Secrets of the Cat_ Its Lore, Legend, and Lives - Barbara Holland [96]
Fur on clothes: A roll of Scotch tape, carried at all times, is useful for quick touch-ups before attending business meetings and dinner parties. Wrap a loop of it sticky-side-up around your fingers and dab.
Games: There are various games a human can play with a cat, such as trailing a piece of string or accidentally moving the toes under the blanket, and various games a cat can play with a human, such as making him throw things to be retrieved. I don’t know if it’s possible, or desirable, to teach this to a cat, but some seem to come by it naturally. Charlie retrieved crumpled cigarette packs, but only my brand, Pall Malls. He even retrieved them after they’d been put in the trash and covered with coffee grounds and eggshells. Guests thought it was cute, and encouraged him, and kept throwing his cigarette pack across the room all evening, and he kept on bringing it back, and the guests left with pitcher’s elbow. It was a repetitious, unimaginative game more suited to dog than cat, but Charlie was an unimaginative cat.
Then my husband and I quit smoking. Charlie sulked, and languished, until one day my husband came to me and accused me of cheating; Charlie had just brought him a crumpled Pall Mall pack. Later, when I let him out into the courtyard between the apartment buildings, as was our custom, he vanished into the area where the trash cans were kept. Ten minutes later he bounded back triumphant with a crumpled Pall Mall pack in his jaws; somebody out there smoked our brand. I suppose it was the only kind appropriate for retrieving; I suppose they smell distinctive. The game went on. And on, and on.
Hot weather: When traveling with a cat on a hot day, put a plastic bag full of ice cubes in the carrier. Keep noticing how the sun slants in through the car windows as you drive and try to keep the case away from it. Black carriers are particularly lethal, soaking up heat. If you park in the shade when you stop for lunch, remember the sun moves; leafy shade at noon may be a red-hot broiler by one.
Get a carrier with maximum air flow. If in spite of all your efforts your cat starts staggering from the heat, cool it off instantly with all the water available.
In China: A special breed of long-haired cat is raised for its meat, and forms one of the essential ingredients in the classic Dragon-Tiger-Phoenix dish, representing the tiger. The dragon is usually snake, they say, and in the absence of phoenixes their part is supplied by the humble chicken. I don’t have the exact recipe.
Jumping: Just because none of our previous cats has ever been able to jump up onto something or down from somewhere doesn’t mean that nobody can. Some are better athletes than others, or braver, or sillier. Never assume that the new kitten, when it gets a bit more growth on it, can’t jump from the balcony into the street below, or up from the deck onto the neighbors’ roof.
Some vets warn us to prevent pregnant cats from high jumping. They don’t say how.
Kittens, choosing: They tell us that if we have a litter to choose from, to pick the number-two kitten. Not the first one out of the box, the bravest and most curious, because, they say, it’s likely to make trouble. And not the independent one who doesn’t hang out with the others and goes off on its own, because it may not want to socialize with us, either. And while sympathy is a virtue, not the one that huddles sadly in a corner with its coat rough and its eyes running.
Advice is useless; kittens get chosen for unscientific reasons like suddenly crawling into our lap and purring. When I went to pick a Siamese kitten, one of them, bored with being inspected, decided to leave the room and I tried to detain him by his little spike of a tail, and he whirled around with a preposterous great shout of outraged dignity; he’s still shouting, Corvo is, and when he asks for a lap the glassware