My Family Loves Our Cat

I am thinking about writing a book about the like/dislike relationship I have with the family cat. I got the idea from Richard, Meredith Viera’s husband who just wrote a book called  something like “I Want to Kill the Dog”.  (They were on Dr. Oz  and I did not take notes, thus I may not have the exact title). The dog loves Meredith. The dog does not like Richard. And Meredith admits that the dog has “barking issues”. Richard says the dog never stops barking. So I was inspired. The following offering was written quickly and just off the top of my head and digresses, but I am thinking that part of the  charm of the book will be its digressions. This is just to give you a laugh or two, and is not even in draft form yet.

Tell me–would you read a story about a cat, but really about my family? So here goes nothing:

My family loves our cat. I mean loooooooooves the cat. I do not. Sometimes I like the cat. Sometimes I do not. Like. Him. Much.

Not Kitty Bob but close (Photo credit: katsrcool (Kool Cats Photography)

This morning, for example, after everyone had left the house, the cat wanted to play. Or kill me. I am not sure which. He kept pouncing at my legs and lightly plunging his little sharp cat teeth into my calves. He is “cooling his jets” as it were, in the basement right now. I did not like the game, or the attack. I am still trying to decide which it was.

We named our cat Kitty Bob. Not because we are from the southern United States and like names like Bobby Jo, Jim Bob, or John Boy, though they do have a certain rhythm and lovely cadence. Quite simply, we thought the cat was a female so we named it Kitty (original, right?). Once it was exposed as a boy though we added Bob, so he would not get a complex (you know, the boy named Sue complex). It used to be embarrassing to call the cat from the front door. Now, I don’t care.

Naming things is not something I do particularly well. None of my dolls or stuffed animals that I owned or parented as a kid had names, because I could never decide on a name that was good enough or descriptive of their characteristics. I had a big blue bear and a pink and blue poodle—they were known as Bear and Poodle. I had a teenage doll (my mom never bought me a Barbie or it would have been easy to name)—I called her my “teenage doll”. The only doll I had that had a name was Betsy Wetsy because she came with a name and rather dubious habits of hygiene (she wet her diaper). My sister had a doll called “Tear Drops”—I think she cried (at least she didn’t wet herself—though as a kid I liked feeding my doll water and it leaking out of her.)

American television journalist and a former political advisor, George Stephanopoulos  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

English: George Clooney at the 2009 Venice Film Festival (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Both of my sons have the name George, the youngest as a first name, the eldest as a second name. I do not like the name George particularly (except for George Clooney, George Stephanopoulos, George of the Jungle,…okay so I do like the name George–just not when it is applied to my boys). I call the boys Adam and Tyler. (Both their grandfathers were named George, except my dad went by his second name because he did not like his first name, so it is his fault I do not want to call the boys George.) You would not believe how hard my husband bartered, begged, cajoled,  lobbied for the name George. And I was being just the tiniest bit stubborn. I thought we were going to go home with no name kids. Anyway, the crux of the matter is I have trouble naming things, people, and animals.

Okay, that is it — doesn’t sound like a barnburner best seller does it–oh well, sometimes bliss is going back to the drawing board…………