The Requisite Cat

Meet Sweetpea

It seems fiber people are required to have cats. Having recently written about the dog, and having no real fiber activities of interest to write about today, I thought I might introduce our cat. I'll be the first to say I'm not a cat person. I'm allergic to many cats. I walk into some houses and my eyes are watering within fifteen minutes. Other cats don't bother me at all.

Our cat is named Brandie, but we only call her that when we're angry at her. The rest of the time she's known as Sweetpea. Sweetpea is an older cat, and Pam owned her a long time before we met. Even though many cats cause me allergies, I welcomed Sweetpea into my life along with Pam. The good news is I can share a house with Sweetpea with almost no allergy problems. I cannot, however, pet her. If I don’t wash my hands within about five minutes of touching Sweetpea, I break out and start itching. Should I make the mistake of touching my eyes after touching the cat and before washing my hands, I pay for days.

For her part, Sweetpea isn't particularly crazy about me, either. From what I can tell, she greatly resents the fact that I've taken her spot on the bed at night, and for the first couple years of our marriage, she yowled all night long about the great injustice of the situation. Further, I'm rather noisy by her standards and not being a cat person, it took me a couple years to learn to watch out for cats while moving about the house.

After several years, Sweetpea and I have come to a truce of sorts. I won't annoy her by trying to pet her or play with her, and in return, she won't come mewling to me for attention. She'll try to stay out of the way when I'm carrying in firewood, and I'll make an effort not to step on her during that process. I will build fires for her in her fireplace on cold mornings -- and I'll make an effort to build the fire before she has to ask me to do and if she whines that the fire isn't hot enough, I'll poke at the fire to make it better. I try not to disturb her if she wants to sleep on the bed, but she isn't allowed to sleep near my head or my pillow. I will continue to tease her with wonderful smells from the kitchen when I cook, but the only thing I will feed her is carrots.


Sweetpea and her fireplace

In short, Sweetpea doesn't expect me to be a cat person, and I don't expect her to be a dog.