....A Cat Person

I HAD to share this article that I read with all you Cat Lover's! It was in the 10/03/06 issue of the "Thrive". The "Thrive" is a weekly paper in Boise deemed "Boise's Best To Lifestyle and Entertainment Guide". This article had me laughing till I cried...and then it had me crying. It is a WONDERFUL article!





By: Chad Dryden of the Thrive

"Perhaps the editor's most uncelebrated task is to prevent writers from writing about their pets, or at the very least not to publish it when they do." ----Laura Miller, Salon writer, in her article "Cat people vs. dog people"





I used to hate cats, and for good reason: My mother's cat was acquired from the sister of a now ex-girlfriend whose presence in my life, post-relationship, I attempted to erase from memory by burning letters, tearing up photos and destroying mementos. But the cat never went away. Not that I'm reminded of four wasted years of my life every time I see it, but needless to say, we've never been close.

Besides, I'm a dog person. At least, I used to be. In fact, before my adult brother and sister introduced cats into the Dryden household, we were a dog family. I was taught that cats were prissy, dirty animals who buried their stinky poop like un-treasure. Per my mother's advice, I avoided the sand box at the park because she repeatedly said it was nothing more than a giant, public litter box. The notion seemed nasty enough for me to agree not only to stay out of the sand box, but to hate cats, too.





Many years later, my mother, defying everything we had come to know about her, after years of molding us into anti-cat children, decided she wanted one of my girlfriend's sister's cats.

Animals are smart. They sense emotion, be it love, hate, sadness or fear. It's no surprise, then, that given my predetermined hatred of cats, I did not foster a strong bond with my mother's cat, or any cat for that matter. I never would have harmed a cat, but I certainly wasn't above tormenting one. And when it came to my mother's cat, I did.





Years later, post-college and more "adult", I'm a different man. Blame maturity, a heightened oneness with the universe or that week in Amsterdam, but I've mellowed out considerably. I'm cool with cats now, and even have two of my own. Why the change of heart? Whiskers.

Whiskers, who passed away two years ago at the estimated age of 21, was my wife Erica's first cat. Erica got Whiskers when she way 7, and my favorite thing about the cat remains her stereotypically lame cat name, the lameness of which is stripped away by the fact my wife as a 7-year-old girl probably thought it was the best, most fitting name for her first kitty. That makes it adorable.

Whiskers was a tiny, long-haired cat, no more than 5 pounds in her sunset years, with sparkling green eyes. She was beautiful. She carried herself with a quiet, regal grace that led me to nickname her The Buddha Kitty, yet she was still animated enough to induce laughter with her typical cat folly. She was a great napper, purring hypnotically on your stomach with her two front paws placed in that divot at the center of your breast plate. From her kitten days to her old queen years, she had a silent meow.

Whisker's quick acceptance of me --- she did not warm to just anyone, I was told --- was a telltale sign for Erica that I was not un-treasure, that I could be trusted. Whiskers was my wife's best friend, one of the few constants in her life from 7 to 28, and she was cool with me within days of initially processng my scent. By accepting me --- which she symbolized by coming to me for affection --- Whiskers made me a cat person on the spot.





Half a year after Whiskers died, we adopted two sister kittens, Star and Sapphire (they came with the names, I swear), from the Humane Society. Just as Whiskers taught me what a cat could be, our two tabbies have taught me what cats are: hilarious, lovable, annoying, playful and unpredictalbe. They can be, as dog people like to point out in their arguments against cats, aloof and standoffish, yet they're surprisingly tolerant of our love, even when it's clear they don't want to be held.

Regarding the whole cat people vs. dog people thing, anything anyone has ever said, pro or con, about dogs and cats is true. They are both amazingly intelligent and incredibly stupid. They are both full of personality. They are both loyal. They are both not shy about waking you up. They are both user-friendly and inconvenient. They will both knock you over to chase after something moving and edible.

There are cat people and there are dog people. There are people who like both. Ther are people who like neigher. Cat people can be annoying. Dog people can be annoying. Anyone who dresses an animal is annoying. Certain people fit the mold, certain people break it. Yet, it's a question everyone likes to ask: Cat person or dog person?

I, for one, have been both, but I lucked out --- my cats act like dogs.






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