Bits about the Bitzes: Day 6

Day 6: I am grateful for my cat.

My cat is awesome. His name is Minke, but he is almost never called that. He is usually called Kitty, or Pud (as in, "I tawt I taw a puddy tat"). He gets called Minke when he is being bad.

My cat was given to me as a birthday gift from my friends Michelle and Jake for my 22nd birthday. I walked in the door a couple of weeks before my birthday and they suspiciously hid something behind their backs. Then they handed me a basket with a towel in it. The towel started moving. I opened it up and saw the cutest little orange kitten.


Minker doodle on day 1

He was about 8 weeks old and darling. Like all kittens, he was wild, and playful, and adorable. He liked (and still likes) to drink out of water glasses. He would climb up on the coffee table and stand up on his back legs to put his face in the glass. I probably should have curbed that behavior, but it was too funny when the glass would fall on him and he would get wet. Only now, he still does it. No glass is sacred and it's a safe bet that if you don't maintain a constant vigil on your glass and go back to it later, Kitty probably drank out of it.

He sleeps in the sun.

He also liked to ride around in the car with me. Since I really wanted a dog and couldn't have one, I treated Minke like a dog. He ran errands with me, hung out in the car while I went shopping, and even went to the bank and meowed into the speaker while a cute bank teller admired him and gave him a dog treat. (Spoiler - I later married that bank teller.) Minke would adventure outside and since we lived by a field, he became a very good hunter. We lived on the first floor and in the summer, I would take the screen off the window so he could come and go as he pleased. He began to pile up mouse bodies by our back door, and one time, he jumped in the window, onto my bed, and left me a headless mouse body. Ewww.

He climbs into bed if it's left unmade.

When he was 1, I had moved into an apartment by myself and got my little black dog. Kitty was doing things like catching birds in mid air (I'm not exaggerating, I saw it), climbing onto the roof of the house and howling at me, and sneaking into Siri's crate and taking a nap. He disappeared for a couple days, much to my dismay, and I found him hidden in a shed. He was in bad shape. My closest guess is that he was hit by a car. He could barely breathe, had cuts and bruises, and was super skinny from not eating or drinking. He had almost no energy and was unable to feed himself. Vet confirmed no broken bones, but did suspect cracked ribs and there was some sort of weird kitty asthma situation. He would have these severe coughing fits and not be able to breathe. However, before we got to this point, I had to hand feed him. By that I mean I had to cut up pieces of meat and force them down his throat. I had to water down powerade and put it down his throat with a dropper. I carried him back and forth to the litter box and made little beds for him on the couch where he would sleep all day. He made a full recovery, using up one of his nine lives. The kitty asthma continued for a long time, maybe a year, and it eventually cleared up. (He spent another one of his nine lives by getting trapped for 9 days in a townhouse that was under construction.)

He naps in a "Minke was here" style.

I am grateful for my kitty because he brings me so much joy. He can be really annoying. He is loud, meows a lot, insists that all doors within the house be open so he has freedom to go where he pleases, will go outside and then demand to come back in at some ungodly hour, he can stomp louder than any 10 pound creature I have ever heard, he attacks the dog, drinks our water (but never his own), steals our food, and slams cupboard doors when he is bored.


He helps with homework.

He can also be really sweet. He is so snuggly. He can hear a soft blanket being spread from anywhere in the house. He is becoming more social and likes to sit on the laps of my friends who are allergic to cats. He snuggles the dog. He likes to sleep with me (and we're working on sleeping next to me, not on me). He does funny things like fall off his perch. He is always willing to snuggle, especially when I'm feeling sad. He revels in helping me with school work. He insists on sleeping on my lap whenever it suits him. He snores. He has freckles on his nose. He curls up and sleeps like a bunny. Sometimes he covers his face when he's sleeping. He has the loudest purrer. He is happy to see me. He has sea foam green eyes and the vet always compliments how beautiful they are. He has lovely stripes. He has white mittens on his paws. (Hence his name Minke, after Minke whales who look like they have mittens.) Sometimes he sticks his tongue out. Sometimes he licks my hand. He drinks milk out of our cereal bowls. He's tried to smack food out of my hands. While he sleeps, he stretches out his paw and rests it on my hand. When we make the bed in the morning, he immediately hops up and lays down, as if to flaunt the fact that he gets to stay home all day and nap. He is ridiculously soft. Sometimes his paws get cold and I warm them for him.