Meow: cat update

Today I’m doing my part to fill up the internet with pictures of cats. After years of cat allergy, months of allergy shots, and lots of lobbying on the part of both kids, we got a cat last month. She is 4 years old, and she came with the name Sadie, which fits her, so we’re keeping it. She is part tabby and part Siamese. We’ve had her for almost a month now, and she is settling into her new home. The UULent word for today is home.

Sadie started living here in one bedroom, my 16-year-old daughter’s. We were advised to confine her (the cat, not the daughter) this way until she got used to the house, and to us. She has really taken to a little maroon cat bed that I got freecycled from a neighbor. The cat bed is in a corner under my daughter’s desk/bookcase. She spends more time in that than anywhere else.
She still startles at loud noises, sudden movements, and raised hands, even if the hand is just raised to pet her. I tried to put her in the cat carrier to take her to the vet for a complementary visit a few days after we got her home. That didn’t work–she bolted and hid under the dresser and I could not coax her (or drag her) back out–and it may have set back her adjustment period. She was scared of me for a while and even hissed at me when I approached. She’s stopped that now, and she rarely goes under the dresser at all anymore. Even though she is still a little suspicious of the camera, she came out to be petted and to eat. Then it was yawn, and back to sleep.

We’re all still kind of new here, finding our way in our new home, and seeing Sadie try to settle in brings that back into perspective.

In honor of Brain Awareness Week, I will close with this well-known and loved cartoon of mapping the cat brain. Fortunately so far there has been no sign of the arm-shredding maniac!

Originally published in MS Magazine, Vol III, #1, July/August 1992

Source: https://user.xmission.com/~emailbox/mapping.htm