Monday, October 28, 2013

Zeezy's Half-Birthday

A few weeks ago, I read this piece on NPR, which is a response to the popular "Dogs Are People, Too"  New York Times article. Basically, what the author says in the NPR piece is, "Duh." Anyone who has known and loved a dog in their life knows, without empirical research to back it up, that they have feelings and emotions and plenty of brain activity. And even though all this talk is about dogs specifically, I can't help but relate it to our cat, Assisi, who turns two and a half today.

Look at that handsome cat!
 (Sidenote: Eric recently read that the reason there is so little research about cat brain activity and behavior is because cats are notoriously not very cooperative - it once took a researcher four years to prove that cats can count to four. This is what I love about cats: they don't let anyone else tell them what to do.)

Yes, today is our little adult kitty's half-birthday, kind of. We don't know when his actual birthday is, so we decided that we would celebrate it on April 28th, the day we brought him home. So today we are also celebrating six months with this little fuzzball.


We both feel so grateful to have Zeezy in our lives, especially because we were close to getting another cat. One of the first things we did after I got to Santa Fe (literally, I hadn't even been here for 24 hours) was go to the Santa Fe Humane Society. I had waited years to adopt a cat and I didn't want to wait even a few days longer. But the universe had other plans. After we had looked at the cats and picked out a few that we wanted to meet, the woman at the front desk told us that all the cats were being sent to a shelter in Colorado later that week and none of them were available for adoption. To put it lightly, I was bummed. I didn't have my heart set on any one cat in particular, but I was so in love with the idea of having a cat that not having one for another week seemed terrible.

Now I am so grateful that we didn't get a cat that day because if we had, we never would have met Zeezy only six days later. Of course, we probably would have adopted a perfectly great cat, but it is hard to imagine having a cat as awesome, lovable, smart, cute, etc. as Zeez. We both feel like we have found our cat soulmate.


 Here are some of our favorite things about Zeezy:
  • He is super playful. When you give him a catnip toy, or a string to chase, he gets the cutest look of excitement on his face. He does somersaults, jumps around, climbs up his scratching post - all of which keep Eric & I very entertained.
  • But he is also a cuddlebug! He plays hard and he sleeps harder. He has a lot of favorite sleeping spots in our house, like the armchair, his cat tower, our bed, and on the nicest rug in the house (which is permanently covered in cat hair). But he also loves to be close to Eric & I, and he will often plop down next to us on the couch OR he'll sit right on our laps. While he's napping on our laps, he likes to have his chin and neck scratched and he also liked getting his paws massaged. We are usually pretty willing to spoil him.
  • He loves potato chips. And tortilla chips, and pretzels, and cheese puffs... pretty much any crunchy snack that we have, he wants. Every once in awhile, we indulge him with a small piece, and it is so cute to see him crunching on a tiny tortilla chip. If you have never seen a cat eating a chip, you are missing out. 
  •  He is super cute. Not that we're shallow cat owners or anything... but it doesn't hurt.
  • He loves us. Whenever he hears Eric's truck pull into the parking lot when he gets home from work, he jumps into the windowsill so he can be the first to greet him. He pays attention to us even when he doesn't want food. He sleeps on our bed with us every night, and has even learned to curl up right at our feet once all the lights are turned off. And we can just tell that he feels the same way about us that we feel about him. There's a real deep connection here.
So thanks, Zeezy, for making us so happy!

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