pets and pet names

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Friday Randomosity: Books and Cats and Summer Stuff

It’s Friday, Carla has the day off from school, and I slept in until SEVEN, which is amazing. My only plans for today involve a home improvement project with my dad (and Carla, hopefully; she is so far resisting the idea, but I think she will be interested once the impact driver makes an appearance) and meeting a friend for an evening adventure, so I am curled up in my office with a mug of tea and a few minutes to muse ramblingly (ramble musingly?) about this and that. 

Why only a few minutes, you ask, when I just clearly laid out how empty of plans my day is? Well, I am in the middle of reading a novel that I cannot put down, and I can feel it pulling me even as I type. It’s a romance featuring a single mom in her mid-fifties and it’s funny and heartfelt and SO GOOD.  Also, Carla will be awake eventually and I should probably do some parenting.

This reminds me that Carla and I have gotten into a good rhythm with audiobooks. WHY did it take me so long to figure out that we should listen to audiobooks in the car? We’re in the car together for at least an hour a day, which is a decent amount of time for book listening. The only “problem” with it is that I don’t get to hear Carla’s cheerful chirping in the morning. But… sometimes she is less chirpy anyway, and an audiobook is a good alternative to mother-daughter sniping. We’re listening to Just As Long As We’re Together (bookshop.org / amazon) right now, and oh, how I adore Judy Blume. 

There is this scene where the girls are discussing a hunky ninth grader and one girl says he’s sexually experienced because he has hairy legs – and… what??? Is that a real myth of days past? I remember reading that as a kid and kind of accepting it at face value, but now that I am an adult, it strikes me as so odd and funny and gross. Of course, I had to stop the audiobook and explain to Carla – over embarrassed groans of I KNOW, Mom – that this is in no way accurate, you cannot judge a person’s sexual experience based on their appearance, and trying to do so would be weird and gross anyway. Judy Blume sure provides a lot of opportunities for Discussion. How long will it take for Carla to figure out that I am trojan horsing books to sneak in Important Conversations???

You know who else really knows how to write about children? E. L. Konigsburg. Before the Blume book, Carla and I listened to Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth (bookshop.org / amazon) and it is so funny and such a perfect depiction of friendship. Carla doesn’t remember reading From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, (bookshop.org / amazon) so I have that on hold via Libby. Konigsburg has a bunch of other books I’ve never read before, too, so perhaps we will explore those as well.

Suz posted the other day about how she resolved a potentially fraught neighbor situation by going over and talking to her neighbor. (I fully realize that this does not always work, even if, in an ideal world, simply talking to our neighbors about our needs would solve all our problems.) So I thought of Suz last night when the kids next door were out playing a noisy game of basketball until eleven pm. In general, I adore kid noise. There is something both soothing and joyful about the sound of children shrieking and talking and even the thwock of ball on concrete and the thwang of ball against basketball rim have their own sort of pleasant rhythm. To an extent. And that extent, for me, is ten pm. However… it was not a school night. Carla was already asleep. My husband is at work today, but he is a night owl so wasn’t yet heading to bed. My internal monologue went something like:

Ugh. This is SO LOUD. And the basketball hoop is right outside my bedroom.

But it’s the first warm evening of the year, pretty much! And there’s no school tomorrow! And they are having so much fun!

What if I let this go tonight, and then they are out until midnight every night this summer?

Just chill out. They’ll go in eventually.

I could text their mom and say something cheerful about how fun it is to hear them playing, but maybe they could call it a night at ten?

You know your attempts at being breezy and cheerful often come across as strident and angry. What if you damage your relationship with the neighbor forever?

But she was so nice when we asked her to move the spotlight that was shining straight into our bedroom.

See? You’ve already used up your neighbor credits. Just put in some ear plugs. It’s not like you ever sleep anyway.

Maybe if they’re still out there at 10:30, I can just pop out the door and say, “Hey guys, can you head inside? We’re trying to sleep!”

OMG, don’t talk to the kids directly! Go through the mom! Go through the mom!

I thought I wasn’t supposed to talk to anyone about anything?

Oh. Right. Also, keep in mind that occasionally you allow Carla and her friends to play in the pool until pretty late at night.

