OXYGEN DEPRAVATION

My first baby was not a snuggler.

She was affectionate, and a friendly, lovely infant - but would actively struggle if you attempted to hold her close.

She wanted her own space.

My second child was okay about being cuddled and snuggled - but she was pretty much okay about much of anything - the first year of her life, she was passed around between every single member of our English-speaking branch of our church in Dusseldorf.

I'm not too much about getting all cosy and up close - well, except for my grandchildren and my horse Najale - but it's impossible for me to sleep with someone touching me.

Well, I haven't tried going to sleep with Liam Neeson touching me... yet.

But back to the story.

I have a cat who is now going through an extreme case of feline dementia and forgotten he is a cat (i.e. standoffish and aloof) or has some highly contagious disease that he is determined to have me catch.

Because now every night, he demands at least fifteen minutes of close, almost intimate contact.

With his face smashed into my left armpit.

I'm trying to figure out if he's getting high by this oxygen deprivation or attempting a ritualistic form of elegant suicide.

But right now I am still leaning towards some contaminate that will destroy the entire world except for him and a life-time supply of cat food.

CAT EYES

There is a battle going on between my cat and me, and the cat is winning.

Pandora has been banned from my bedroom to provide myself with at least one allergy-free area.

And it's difficult, because you can't simply shut the bedroom door - it doesn't latch completely, and Pandora will repeatedly throw himself against the door until it opens (this is not a small cat - at around 25 lbs he can pack a pretty big wallop).

My dog will lie right in the doorway to keep the cat out, but Pandora can jump over him much quicker than poor old arthritic Murray can get up (which is interesting because Pandora is actually older than Murray).

 
So I have been forced to resort to violence - throwing tennis balls at him.
 
Now, this is a smart cat... much smarter than I am at this stage of my life. So he sits just outside of range, and does something much worse.
 
Simply stares at me.  

It's a battle of wills...

... and he is winning.

FELINE-LESS

I didn't realize how much of an impact a cat can have on your normal day-to-day activities.

You don't have to clean the litter box when you don't have a cat.

I can leave the bedroom door open at night (not that closing it had any real effect; Pandora would just throw himself against it repeatedly until he got it open).

When the dogs go outside, it is not necessary to immediately shut the front door (although with freezing winds blasting down from the mountainside, it is generally a good idea with the high price of propane and a heating bill to be paid).

And the lower part of the door to the laundry room does not need to remain a decorative little curtain to allow Pandora access to and from, and can go back to being that ugly metal air ventish section... or not.

When I am blogging, facebooking or wasting hours trying to beat Harmony and Heather at Bejeweled, there now is not a warm body strewn across my lap and 24+ lbs. of fur to help ward off all the drafts in my bedroom.

Yeah - I miss him just a little bit.

DESREVER DNEGEL

In the Greek version, Pandora opens a box that releases all the evil in the world, leaving only Hope behind.

My cat, Pandora, is hell-bent on reversing this myth.

Pandora was in a box of tiny kittens outside WalMart that a family were trying to find homes for. And they were all so precious and beautiful, it was impossible to resist.

However, I forgot one extremely important fact - anything you buy at WalMart is impossible to return.

Their 'customer service', if you apply the term loosely, seems to always have a drawn out line of people waiting in despair for the one clerk to refuse their return for an extended list of reasons:

- "It was purchased on a Tuesday; we can't take it"

- "You have to return this directly to the manufacturer in Egypt via registered certified mail that costs $12 per oz."

- "Your last name begins with a 'D', and today we can't accept returns from people whose last name begins with a 'D' "

(Sorry, got a little bit off track there - I've work at customer service at Target, and Target will take back ANYthing if you can show that you paid for it - you don't even have to have a receipt if you put it on a card of any sort - and I just don't like WalMart)

But I allowed my husband to talk me into taking one of kittens home. As we drove, he held this tiny black and white fur-ball literally in the palm of his hand.

My son came up with the name of Pandora, which sounded cute and appropriate at the time for this tiny girl.

Unfortunately, Pandora turned out to be a huge, dangerous BOY cat, the fact which we were blissfully ignorant of until I took her/him to the vet's to be neutered/fixed /spayed/whatever-the -politically-correct-name-is- today.

So I took in a girl kitty, and brought back a 'stale male' - didn't know they could do sex-change operations on cats, did you?

And I didn't realize how large he was until I took him into the vet's last year for something trivial and saw him next to other 'normal' sized cats - Pandora looks liked a medium sized cougar or a very small lion compared to them.

But Pandora has suddenly come up against resistance for the first time in his nine-plus years.

I am not letting him into my bedroom.

Since spending almost a year in San Diego sans cat, I finally realized that I am allergic to cats. So after washing all of my bedding, and keeping the bedroom day firmly shut, I breath much better at night now.

But it also means Pandora is unable to come into my room.

Battle-lines are being drawn.

He has taken to wandering around the area by my bedroom door, casually washing himself or streching out for a nap, looking for a moment when he can slip in unnoticed.

As I mentioned, he is a big cat, so he also tries laying against the door, batting at the doorknob, and when truly desperate, throws himself against it.

And when he does get in, does he go and hide under the bed? Steal into a corner so he won't be noticed?

No. This is Pandora we are taking about.

He curls up in royal splendor right in the middle of my bed so that when I finally find him, I will be able to bow down and worship him appropriately.

So the myth will be told differently from now on - all the evil will be back in the box/room with him, and Hope will be the one on the outside.

P.S. Read that title for this again - that's 'legend reversed'... reversed.