I’m a dog person. Always have been. I’ve recently had reason to reconsider this longstanding feeling.

A little over a year ago I received a call from my son who was very upset. Without going into too much detail, he had adopted a kitten and due to some housing issues, he couldn’t keep her. He attempted to find a friend or acquaintance that would adopt her, but at the end of the day it didn’t work out. He basically had two choices – bring her to a shelter, or ask a family member to take her. A shelter meant that her future would be unstable to say the least. To make a long story short, we are now cat owners. My wife, Marla grew up terrified of cats, so this was a pretty big deal. We flew my son and our new, adopted daughter from Orlando to New York to “try it out”.

Fast forward to today, we are still a 2 species family. Marla has grown accustomed to Eloise, Benny “tolerates” her – barely – and Weezy and I… well, lets just say that we are no Steven and Liv Tyler.

To say the experiment has gone off without a hitch would be a lie. You have to remember – we live in a tiny apartment in New York City. It was a smallish apartment when Marla lived there alone. Then Benny and I moved in. Weezy doesn’t take up much space, she takes up all of it! Who knew that cats had no boundaries? Who knew that we could no longer leave anything out in the open – no matter how large or small? My wallet? Pocket change? NOTHING! For those of you unfamiliar with cats, they like to knock things to the floor. It doesn’t matter what they see or where they see it. If it is not glued down, it’s a candidate to be knocked to the floor. Our beautiful chotskies and nik naks, no matter where they were placed became toys to our new addition. The best part (sarcasm) was that since cats are nocturnal, this all occurred while we slept. Again…small New York City apartment. Things crashing to the floor at 3 a.m.

Even more fun was the racetrack our apartment became. A racetrack with no lanes. We’d be sound asleep when all of a sudden Weezy would leap onto us in one of her laps around the racetrack apartment. Yeah, a bit unsettling. When she burned herself out, she’d use the bed as a sort of launching pad to get her to the top of our bedroom armoire. But my collection of baseball hats is on top of the armoire! Did I mention that cats like to knock things over? At first, it was cute. I’d wake up for one of my dozen or so trips to the bathroom and stumble over the 10+ baseball hats scattered all over the bedroom floor!

It gets better. Shortly after Eloise joined us, our apartment began to smell of cat urine. Not knowing cats, we thought that she was being vindictive because she was jealous of Benny, and a bit miffed at his indifference towards her. After some research, we decided it might be a medical issue, so we brought her to the vet. Turns out the poor girl had a bladder infection meaning not only was she in pain, she couldn’t necessarily control where she micturated (thank you Jeffrey Lebowski)! Remember when I mentioned Weezy’s love of the top of our armoire and the collection of hats I had? Yeah, fun stuff.

Don’t misunderstand me – it hasn’t been nearly all bad. She is adorable, has a great personality and she seems to have really taken a liking to me. She’ll join me on the couch and loves to sleep while up against me. I find myself calling her sweetheart – like the daughter I always wanted! She turns up in the oddest of places though!

Benny likes to chase her and often bares his teeth when she’s near, but he’s grown accustomed to her being around and enjoys the companionship.

Finally, I work late many nights. Nothing relaxes me more than watching Modern Family reruns. Weezy seems to have taken a liking to the show as well, but honestly, this may be her undoing. 

Do you have a story to share about your pets? I’d love it if you’d share it here….

Craig