Hmm. I guess that’s true. Not until ten, though!

Still. Better not rock the boat.

Anyway, they went in at eleven. I’m pretty sure the cut-off for noise stuff is ten, though… but I don’t want to rock the boat. Would you?

Speaking of summer, we have had a couple of nice summer-feeling days, and a couple of awful dropped-in-the-worst-humidity-of-summer-feeling days, and I am not excited for more of the latter. I get SO SWEATY. The older I get, the more I sweat; the more I sweat, the more painful rashes I develop (TMI alert: my underarms are a MESS right now), and I am not a fan. I’m doing a lot of googling about clinical strength antiperspirants, which is not so much my idea of fun reading. I’m also adding a lot of anti-chafing products to my various online shopping carts. If you are similarly afflicted, what are you go-tos? 

The promise of warmer weather has enticed a variety of flying bugs to return. I’m all set with our mosquito repeller device (home depot / REI / amazon) for sitting outside, but I really wish there was a device I could wear while walking outdoors. Oh look! Thermacell has a portable repellant device (REI / thermacell / amazon) that I could try!

One thing that we are all excited about as summer approaches is the arrival of our cat. The breeder sent me some new photos of the kittens yesterday and they are so fuzzy and adorable I can hardly stand it. Between myself and Carla, the cute aggression is off the hook. We don’t know which kitten is ours yet; we are on a list and I think the people above us get priority to choose, or else the breeder assigns specific cats to people. They are all adorable so I am trying not to have a favorite.

(Not sure if I have spelled it out before, but we are getting a cat from a breeder; I acknowledge that this sounds kind of ridiculous yet here we are. I am allergic to cats, which means that I need A Special Cat that is less likely to be allergenic if I want to own one. The breed we are getting is Siberian, which supposedly has lower levels of the protein that triggers cat allergies. I hope you know that I would rescue ALL THE KITTENS at all the shelters if I could; I adore cats and would prefer to adopt one that needs rescuing, but alas.)

We are still debating cat names. My favorites (Craig, Stephen) have been rejected. Carla is now set on Leonardo, which I am not opposed to. My husband and I have latched onto Rick Steves, as a tribute to our favorite adorkable travel guide. I think Rick comes pleasingly close to Craig in terms of ridiculousness for a cat name, and Ricky is a great nickname. Plus I love the idea of envisioning a whole personality for our cat that involves khaki slacks, dad jokes, and a penchant for local beer, skipping the crowds, and drug policy reform.

Abrupt subject change: do I want an Oura ring? (best buy / amazon) Part of me thinks it would be cool to collect more data about the quality of my sleep and workouts. Part of me thinks it wouldn’t help or change anything. If you have an Oura ring, please tell me how it’s changed your life (or not). 

Okay, Carla is awake and I want to snuggle her, exercise, and eat something before my dad arrives! See you on the flippety flop! (That means probably Monday.)


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Weigh In Wednesday: Hypothetical Cat; Pet Names

I had a dream the other night that I borrowed a cat. It was a kitten, actually, probably three to six months old – that skinny, lithe stage of kittenhood. The kitten was a dark grey tabby. His name was Craig. 

My family and I sometimes discuss cat names. Our goal is to come up with the most ridiculous possible name for a cat. So far, our favorites are Jeremy and Trey (said always in the accent of the SNL Californians skit; see 4:03 in this video). I like the idea of having a pet named Pickle, but that strikes me as more of a dog name. Or maybe more appropriate for a Guinea pig.

My husband – who self-identifies as Not A Cat Person – took me and Carla to a cat convention earlier this fall. It was a long drive in pretty crummy weather and I think it may have been the most bored I’ve ever seen my husband (although he didn’t say A WORD), but Carla and I had a blast. I wasn’t sure what to expect. There were booths of cat toys and cat towers. There was a cat costume contest. There were meet and greets with cat influencers (I am not kidding). But also, there were so many cats! Not all of the cats were available for petting – and, of those, not all of them were in the mood – but we did get to pet a lot of cats. 

If you have read this blog for any amount of time, you know that Carla is an avid animal lover. But do you know this about me? I love cats. LOVE THEM. They are my favorite domestic animal. (My favorite wild animal is the porcupine.) If I had my druthers, I would have a house full of cats. 

