It’s 9:48 pm on a Saturday in late June, and I’m feeling pretty good. I just did some work on my website, genxchronicle.com. We cover news, culture and lifestyle through a Generation X lens.
I added our mission statement to the website, and I changed to a new WordPress blog theme, Luminescent Lite, that I think looks a lot better than the previous theme, Colormag.
So things are good with me.
But my cat Copper is another story. She’s been acting a little weird lately, kind of shyer than usual. She’s always spent the majority of her time in my bedroom, but now she’s in there even more.
Which is okay, because I can go into the bedroom any time I want and pet her. She’s usually in her new favorite spot, on top of a pile of laundry that’s on a chair in the corner of the bedroom. I think she likes my scent, so it’s a way for her to be near me without actually being near me. At least that’s my theory.
The thing is, I want her to come out into the living room more. That has been the eternal struggle for a good three months now, me trying to get Copper to spend more time in the living room with me.
Because I spend most of my time in the living room when I’m not sleeping or resting, and I want to be with Copper for as much of that time as I can. She’s my cat, after all, and I love her with all my heart.
But she’s shy, and she’s been acting even shyer lately. I think that maybe it has to do with the fact that I’ve been a little down myself lately due to the challenges of keeping the website and my writing career going, including the memoir I’ve been working on for a while now.
So I think she picks up on my mood, and it affects her mood too. That bothers me some, because I don’t want my moodiness to affect Copper’s quality of life.
Because she’s had such a hard life. She lived in a cage in animal shelter for the first three years of her life before I adopted her, and I can’t even imagine what that was like.
She’s come so far, and she’s opened up so much, she really has, that I don’t want her to backslide. I’ve also noticed that she might be eating slightly less lately, although I’m not positive.
But I’ve mitigated that by feeding her Greenies, which are cat dental treats that she loves. I’ve been giving her a combination platter of Ocean Fish Flavor and Chicken Flavor Greenies, and I top it off with a few chunks of Dried Chicken Treats, which she absolutely goes crazy for.
So I feed her the regular dry food for lunch, and she usually only eats some of it, and then I feed her the Greenies for dinner. I leave the bowl out, and by the morning she’s eaten almost all the Greenies, plus all the Dried Chicken Treats.
So that’s my fix for now. We’ll see if I can bring her back to the regular dry food soon. The most important thing is that she’s eating, because a pet not eating is every pet owner’s fear.
On the positive side, Copper has been venturing onto my bed more and more each day. She’ll put her paws up on the top of the bed while she’s on the floor. Then she’ll let out a wild and animalistic meow, and then she’ll just spring onto the bed in one fell swoop!
She usually stays on the bed for about a minute or two. I pet her a little, and then she jumps back down to the floor.
My dream is for Copper and I to share the bed, and also the couch in the living room. But she’s always had a thing about elevated spaces, particularly the furniture. It’s a fear she has. I think she feels too vulnerable on those spaces.
But she’s getting braver and braver, and taking more and more risks, so I’m psyched. She’s come so far from when she hid under the bed for the first month and I had to slide all her meals under the bed.
In a little while my friend Rob is going to stop by, and we’ll probably watch some boxing. He likes Copper a lot too. He fed her for nearly a month when I was visiting my brother in Seattle.
Copper is slowly warming to Rob. When he comes over I can see it in her eyes that she’s doing a million little mental calculations about him. Like, will this person hurt me? Who is he? And why does my human like him? Should I like him? It’s fascinating to observe, and to think about.
Rob is getting closer and closer to petting her, and I’ve told him it’s only a matter of time before they’re buddies. So we have that to look forward to. Copper’s world will get larger by one human.
Anyway, that’s about the situation her in Queens tonight at Chez Copper. Overall it’s pretty good.
Thank you Jesus for bringing Copper into my life. Or maybe I should thank Bastet, the Egyptian Cat Goddess and protector of cats. Whoever it is that brought Copper to me, I thank you very much.
Have a great Saturday night everyone.
