I am a Grenade

This isn't related to GEND 354.  I'm going to talk about my cats for a little while.  Feel free to skip over this.

My cat, Zelda

Yes, I am one of those people who made a Facebook for my pet.  No, I don't really care if you think I am dorky.  I've had her since she was a kitten (2011) and she is seriously spoiled.



Growing up there were always cats around.  Snuggles, Cuddles, Shadow and her five kittens, Boots, Tiger, Storm, Dublin, Zona, Rihanna, and Pandora (no, not all at once).  The only other cat that was actually *mine* was Storm, who was given to me for my birthday (2008 or something?).  She was a strange cat.  She used to suck the juice out of pieces of melon and stare off at walls.  But she was a wonderful cat, very cuddly and never mean.

Bath time

No, seriously, what are you staring at?  Legit just standing still.

Those are Honeydew rinds.

She died a year later.  Or rather, I found her stiff on the floor after coming home from Thanksgiving with my family.  Now, I've had cats die before but I had never been the one to find (and almost pick up) a dead cat.  This was very hard for me.  I know it may seem silly, but I was extremely close to her.  In my teenage years (look! I made a class connection!) she was the only one inside my home that gave me comfort while I went through an extremely difficult period of transformation.  Even thinking about finding her is still upsetting.  My father had a couple cats at the time (Pandora and Rihanna) when I moved in after I graduated from high school (2009) but neither of them were cuddly.  I was convinced that they didn't like me (really though, they have a more neutral opinion of me) and begged my dad to let me get my own cat.

That Fall I moved into the dorms at RIC for my freshman year of college.  One night while exploring the campus/walking/exercising with my partner/room mate (Jacki), we ran into a small cat.  It was kind of chilly out and the cat was extremely friendly.  I don't really know what convinced me that the cat was a stray (because it clearly was too friendly for that) but it was enough to send pictures to my dad and beg him to let me take the cat back to his place (7 miles away, I visited often).

He can't really say no to me.

I brought the cat with me back to my car and drove it to my fathers.  The cat was not happy.  It yowled the entire time and I struggled to control it during the short, 10 minute drive.  As soon as I brought the cat inside my father's house, it curled up on the bed in my room. 

"You know, I don't think this is a stray."  

I remember him saying this as he watched the cat, perfectly content in its surroundings.  He was right, it was too used to human contact.  I tried to rationalize it.  Maybe someone abandoned it?

So I had "stolen" someone's cat.  And I felt horrible.  But I was still grieving, really.  I hadn't gotten over losing Storm.  Grudgingly and embarrassed I took the cat back to RIC campus and dropped it off where I had picked it up, trying not to cry because that was a ridiculous reason to cry.  I felt ridiculous for doing that.

I never saw that cat again.  I must have scared it away from that part of RIC.  It didn't seem to want to stick around after I let it go.

Flash forward to 2011.  I had moved into the apartment downstairs from my father's that I am now currently occupying.  This was at my step mother's request (she was paying at the time) because she wanted 1) more space for her stuff and 2) more alone time with my father because they were going through relationship problems.  Okay, no big deal.  I move all of my stuff downstairs but I tell them that I want to get a cat.  At the time I was working at Petco, so every week I saw these kitten adoptions and it was driving me insane.  My stepmother says that's fine, but then goes back on her word the day I was supposed to look at / pick up a kitten. After spending a day or so freaking out about it because I am still grieving and looking for another cat to fill the hole, I get the okay (again) to adopt a cat. 

There were no kittens that day.  Only one old cat.  After I went home I started looking for kittens on craigslist.  Now, I am something of a perfectionist when it comes to certain things.  Maybe I was still shaken up about the sudden death of my other cat and that prompted me to research for hours about the best kind of food I could give a cat.

I never expected to find a movement toward Prey Model Raw Feeding (which I might post about in the future) and an amazing Facebook community as a network of support.  This was a huge help for me in trying to get over Storm's death.

But anyway.  So I look for days on craigslist and finally I find this little gem

actual cellphone picture sent to me

And I fell in love.  I was so enthusiastic that I picked up the kitten that night. And since I was prepared I already had food, a litterbox, etc prepared before I even found a cat.  Coming up with a name actually took a few days.  I wanted to name her Gatsby but that just didn't seem to fit.  My next choice was Zelda.  As in Zelda Fitzgerald, F. Scott Fitzgerald's wife, not as in Legend of Zelda.

Zelda is precious.  She sleeps with me every night.  Everyone keeps saying that we are the same person.  When she gets mad that she isn't getting her way, she huffs or sighs like I do when I am frustrated.  We both startle easily at noises and act pretty much the same way.  I am told that she yowls for me when I am not home, which absolutely breaks my heart.


Oh, and she's wicked photogenic.  Which is not something we have in common.

I'd apologize about the fact that I literally just made an entire post about cats and that I must seem like a crazy cat lady--but really I'm not sure if I care (this being my blog & all).