Monday, December 14, 2009

Character Study With YA Comments

The teenagers who come to our house spend a huge percentage of their time with the cats. That's probably because a) there are five cats to choose from and b) all our cats are crazy.

As you know,I find teen comments very amusing and if you are reading this blog, you probably do, too. (I also swipe their comments freely when I write)I thought I'd put them together to create a YA guide to our cats.

Of course, there are the kittens. Only about six and a half months old, they are the only ones that don't occasionally hide for a nap when the house is filled with teens.
But they are very different; Cami, the one to the right, is "completely emo" -- she nurses on nubby blankets, shatters the fragile peace with the dog by sticking her own nose into Mazy's nostril, and trying to steal food from Jade, the senior cat. She is very, very needy. They call her over by going, "Aww, where's the little emo kitty?"


Her sister, Coco, has been nicknamed Jazz because she's so mellow.

If you remember how BabyCat summered in the wicker basket, she has now found a new spot to hide in which is a little stranger. She jumps to the top of the kitchen cabinets and stares down at us:


She is always paranoid, twitchy and unsettled. The kids call her "Rehab" because she acts like someone who once had an addiction. When I asked to what, they all looked at me with that, "She-doesn't-know-anything-look" and said, "To meth."

Of course.

Then there's Sarah who will cuddle up to you, purr and nap for a few minutes. Without warning, she will hiss and scratch and run off as if you have just poured acid on her. She hisses as she runs. Here is a typical expression of Sarah's:

I think she's bipolar, but the kids call her "D Wing" -- I think every high school has a wing for kids who have broken through the not fitting in category. That's where poor Sarah would be if she were a teen...

Jade, the senior cat, the alpha cat, keeps the other cats in line. Once, when someone forgot to shut the sliding glass door to the deck, we found all five cats outside with Jade up on the railing keeping watch. The dark side of Jade is the reason BabyCat has to sleep in baskets and on top of high kitchen cabinets: Jade has rage issues. She takes most of them out on BabyCat who is half her size. This is Jade:




In fairness, Jade's sister died very young of heart failure. They had been just like the two kittens are now, so everyone gives Jade a lot of room. She's not particularly cuddly or accessible, but she is a favorite of the teens.

What did they nickname Jade?

Kurt Cobain.

10 comments:

Nora MacFarlane said...

D-Wing! LOL!!! Our cats keep us in stitches too -at least a laugh a day.

Bish Denham said...

LOL! D-Wing sounds like she shouldda been named Skitzy or something like that. And that Jade...what a b****. :)

Anne Spollen said...

I know Nora, cats are really funny. We keep watching them "scale" the Christmas tree and getting stuck.

Jade is really awful sometimes; I looked at her on the blog and she's even starting to look a little mean.

I think she's preparing to lead an army of cats against dogs,though. She's pretty tough.

Mary Witzl said...

Sarah looks like a hard case all right. My cousin in Kentucky had a cat like her. She'd be perfectly fine one minute, the next a spitting, snarling fury. To this day, the kids remember her as their gold standard of cat weirdness.

Those kittens make me want to cry. They look like OUR kitten -- who's just run off and disappeared. We're all brokenhearted.

Bish Denham said...

Forgive me Anne, I've tagged you!

Anne Spollen said...

Oh no, Mary! I hope s/he comes back. That's heartbreaking.

Tagged again -- I'll go over and see what you've done me in for, Bish.

Stewart Sternberg (half of L.P. Styles) said...

It's good to be surrounded by teens, and I agree that their language has an irrepressible flavor. As for your cats, it's reminiscent of life here with four dogs and feline. I love having several animals, being part of a pack...what is it they call a cat grouping? A pride? I don't remember.

Anne Spollen said...

A pride sounds exactly like what a cat would call herself and her cohorts. I don't know if that's correct in the National Geographic sense, but I like it, so I'm sticking with it.

Four dogs! I bow to you, sir.

K.C. Shaw said...

Seeing animals interact is as fascinating as seeing teens interact, so I'm not surprised the two groups mix well. I'm down to one cat now, but I think he's decided he's a person. He's certainly spoiled.

Anne Spollen said...

I think cats were put on this earth to spoil.

And it IS fun to watch the human teens interact with the cats (who walk around a level or two above us humans)

Sometimes I feel like an anthropologist in my own living room...