Saturday, November 14, 2009

Moving

For those few of you who have this blog subscribed to in your RSS readers (or bookmarked?), I should mention that I am picking up shop and settling down in Wordpress territory.

The new blog address is: http://andrewcek.wordpress.com/

I am doing this mostly because I dislike the width of the text column here on blogspot.

This is the last post on this particular blog.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

The Stupidest Angel


My roommate Sam got us a new cat last Friday. He was a stray, though likes people and knows how to use the litterbox, so he is probably safer to have in the house than, say, an ocelot.

This is our cat (pictured to the right (click for full-size)).

His name is Mrs. McKibbens the Ballbarian (the name was not my choosing), though we've taken to calling him either "Mrs." (because it is ironic and we are cool hipster kids) or "Mickey", which is semi-ironic, given that it is the name of a cartoon mouse, and cats and mice generally are considered to be natural enemies (as evidenced by "Tom and Jerry"), except that cats do not understand irony and he doesn't really seem to care what we call him.

He was named after Rachel McKibbens, who is a pretty rad poet and human being, and, as far as I can tell, mostly writes sad poems, but that's alright with me. She also writes some really raunchy poems, which are also pretty alright (and totally not safe for work).

We love Rachel McKibbens.

Mickey (as I'm going to call him - for those of you who claim that it is not gender neutral, when I was in 6th grade, the security guard at my school was a woman named Mickey (there was also a man named Marshall). Also for those of you who claim that "Mickey" is not gender-neutral: Like "Mrs." is!) is a good cat, mostly.

(This is me with Mickey).
By good, I mean mild-mannered. He's got this really annoying thing where he really likes to touch people's faces with his face (I don't care if he does it to others. I just don't like my face being touched by anyone I've known less than a month, regardless of how cute and/or fluffy they might be). He also meows a lot - the first 2 hours he was home, he walked around the house and meowed at everything he saw.

...Sometimes twice.

But we get along pretty well, for the most part. If I am sitting on the couch, he will probably sit next to me, and will almost certainly meow. Sometimes he will lay across me, if I let him (it's taken almost a week, but he's figured out that if I do not want him on me, the best thing he can do is accept it and sit next to me, and I will still scratch him behind the ears from time to time). If I am eating, he tries as hard as he can to help me eat (it's a good bet that if I am unwilling to rub faces with you, I am unwilling to share my food), but I bet I can break him of this habit before too long.

All that said, he is still a giant mystery to us, because he came to us as a stray. But I have figured out a few things:


1) He loves people. So very much.

2) His hind legs are not very strong, and he can only jump about 8-10 inches off the ground, which is problematic if he is a creature known for jumping ability. Also: he is not very coordinated either. I'm not sure if this is because he's still young, or if he was somehow injured (he gets scared if I move my hands quickly, which makes me wonder if he was abused at some point).

3) He is really not very bright. Sam calls him "The stupidest angel". I feel as though this is accurate.

4) He is a gaseous kitty. Occasionally to the point of clearing a room. And he meows constantly, though it is quiet and kinda pathetic-sounding. I'm betting we can fix the former with some diet adjustment. I'm not too worried about the latter.

5) Mostly, his favourite thing in the world to do is sleep next to (or on) people. And if people are not around, then he will sleep until they come back. (The picture to the right is of him sleeping on my other roommate, Christopher). I don't let him into my room when I am sleeping, but he does not meow at the door. He just waits for me to come back out and sit down where he can see me such that he can sleep next to, or on, or near me.

Or whomever's home. He doesn't care.

But he is a very sweet cat, all in all. Dumb, and sometimes smelly, but sweet. I hope that he is happy here, or at least happier than he was.

And I hope that he does not get too offended when we call him our Stupidest Angel.