A Man And His Cat

New York Times ^ | August 1, 2014 | TIM KREIDER

[Seizethecarp]

I LIVED with the same cat for 19 years — by far the longest relationship of my adult life. Under common law, this cat was my wife. I fell asleep at night with the warm, pleasant weight of the cat on my chest. The first thing I saw on most mornings was the foreshortened paw of the cat retreating slowly from my face and her baleful crescent glare informing me that it was Cat Food Time. As I often told her, in a mellow, resonant, Barry White voice: “There is no luuve … like the luuve that exists … between a man … and his cat.”

The cat was jealous of my attention; she liked to sit on whatever I was reading, walked back and forth and back and forth in front of my laptop’s screen while I worked, and unsubtly interpolated herself between me and any woman I may have had over. She and my ex Kati Jo, who was temperamentally not dissimilar to the cat, instantly sized each other up as enemies. When I was physically intimate with a woman, the cat did not discreetly absent herself but sat on the edge of the bed with her back to me, facing rather pointedly away from the scene of debauch, quietly exuding disapproval, like your grandmother’s ghost.

‘You’re in love with that cat!’ my then-girlfriend Margot once accused me. To be fair, she was a very attractive cat.

[DefeatCorruption]

Great story...just shared it on Facebook.

[martin_fierro]

Under common law, this cat was my wife.

Wrong, you twit.

From what self-obsessed fever swamp is the NYT pulling these idiot journos these days?

[Focault's Pendulum]

2. He gets catnip and Party Mix every afternoon — or else!

Party Mix rules!

[Focault's Pendulum]

Not admitting to any, um, similarity between the writer of the article and myself mind you...

OK, then I will.

Thanks for the last several pings.

[Hot Tabasco]

Also something fishy, if the article is anything to go by, about guys who don’t like girls!

My cat doesn't mind if I play softball 4 mornings a week from March till snowfall as long as I feed her.

The day I realized my last wife didn't love me was when I bought her a Bosch table saw for her birthday and she proceeded to cuss me out. Talk about ungrateful!

So I gave it to my cat and my cat and I have been best buds ever since...........

[miss marmelstein]

A happy ending for all!

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

When DH and I were talking marriage I explained that it was "Love me, tolerate my cat". After the current cat passed on we did not have to get another one but I would keep my commitment to this one for the rest of his natural life.

Happily they took to each other.

George T Cat however is banished from the bedroom during ...mmmm.... moments of marital intimacy.

[boatbums]

Another part of me, perhaps more sentimental but also more truthful, had to acknowledge that the cat was undeniably another being in the world, experiencing her one chance at being alive, as I was.

Thanks for posting this article. I enjoyed it!

[Moonman62]

My cat used to catch birds and drop them on the ground in front of me. Those were very nice gifts, as far a cat gifts go, but unfortunately I have no use for dead birds. She did, however.

Those birds weren’t gifts. She wanted you to clean them and cook them.

[Titan Magroyne]

FTA: Biologists call cats “exploitive captives,” an evocative phrase that might be used to describe a lot of relationships, not all of them interspecies.

LOL, great line.

When it comes to intimate moments, however, I neither notice nor care where the cat may be. Tho I suppose if she were to decide to perch upon someone during the act it would suddenly become a matter of urgent banishment. *snerk*

I knew I shoulda trimmed those claws...

[Celtic Conservative]

I got it Larry, If no one else did (or was willing to admit).

LOL

CC

[Larry Lucido]

Thanks, glad someone caught it. :-)

[roamer_1]

Columbus had left a large stool in the middle of my pillow on our new bed.

I had the very same problem with my pet any time he was left alone in the house... Only he was a 125lb Malamute... :(