Things My Kitten Does
that make me fall head over heels for her divine feline otherness
The morning begins with Enoki perched on my hip, sprawled behind me, or in between my legs if I’m lying on my back, waiting patiently for me to rouse. Once my eyes are open she chirps and/or makes other polite vocalizations to move me towards her food bowl. She will also attempt to swat at my thermometer dangling from underneath my tongue as I take my morning temperature.
When I’m sitting on the toilet before I go and pull out her kibble, she will reach towards my outstretched hand with her face, lifting just her front paws off the floor to nuzzle it excitedly. Ugh.
She sticks her head under the light stream of water from her drinking fountain—I have yet to witness it directly but she often has a spot of wet fur just at her third eye. Two nights ago I dreamt that she was wading in the ocean with me. Some cats do love to be in water, you know. I will be thrilled if she’s one of them.
A couple of weeks ago she jumped onto my bed in the evening and dropped a fuzzy ball from between her teeth, twice in a row. Thanks to clicker training and positive reinforcement, she now knows how to play fetch. Thus, as I sit here on my couch—multi-tasking my two remote jobs and writing this—she runs across the living room again and again, retrieving a piece of plush covered in strands of golden tinsel, like a cartoon version of the sun or a virus with spiky proteins jutting from the surface. She seems to love it more than any other random toy at the moment.
Her calm and confident hunter’s strut on each return trip, ball in mouth, is absolutely to die for. My little tiger.
It cannot be overstated how incredibly smart and even thoughtful she has been with this new fetch routine. It allows me to focus (if working) or remain in bed (if resting), and yet still able to play with her and thus keep her healthy and happy.
When we take our afternoon naps, she nestles into the crook of my left arm and rests her little head on my shoulder. Every twenty minutes or so she will do a full-body stretch accompanied by an incredible musical trill, and readjust. When she’s truly sleeping, her whiskers, arms and legs all start twitching.
Once she’s awake, and if my armpit is exposed, she will start purring loudly and sniffing my body odor voraciously. She has also been known to groom my armpit hairs which I consider the highest honor imaginable.
“Uncle Ezra” comes to visit quite often. Enoki will nuzzle the heck out of their socked feet, lie down on their lap, reluctantly but eventually respond to their voice commands, or attack their hand underneath a surface such as my yoga mat. I am convinced that, because of our similar scents and sizes and demeanors, Kiki thinks that we are 98% the same person. Which is technically true.
If a window in the living room is open, this adorable baby meerkat will often respond with cautious curiosity to the sounds out on the street—keeping her distance while standing up straight and wobbling gently on her hind legs. See below.
Her little nose turns almost white when she’s chilly or sitting by herself for a while, and morphs into the most quintessential rosy pink when she’s been playing or snuggling.