This Is Cory

There has been a lot of fanfare lately for Naomi, our five-week-old daughter. And rightly so, she deserves it. But let’s take some time to highlight a few members of our family who–like Naomi–make large contributions toward our well-being by way of vomiting.

We have two cats: Kitty 3, and José. Kitty 3 was, obviously, preceded by Kitty 2, who passed away in a tragic accident involving her digestive system and a foreign object. Kitty 2 was the successor of Kitty 1, who moved to the Northwestern United States to start a grunge band. José was so named because my wife refused to use the name “Kitty” again. And so did I: it is much too feminine for a man such as José.

José is a Champion Hunter. Grasshoppers, mice, string, air: these are no match for his Cat Grip of Death. When José hunts he crouches into Attack Position, his body lying as flat as possible to the ground, and his tail waving wildly behind him, ready to transfer its energy forward at the Moment Of Pounce. And when he catches his prey, he immediately releases it, so that he can catch it again. This is the accepted system among cats. It’s like Catch and Release fishing, except over and over again. And there’s eating at the end.

Kitty, on the other hand, has been known to spend entire seasons lying on her stomach. The bulk of her day consists of sleeping on the couch, where she keeps a substantial backup of her hair in case she should lose it all. She periodically gets up from the couch to scratch her way through the blinds and get up next to the window. My theory is that she’s checking to see what time it is, or what year it is, and if she has missed any significant world events. Typically, she has not. She then resumes lying on her stomach.

She wasn’t always this way. Kitty decided it was time to grow up and get lazy when we brought home José, who is about a year her junior. He had much more energy, and not the kind that you want to bottle and sell as an alternative fuel source. It is the annoying kind of energy that, when he is scratching at your bed at three-thirty in the morning, makes you want to grab him by the tail and strap him to the mailbox with a sock full of catnip in his mouth.

And he is always ready for affection. José will never refuse your touch, and even when he bites you, it’s that warmhearted kind of bite that says: “I love you enough to draw blood.” Kitty, however, has determined very specific times during the year when we are allowed to touch her, but does not tell us when they are. We have to guess. If we choose correctly, she is warm, and loving, and cuddly. If we are wrong, she will slink and bend into unimaginable shapes so as not to come in contact with your hand, as if it is infested with a contagious disease known in cat circles to attract fleas and dampen the shine of one’s fir. I would never, in a million years, suggest that this has anything to do with her gender.

Both José and Kitty 3 have their quirks, like any of us do. But it’s hard for us not to love them. They are an important part of our lives, and of our happiness. Even now José is cuddled up next to me, and I can’t help but think how loving, tender, and delightfully sedated he is, and how I have to go lock him on the other side of the house before his Valium wears off.