When I wake up in the morning, it's not to an alarm clock, or the rising sun. I wake up to a howl. Here is the howler:
This cat was rescued from the street about 16 years ago. I think if he had been left there he would eventually have been the leader of a large colony. This cat has a sense of himself and does not acknowledge any masters.
Here he is sitting on my footstool. He is about two inches from my legs, and he's angry. He wants food now.
It doesn't matter that he has food on his plate. He wants other food. He will go to the plate, rummage through and toss food around discontentedly.
If I outlive the cat (not a certainty), I will have to get a new rug. No matter what precautions I take, he carries the food beyond the perimeter and leaves kernels everywhere. Several times a day I go around and collect his discards.
I guess this is where I tell my readers that my husband and I love this cat. He brings us joy every day. His antics are amazing and hilarious. I think if we were younger and we had children or responsibilities, we might find the cat annoying. As it is, he is a source of great entertainment. My husband is fond of saying, "He's his own man."
Here he is giving me that angry look again. If I don't move soon, and get him what he wants, he will poke me with his nose. He may climb on my lap. This is not affection. If he thinks I don't get the message yet, he will stretch his paw out and tap me. This is not a benign gesture--he has very long, sharp claws.
Check out the video below, where he is playing and at the same time displaying those claws.
They say cats don't have a large vocabulary. I can't tell. He is so ornery that maybe his failure to respond to words is just an expression of his independence. I do know when I say we are leaving, he looks at me resentfully. I cannot leave him in my office alone. If he is in there he rampages through everything and causes a mess.
The cat is on a special diet. He had kidney issues years ago and ever since has been on a urinary tract diet. Whatever is missing from that special food makes him crave plastic. He will chew bread wrappers (and bread), plastic on water bottle packages, and even the sleeves that surgical dressings are kept in. My husband had an operation a few months ago and the cat keeps sneaking around, trying to get pieces of the surgical wrap that is left. I have those supplies buried behind boxes but he pulls the boxes out if I'm not watching and then proceeds to eat the plastic.
He is an extraordinarily cute cat. At least, that's what we think.
The funny thing is, the cat is not even ours. He is basically a refugee from the dog that has moved in with my daughter. She lives downstairs. It's her cat. My daughter has the cat litter in the basement. She is responsible for the cat's care. But he eats upstairs and mostly sleeps upstairs. Here is the 75+ pound dog the cat escapes from:
Things have settled down since the dog moved in a little over a year ago. Basically, the dog is amused by the cat, and wants to play. However, the wrong kind of play could be very dangerous to the cat.
Recently the dog has started to come upstairs when the cat is here. We keep an eye open and the cat knows how to give the dog wide berth. Both animals are a source of great joy, but it's the cat that has won my husband's heart.
(That's my shadow hanging over the cat's tale)
We send each other pictures throughout the day when the cat is assuming one of his cute poses. When my husband was in the hospital in May, I was tempted to bring the cat in to cheer him up, but I knew I'd never get away with that.
The cat likes to sleep in the room with us, but we discovered that is a really bad idea. If he gets hungry in the middle of the night, he climbs up on the bed and pokes me. We realized we had to shut the door and leave him outside. Even then if one of us gets up in the middle of the night he sometimes tries to run into the room and hide under one of our chairs.
Here is another sleeping pose. You can see why we forgive him anything.
Very early in the morning, when the cat believes he is entitled to breakfast, he does whatever he can to wake us up. He howls. He howls outside the door. He goes downstairs and howls while my daughter is getting ready for work. I manage to go back to sleep, but it's not really the same again.
When I finally do wake up in the morning, before I have my coffee, or get my bearings, I have to give the cat breakfast. He usually gets two or three helpings before he is satisfied. And I love every bit of it.
I'm adding a new tag today to my blog, an initiative started by 
Postscript:
I forgot a door open this morning while I walked the dog (briefly). I found the cat astride a loaf of bread. He was tearing at the wrap and eating both the bread and the plastic. I lifted him and he continued to hold onto the loaf of bread. The whole loaf. He carried that loaf for about 60 feet, until it finally dropped to the floor. Here's a picture of the rescued bread.
And so another day begins....
