Annie Spayed

Annie had been in heat for about a week, writhing on the rug in front of Puss Merlin, our big king tom cat, who would look at her (like Elvis regarding an over-excited, underaged fan) as if to say, "Darlin,' don't you think you're a bit young for this?"

 

The smallest cat in the household, Annie is a tiny, Halloweenish-looking thing, dusty black, fluffy coat with splotches of orange all over, including an orange line running down her forehead, between her eyes, down her chin to her neck and chest.

 

She would follow Puss around the house, batting at him, rubbing against him, rolling around on the rug in his absence, half-mewing, half-moaning and clearly in immediate need of relief. No doubt she had no clue what had hit her, but it was pretty obvious to us, so we called the vet and booked the earliest date available for spaying.

 

Everything went fine. She came home groggy the same day and we put her in a big cage to keep her from being jumped on by Ritz, her over-affectionate and boisterous litter mate. Ritz ended up spending the night curled up on top of Annie's cage.

 

I used to think I was allergic to cats, before I married my wife and moved into this menagerie. We have two inside dogs, an outside cat, and five inside cats. Ritz and Annie we found abandoned in the woods on the road up to our place about four months ago; Puss Merlin and Mimi, the outside cat, also came to us more or less on their own.

 

I believe there's an emergency hotline for abandoned cats listing every easy-touch human within a 50-mile radius, and my wife is at the top of the list.

 

We keep the animals out of our bedroom and, while my head stops up periodically, the allergic reactions to cats and dogs that plagued me in my childhood, and that I imagined I would still suffer if living with indoor animals, did not materialize when I moved in with MaryElizabeth. All I can figure is that love trumps immune dysfunction.

 

The other revelation I experienced on moving in was what a community of unspoken connection and caring I had joined. My Aunt Ethel used to take in stray dogs. She had what seemed to be 40 of them, nearly all of them obviously mistreated in their former lives, trusting only my aunt and uncle, and snarling threateningly at all visitors to the household, including myself.

 

As a kid, I couldn't understand why anyone would surround themselves with these nutty, apparently dangerous animals, and I certainly couldn't understand how my aunt could relate to these snappish critters as a mother doting on wayward adopted children.

 

When I first met my wife, I reacted to her detailed descriptions of the pets' activities each day as I used to react to Aunt Ethel's—"Come on, these are only animals!"

 

But as I spent time in the household, I began to notice that the animals showed themselves remarkably sensitive to the ups and downs of my moods, gathering around me when I was upset, figuring out what was going on with me emotionally before I had even explained my mood to MaryElizabeth.

 

This was different than watching Lassie do doggie-charades to tell the humans that Timmy had fallen down the well. It wasn't that the animals could communicate as well as humans. It's that they are often better than humans in sensing my emotions, and more reliably responsive to them.

 

Even more interesting and moving is their sensitivity and responsiveness to each other's suffering. The way that Annie's brother Ritz keeps watch over her recuperating in her protective cage, the way that the cats gathered around one of the dogs when he was suffering from hot spots and licked his toes (even though this is the same dog that regularly growls at the cats if they get too close to him), those are the things that get my attention.

 

I'm not expecting them to take care of me in my old age, or pay for my prostate surgery. I'm the one getting them fixed and buying the cat litter, not the other way around. But I don't feel like I'm these animals' keeper or landlord, I feel like I've joined an interspecies community of kindred souls.

Drowning the Cat

My wife tells me I have tickets to see Randy Newman next Wednesday, the 15th. I just realized that means I will miss the final debate between Obama and McCain.

The surprise is that I find myself relieved at the prospect. Right now this election has come down to drowning the cat, and it's not going to be a pleasant spectacle. The continuing market meltdown (minus three hundred points in the Dow Jones today) and the increasingly bad news in the economy in general (E-Bay is laying people off!) put the McCain campaign in terminal jeopardy.

You don't have to watch McCain too long to realize that gracious loser is not a role he will play comfortably. Mr. Anger clearly expected this to be his year and in the last debate seemed to be astonished that people were making him stand next to this weenie Negro for an hour and a half and actually have to explain why we should hand the War Hero the scepter that he'd earned in the North Vietnam prison.

Consider the fact that McCain wants this so badly he forced himself through the public humiliation of hugging the miserable draft dodger President who stole the office from him in 2000 by claiming he had fathered a black baby. That's how bad he wanted to win this thing.

Now all we can do is watch this bitter coot writhe, scream, spit, bite, and gasp for air as his ill-conceived and spastic campaign is mercifully held beneath the water in the toilet until it finally ceases to be.

It's not going to be pretty. So I'm going to see Randy Newman, for a helping of healthy bile. 

