2. What makes canned cat food so appealing? Abbie refuses to eat any form of human food. Even when graciously offered a tender piece of freshly-cooked sausage or a moist flake of salmon, she will sniff it out of interest and then walk away disdainfully. Yet the moment I open a can of that mushy wet can of processed cat food, her tail starts vibrating in excitement. I am consistently bewildered.
3. Why are you startled when I walk in the room? Cats supposedly have an excellent sense of hearing, so I assume that, unless she is enraptured by a squirrel sighting or deeply absorbed in her latest book, she has probably heard me approaching the room. Regardless, my appearance usually provokes a reaction of surprise and fear. I have found that this is mitigated by calling out her name before entering the room, so as to alert her to my imminent presence.
4. What possesses you to walk on me when I'm lying down? It seems that the moment I begin to recline, she races over in order to take advantage of my horizontal positioning and knead on my stomach and arms (and sometimes neck, though that doesn't usually last long). Perhaps it is her kitten instinct, or maybe she is just abnormally hands-on for a cat. Either way, it's not particularly conducive to napping.
5. Also, why do you pick the most uncomfortable position possible? Oftentimes if I am lying on my back with my knees up, she will climb on top of my knees (as if it was a small mountain) and perch herself there, precariously. Maybe she finds it exciting. Or it gives her an adrenaline rush.
6. How do you not like it when I practice viola? Am I really that bad? Seriously? I can't believe we are even friends.
7. Why do you jump on something and then jump off right away? Sometimes it seems as though Abbie views the world as a giant obstacle course. Objects get in the way, yes, but they should be conquered--by emphatically pouncing on them and then returning to the floor, as if nothing happened. She does this a lot with furniture, as though a couch were some acrobatic prop rather than a place to curl up and sleep. She also does this with window ledges, which is slightly more disconcerting.
8. How do you survive without tomcats in your life? This is a rather personal question of course, but given that she was a young mother (she had already had kittens by the age of two) and that she is so naturally feminine and seductive, I wonder whether she misses having a masculine counterpart in her life.
9. What is it about closets that is so appealing? The small spaces in which to hide? The warm dark corners? The piles of clothes in which to burrow? The myriad of shoe boxes to topple when I am not around? Or is it just that big cardboard box that has become your second home?
10. Why are you so adorable? I mean, really, you are just way too cute.
