On Little Cat Feet

My Mum and I have long held to the theory that her cat can count; we’re not talking major mathematics, at best it could be arguably be considered feline fractions.

Misty (the cat in question) was rescued from the SPCA by my mum several years ago. She (the cat, not my mum) had been abandoned and possibly abused as a kitten and though she bonded well with my mum, she’s never really had a lot of time for anyone else and will, for the most part, runaway when she sees someone other than my mum or she simply disappears a the first sound of strangers.

This is the main reason I believe that Misty learned to count. You see, for the most part there are only two people that she needs to keep track of – my mum and my dad. On rare occasions, when Mum has dinner parties or bridge evenings, then Misty, at the first sounding of the doorbell vanishes not to resurface until well after the last party guest has departed. The problem for Misty arises on those rare (and most likely annoying, for her) times when the guests don’t go home. From time to time (mostly Christmas and most Thanksgivings) Mum and Dad play host to their kids; my sister and myself.

Now, if it were just me being there, after about a day Misty recovers and she will, occasionally, allow me to stoke her and pay her some attention. On even more rare occasions she has been known to come up to me and announce her presence with a “meerrrowww” though most of the occasions, it can be argued that she has mistaken me for my mother and generally she stops dead in her tracks when she sees it is me and give me the kind of glare that only a cat can give as if to say “You are not my person, how dare you impersonate them” before stalking off to return to the safety of my mum’s duvet.

This is why I think Misty can count to three. Three people she can quite easily track as they wander about her domain. She can hear the gruff noisy walker down stairs reading his book; she can hear the stranger walking down the stairs and she can hear her favourite person clicking away on that strange grey platform with all the little knobby bits on it [translation: my mum typing on the computer keyboard]. Three she can keep track of, three, she can deal with, any more than three and she tends to completely disappear surfacing only in the wee small hours when only my Mum is awake.

I was thinking about Misty’s inability to cope with marauding multitudes (since no doubt that’s how she sees it) as I was struggling with my own inability to cope with masses of people. I experienced, for my first time ever, a large Easter gathering.

In the past I have blogged about being an Easter Orphan and have lamented not being able to spend Easter with my family. Even when I was able to spend Easter or other holidays with my family – “family” consists of 1 sister and 2 parents for a grand total of 4 humans, including me! I am so ill prepared to cope with meeting and chatting with 17 other people.

This year I was honoured (and I say that with all sincerity) to be able to spend Easter with C’s family. Having only met his kids a couple of times and having only met his mom and sister once I faced the prospect of spending 36 hours of Easter Weekend with them – not to mention the 12 Aunts, Uncles, Cousins and various others I was about to meet – with a combination of anticipation and panic. I wanted to meet his family, I wanted to get to know them, I wanted them to get to know me, I wanted them to like me. I wanted to not make a complete hash of things – and I wasn’t at all sure that I could do it.

I will admit, it was overwhelming and more than once I wanted to take a page out of Misty’s Big Book of Coping and run away and hide under the duvet. But Alas, I am not a cat and a grown woman hiding under the duvet in the middle of the day would seem too eccentric – even for me.

I will also admit it was wonderful. It reinforced my belief that C is one of the most understanding and patient men on the planet and I discovered that his sister (hmm, also a C – this is going to get complicated – maybe she should be Cf for Female) is also a very caring and understanding individual.

C was first tested on the Saturday morning when I discovered my wardrobe lacked anything even remotely Easter-like. Ok, actually C was first tested about a week prior when my “I’m spending the night at C’s sister’s place with C and his kids” panic set in and remained with me until well after I went to bed on the night I spent the night at C’s sister’s place. But the first set of tears came when I did have the face the fact (a fact I had known about for a few days) that I had nothing remotely Easter-like to wear and that this was a perfect indication of how ill prepared I was to undertake this Easter Escapade.

The second came when I discovered I was displacing one of C’s kids from the hotly contested “spare room”, I felt that I was wrecking the natural balance of things and that I was simultaneously in the way and on the periphery – I was the only one with a door separating me from the rest of the clan. I lay awake for almost two hours that night feeling overwhelmed with the prospect of having to spend the entire next day with C’s family – don’t get me wrong, they are wonderful people, the kids are great and his mom and sister both made me feel very welcome – I was afraid I might say or do something inappropriate.

I was put at ease (well, at least a bit, for a short space of time) by C’s sister Cf with whom I got to spend a quite breakfast, just the two of us – while C and his kids slept downstairs. Cf was wonderful, suggesting that, if I needed to “just disappear” at some point in time that it would be fine. She must have read “Misty’s Big Book of Coping” too!

It was during breakfast that I had my stroke of brilliance for the day – I offered to help Cf in the kitchen and spent the rest of the morning and while the guests were arriving, busying myself in the kitchen – thereby being able to limit my exposure to my “small talk with strangers” phobia. Thus Opertation: "Hide in Plain Sight" began.

To make a long blog a little less long (have you ever noticed that blog and long are very similar words) – everyone survived the day! I only made one small gaff and had one medium sized panic attack (complete with tears – have I mentioned how wonderful & understanding C is?).

Looking back on it – I wish I hadn’t panicked and tears are never welcome, but self-recrimination aside, I had a good time. I was welcomed into C’s family and quite enjoyed the experience. Though I will probably keep Misty’s Big Book of Coping” near by – after all, Thanksgiving is only 6 months away!