Herding Cats

Jean-Paul Sartre said hell is other people. He should have got himself a cat. Contrary to what you might conclude from watching a lot of classic cartoons, the real choice in life is not between cats and dogs. The cool cat drops the anvil on the head of the slobbering, stupid dog, the dog kicks the cat the length of a city block; it's good sadistic fun, but really all a shadow play, a tiresome stalking horse of a confrontation that enables us to avoid facing the real issues of life. Like the weather, cats vs. dogs is what people talk about when they're not ready to get down to brass tacks.

 

It's not whether you prefer cats to dogs, it's whether you prefer cats to people. Dogs are only faux people, after all, not man's best friend but man's best clone. Just another animal running in a pack, they get along by going along. The whole basis of our relationship with them is their instinctive willingness to follow us down the street. They can and will switch from their pack to ours automatically; all we have to do is give them a whistle.

 

Is it fair to demand a higher standard of individual integrity than that from a pet? Maybe not. But how about from the pet owner? I'm not bothered that dogs resemble people, but that people resemble dogs. And the tendency to follow the pack is not the main problem with people anyway. Sociability is not a crime. If you're looking for some connection, any connection, there's something to be said for a species that's easy.

 

No, the bigger problem shared by people and dogs is that any relationship with them is so labor intensive. There's no crisp give and take here. Dealing with both species is like playing tag with tar babies. You leave the dog at home alone and he shreds the curtains, you forget the human's birthday and he refuses to speak to you. Too often there's a quid pro quo with these creatures. No matter how hard they wag their tails when they see you, no matter how much they extol unconditional love, there is invariably a burden of neediness and manipulation that you take on from the moment you bring them home from the pound.

 

The dog wags its tail, not really because it likes you but because it needs to be liked, and that, too often, is the way it is with people. They pick the wrong partners because they need to be liked, they try manipulate their partners into loving them, and it all goes for nothing. I know being liked is one of the basic human needs. But when you impose yourself intimately on another human, you can't do it to be liked. Better to do it for sex or money or boredom than to be liked.

 

People should be together because they enjoy each others' company. Realizing the other person likes you is part of that enjoyment, of course, but it's best if that realization is more the unexpected reward of the affair, the delightful surprise payoff, rather than your whole reason for being there.

 

If you can't get step back far enough from a relationship to tell why you're in it, you need to cultivate detachment. Learn to see yourself as others see you. Get a guru, start meditating. Be aware of what you're doing while you're doing it. Aspire to be as self-contained and independent as the cat. You may get there in this life, or you may have to wait for your next incarnation to achieve this higher plane, but it is possible.

 

Think of the way of the cat as a spiritual discipline, a difficult path that offers potentially large personal rewards. More people prefer dogs than cats, polls show, and I think it's because dogs represent the easy way out. They are a comfort to us. We're reassured by them because they're not a smidgeon any better than we are. They resemble us in every embarrassing detail.

 

Dogs resemble people, and cats resemble the universe. In their fundamental indifference they challenge us to set aside our neediness and take a stance as independent as their own. They ask us to engage them from a position of strength as emotional equals. They demand that we grow up.

 

A lot of people fail to rise to the challenge. It's no surprise that many cat lovers become much more infantile around their pets than dog lovers do. The cat in its removed superiority is subconsciously so intimidating that its owners are reduced to baby talk and obsequious catering to the animal's every perceived whim. The cat itself remains indifferent, accepting the kowtowing as no more than its due.

 

I'm not saying cats are incapable of affection or that it's all take and no give with them. Cats aren't totally indifferent, but their motives are so pure that people that people are taken aback by their simplicity and directness. I don't think, for example, that when cats lick the hand that pets them they're just asking for more petting. I think they are genuinely feeling and expressing affection. They just don't care deeply about what you make of the gesture. What the cat wants it wants, what it feels it feels, and there are no extraneous strings attached.

 

If the cat wants to be on the table and you don't want it there, saying "no" won't keep it off the table, and taking it off the table repeatedly won't keep it from trying to get back up there. By the same token, the cat isn't going to sulk about being thrown off the table or even, apparently, give it a second thought. Scold a dog and it will cringe guiltily; scold a cat and it will stare at you blankly.

 

This is an emotionally straightforward creature, an animal that doesn't play games. Like the weather, this animal may smile on you one day and absolutely refuse to do what you want the next, and none of it is personal. Cat owners come to terms with this. They learn to ride the ups and downs of their animal's whims like surfers riding a wave. They learn not to fight the flow of daily interactions, they learn to compromise, just as the wise man learns not to fight the caprices of the universe.

 

So this is a model for human relationships? Just go with the impersonal flow? Well, if the surf gets too rough you get out of the ocean. But yes, I say this beats trying to change the break of the wave. You use the surfboard to ride the wave, that's what it's there for. You can always manipulate your surfboard. But you can't manipulate the surf, or make people like you, or rebuild love by rebuilding your lover, any more than you can herd cats.