Downtown, Saturday

My long awaited return to blogging

As numerous people (Steven and Taylor) have pointed out, I have not "taken to my blog" in quite some time. In general, I feel like there is very little to write about, as there is very little going on. I am still jobless, the apartment is pretty put together, all (well, all but one) of our boxes are unpacked. This problem is compounded by the fact that I began an entry several days ago, Firefox crashed, and I lost the post. How does one recover from such a profound loss? I feel like the only things I have to talk about are my cat and things that I've cooked. And while I enjoy them, I don't know that I really want to turn this into a cat or cooking or cat cooking blog. But I suppose if I'm going to write, it is going to have to be about one of those things.

So first up is Josie. I don't think we had her the last time I posted, or maybe we did but I refrained from mentioning her because we didn't know if we were going to keep her. Our relationship with Josie was a work in progress, which I am happy to report is now blossoming. When we adopted her from PetSmart on that fateful Saturday, we did so knowing that we would have two weeks to give her back should things not work out. We had been told that Josie was "shy" (a word that turned out to be a major understatement) and would need a little time to adjust. When we brought her home, we quickly learned that beyond being shy, she was completely unsocialized and pretty feral. As we are not small enough to wedge ourselves behind the couch, we didn't see her for the first two days she was here. The two week trial period loomed over us like a dark cloud. What if we kept her for two weeks and she still hated/was petrified of us? Did we really want to be the people who returned a fluffy, adorable kitten? There is something shameful about returning a pet, even if it is in the best interests of the animal and the owner. Suffice it to say, Josie was stressing us out.

I had heard that it sometimes takes parents a while to love and bond with a new baby. I can understand that. I don't find babies to be inherently lovable. Kittens, however? I have never met a kitten that I didn't instantly love. I was worried that even if we kept Josie, I would never REALLY love her because I couldn't even get near her. Everything changed when I approached the situation from a "tough love" perspective. She wouldn't eat unless she came out and ate in front of Steven or me. I spent numerous hours sitting in the room with her, so she would get used to me. Copious amounts of meat flavored baby food helped. Slowly, Josie came around.

Now as I type this, Josie is sprawled out on my lap, fast asleep. This is a daily routine for us. After she has tired herself out playing with her toys and doing laps in the dining room, she curls up in my lap or on my chest and sleeps for as long as I let her. She loves watching TV, stretching herself so that she lays across both Steven and I. Our feral beast has truly become a lap cat, and we really love her.

In Josie related news, a few weeks ago I decided that Josie needed some artwork to contemplate. I had the idea to hang three small paintings above her bowls at "cat level." It would be cute. It would be whimsical. It would be a quick, cheap project (which are my favorite kind). I had wanted to try silhouette painting for a while, so after a quick trip to AC Moore it was settled: Josie would get three cat silhouette paintings. The most difficult part of the whole process was finding a cat silhouette to use for reference. A quick Google search will produce a slew of "Halloween cats," their backs arched and faces menacing. I wanted something a bit more serene. The easiest way to paint a silhouette is probably printing a photo, cutting it out carefully, tracing it on your canvas and painting around it. My canvases were so tiny that cutting out an image to trace on them would be more trouble than it was worth. I just freehanded the silhouettes onto the canvases and hoped for the best. Here is the end result:

(The far right painting is plum, not murky brown)