Sneaky, Queen of the Cats

Three years ago my wife and I got a cat. I had never had a pet before and I was skeptical. Pets get fur everywhere. Their food costs money. Sometimes they even poop on the floor! Why would I want a gross little creature like that in my home draining my resources and making a mess? But I love my wife, so I acquiesced and agreed to get a cat. We adopted a rescue cat. I was willing to be open minded, but I was still a skeptic at heart.

Kitten-Sneaky sneaking out for some food.

Then I met her. The cat foster mother from Friends of Feral Felines had been calling her Giselle. We didn't like that name and decided to name her ourselves, but we didn't know what her name should be. We decided we would have to get to know her a little first. She got dropped off in our apartment and immediately look for a place to hide. She finally settled underneath our bed and wouldn't come out for anything. We put her food dish out and sat on the floor next to the bed so she could get used to our voices. Eventually she stuck her head out for just long enough to get a little food and let me take the picture above before running back into hiding.

Jenny and I continued chatting and waiting for her to come out. About 10 minutes later we heard the sound of little paws on the floor...from behind us. We turned around and saw this kitten walking into our bedroom from the living room! She had been in front of us under the bed and had managed to sneak by without us noticing to go explore the living room. What a sneaky little cat, I thought. So we named her Sneaky.

Sneaky relates to Batman because she also fights crime by night. Her crime is just more localized to our apartment and the supervillains are a bit more stuffed-mouse-toy-esque.

For the first few months after Sneaky joined our family I was unemployed. Our first year of "real world" living after college was kind of rough. Jenny was working part time doing soul-crushing data entry and I couldn't seem to hold down anything long term. I started to get pretty bummed out. Spending each day sitting at home filling out job applications and feeling like a hopeless failure really took a toll on me.

Then Sneaky moved in. The upside to me being unemployed was that her and I had an abundance of time to bond. I would pause halfway through applying for a job and feel overwhelmed. Then I would notice her curled up on the floor and go pet her. There's something healing about a cat's purr. As she got to know me better she eventually started to sense whenever I was particularly upset and would come sit in my lap and snuggle me. I'm not ashamed to admit that I cried while holding Sneaky.

I eventually got my current job and things got a lot better, but the bond that we formed during that time has held. I love my cat, and dang, she loves me too.

"All things in moderation," Sneaky says to me, "except cat treats. Can't have too many of those."

Sneaky has a very large selection of interests. When she's not looking out the window (we call it watching TV), eating, or playing with her toys she likes to try to figure out what kind of weird stuff her humans are up to. From a young age she has had an interest in my geeky hobbies, though I think as more of an academic study of the geek in his natural habitat. Sneaky loves it when we pull out her laser pointer to chase and will run back and forth until she's short of breath. She also enjoys playing fetch with us. I thought only dogs played fetch, but Sneaky loves it when we throw her toys for her and will even pick them up and bring them back to us to throw again.

Sneaky crawls into my lap whenever I sit down at the computer for a while. Can't say that I mind all that much.

Sneaky also just loves to snuggle. Whenever I sit down to play games or write she likes to sit in my lap while I pet her head. There's something really special about holding a purring cat in your lap as she falls asleep.

So, there's my love letter from a crazy cat guy post. Hope you enjoyed. Sneaky's ridiculously cute, so by virtue of that alone this post is probably a 10/10. I've now written about 4 of the 8 topics I listed as options in my post on January 1st, so there's that accomplished. I still need to fit in the rest of those topics, though. Oh, also, I mentioned yesterday I would try writing earlier in the day. Today I did. It was good. Maybe I'll try to keep that up. Check back tomorrow for more words written by!