pictures), she wanted to come inside, probably to eat (smart girl, right?). So I let her in and left her to her food and went back to whatever activity it was I was doing on the couch (probably reading or playing a game. Maybe working) and I hear the blinds clattering against each other. I ignore it, figuring she’s just playing a game. But then it gets louder and more fierce. And after a few minutes, I finally get up to see what the problem is and found what you saw above. SpiderKitty.
It was not the first time she’d done it, either. It was just the first time I was able to get a picture.
I’m sure it’ll happen again, too.
How about you guys? Any fun cat stories?