Carla, as I’ve noted, is an animal lover. She does not discriminate per species. I think she would welcome a menagerie of pets, from snakes to parrots, hamsters to fish. Her favorite animal, I think, is a dog, and she and my husband would own a dog in a heartbeat if I weren’t standing in their way. (Once, when Carla was maybe five, she said in that charming/alarming matter-of-fact way of children, “If you died, we could get a dog.” Yes, there’s always a bright side my sweet child.)  

Now: brace yourself, because this next bit may be unpleasant.

I do not want a dog. 

I appreciate dogs. And I love seeing dogs on your blog and in my email and in your holiday cards and in my text messages. Seriously, you cannot tell me enough anecdotes or send me enough photos of your dog (or child) (or non-dog pet). I love your dog! I do. But I do not want a dog of my own.

I am a cat person. I really hope this does not change our relationship. 

The thing is, I am allergic to cats. (And dogs, if we’re being honest. Yes, yes, I know all about hypoallergenic dogs.) So I have never gotten a cat, despite the deep yearning in my soul. 

Nonetheless, my husband and I maybe started saying things like, “Perhaps when we have a new, bigger house, we could get a cat.” And the more we said little “maybes” like this, the more my desire has ballooned.

So I was especially keen, at the cat convention, to hold and pet and rub my face against a Siberian. This is a type of cat that has low levels of the protein that causes allergies. It’s a long-haired cat, though, and I have visions of pooplets adhering to butt fur, and visions of cathair tumbleweeds collecting in every corner of my home. But they are very cute cats. They have very agreeable, friendly, doglike personalities, which the Siberian breeder’s partner said pointedly to my husband; “That’s what the men like to hear,” he said, and then shared an anecdote about he never liked cats until he started dating a Siberian breeder and now he loves them. The breeder had two very adorable kittens and I snuggled them and put my face right up into their fur (which I’m sure was a little alarming to the breeder, and maybe the kitten) and I didn’t have ANY REACTION the whole day. 

This isn’t an announcement of anything. It’s just a fantasy at this point. I have too much going on right now to add another living being to the mix. Also, Siberian kittens are pricey, OMG. Also also, I need to get past my fear of loving a thing that will inevitably die; it’s hard enough being confronted with that truth when it comes to my parents and brother and husband and child. 

But maybe, one of these days, we’ll have a little kitten. And I will definitely try to convince my family to name it Craig. 

When I was growing up, we had a lot of cats. They were barn cats, and some of them didn’t last very long. But others were beloved family pets for years. Naming them was one of my favorite things, and I always leaned toward human names. We had, at different times, two pairs of tabbies: Scarlett and Rhett (which is a very odd set of names to give two cats from the same litter, but it made sense at the time), and Rebecca and Josh (yes, I named a cat Josh). There was a beautiful black cat who visited us occasionally – we called him Romeo and I’m guessing he was responsible for Rebecca’s litter of kittens. (Spay and neuter your pets promptly, folks!) Of those, I remember a pale grey cat with white spots I named Cooper and a white cat with seal-point markings I called Kimberly. We kept Kimberly and gave all the other kittens away. A friend adopted one of them – a little black fluffy girl cat with a white chest – and named her Panda, which was short for Pandemonium. Speaking of punny names, I had a friend whose brother raised pigs for 4-H and he named two of them Oscar and Mayer. A little mean, that. 

I used to show my cats for 4-H. Kimberly won a blue ribbon, which makes me giggle because even though she looked like a Siamese, she was 100% pure barn cat. 

What would you name a cat? What pets have you had in your lifetime, and what were their names? What’s the best or worst possible name you can think of for a pet, and why do you think some names work better than others? Like Oliver is a great pet name – I’ve known several dogs and one cat named Oliver – but the idea of naming a dog or cat Brian or Frank or Anthony or Eric or Margaret or Jean or Susan makes me giggle?  

I am kinda sorta attempting to complete NaBloPoMo, with the full expectation that life will make it impossible any day now. If you want to follow along, or join the fun, check out San’s blog here.