Legal Ramblings
[ Tuesday, August 24, 2004 (7:44 PM) ] ( link )
Phos and Ash: This summer, along with work, I also took care of two cats who lived in the apartment that I stayed in. Their names were Ash (female) and Phos (male) (whose namely apparently derives from the Greek word for light). For those, like certain former roommates, who worry about what I reveal on this website, be forewarned that this is hardly the manliest post I have ever written.
Phos and Ash were perhaps the two most charming cats I have ever met. Those who know me already know how fond I became of these cats. What was most striking was how much personality each of these cats had. Phos was a bright, curious, active cat, the only one I know who would play fetch with little (fake) stuffed mice. (In fact, if you threw the mouse directly over his head, he would execute an amazing in-air flip to get it.) Sometimes his activity went a little over the top. For instance, he had this annoying habit of climbing onto the bed in the early hours of the morning, convinced that either your arm or your blanket was hiding something important. The result was several mornings where I was woken up by Phos attempting to claw his way (quite painfully, I might add) through my curled up arms. Yet another annoying habit of his was his insistence that you pay 100% attention to him. So, for instance, if you were sitting on the futon trying to read a book, he would deliberately climb between your eyes and the book, and then plant himself there until you played fetch with him, pet him, or otherwise put yourself at his service. Finally, when he found you just sitting on a chair working on your computer (say, to work on your way overdue paper), and he had been trying to get your attention by meowing for a few minutes, he would decide that surely the human had something better to do, and to get your attention he would leap into the air, grab onto your back with all four long-clawed paws, and hang on as you shouted and struggled to extricate his claws from your skin.
I realize this is making Phos sound a lot more aggravating than likeable, but that's not the case. He also had this very endearing habit of climbing onto your lap (usually while you were working on the computer), scrambling around to get a good lying position, and then plopping down into your arms, so were forced to cradle him (or else he would slide off to the ground). Then he would promptly fall asleep, leaving you incapable of doing anything other than admire him, since you didn't have any hands free to, say, work on your paper, or even check your email. Another endearing habit of his was to crawl onto the futon or the bed, typically while you were oblivious to his presence, and then curling up with his back against you, at the risk of your rolling over him. Finally, being the attention hound (cat) that he was, after getting your attention he would do this cute trick of flopping onto his side and looking expectantly up at you, in the hope that you would start playing with him. When this didn't happen, he would get into your line of sight and then flop over again.
Ash was the complete opposite of Phos, in many ways. Where Phos was active and curious, Ash was one of the laziest, most placid cats I had ever met. She spent the vast majority of the day camped out in a couple of favorite roosting spots (among them my suitcase and the top of the futon), where she would either sleep or lie almost perfectly still, staring at you and looking fat. She startled easily and endearingly; her eyes had a tendency to bug out if you were bothering her but she didn't feel inclined to actually get up and avoid your attentions. She was also sometimes a lap cat, but was far less active about it than Phos, with an inclination to just sit on your lap until your legs fell asleep. About the only active things she would ever do were (1) dig food up from the garbage disposal (e.g., egg shells, grape stems, etc.) and then play with it on the kitchen floor or, even more disgustingly, on the rug; (2) run out into the hallway (along with Phos) whenever you opened the door, and then make a serious dash for it if you chased her, with occasional peeks over her shoulder, invariably followed by a brief (but impressive) burst of speed.
Anyway I liked these cats a lot, and I'm sure there are little quirks of theirs that I'm missing here. (People who knew them can fill in details.) Here are some pictures of them that I took with my cellphone's nifty new camera feature; they are only a smattering of the 300 or so photos I took of them over the course of the summer. Phos
Ash
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