Pitch-Perfect?

You know the voice—the super-squeaky one that never will be heard at Carnegie Hall or at an opera house. I am referring, of course, to the Cat Lady voice.

I was embarrassed yesterday when I entered our veterinarian’s office because the always upbeat office manager addressed me in the voice she uses for speaking to cats. “Well, hello there, you've come back to see us already!” The resident office cats greeted me while the human clients waiting in the office tried their best to smile. A little of this pitchy voice goes a long way, yet I found myself responding in my equally falsetto voice, “Yes, hello, everybody, I’m back!”

Perhaps it’s time to take on American Idol and launch a competition to determine who among us Cat Ladies has the best voice for communicating with cats. I don’t mean the most soothing and melodic voice, I mean the hitting-the-high-note-out-of-the-ballpark voice.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go and warm up my vocal chords: Here Lucius, Lydia, Leo, Lillie, T.J., Perkins, Miss Tommie, Linus, L.B., and Alvar!

Query of the Day: Do you sing to your cats?

Out, Damned Treat

I could kick myself for introducing our ten cats to the world of treats. I have become an enabler, someone who has turned cats into junkies. Given our census at home, I buy multiple bags of treats each week, and it seems that I never can buy enough.

As I was tossing an empty bag of treats into the trash can this morning, I noticed that the bag has a new look. Don’t ask me why I bothered to study the label of something about to be trashed, but I got a good laugh when I read the following:

“Home. The vast inner kingdom. Within these four walls of comfort and quiet, I am the hunter.”

Was the copywriter thinking that a Cat Lady would read this prose aloud to her cats? I think that Antonio Banderas would provide the perfect audio. Or does the copywriter have evidence that cats can read for themselves?

I’ve never asked my cats, but I sincerely hope they do not endorse sentence fragments.

Query of the Day: Do you spoil your cats with treats?

Apps for Cat Ladies

I couldn’t miss the full-page ad that Apple ran in the New York Times this weekend. The ad featured some of the newest and spiffiest apps for ringing in this first month of the next decade of the new millennium.

I need to meet someone who can help me develop what I think will make a great app. It’s called the Catnapp©, and here’s the drill.

Find a stray cat and point your iPhone camera toward streets in your neighborhood. The Catnapp© will quickly identify a Cat Lady who will rescue the cat. Just imagine: All of this activity unfolds on your handheld screen.

I rescued Lucius, cat No. 1 (in more ways than one), before the iPhone even existed. We were meant for each other, so the Catnapp© would not have been useful in this special case. But I am convinced that technology and Cat Ladies can make beautiful music together.

Query of the Day: Have you downloaded tens, hundreds, or thousands of pictures of your cats?

Do I or Don't I?

Our six cats inside are peering out of the French doors in our den. I shouldn’t look outside because I know the drill all too well. I know I will see a stray cat. Sure enough, a darling black kitten is hunting in our backyard for some food–an insect, a scrap of food, anything probably and sadly would do.

It’s hard to see from my perch in the den whether the kitten is male or female, but I am putting the age at only four months. The kitten resembles the Kit-Cat character whose face graces the famous clock. That familiar recording in my head says, “turn a blind eye,” only because our veterinarian will kill me for wanting to rescue another cat. She says that ten is the magic, final number for our family, and that my husband and I are not permitted to adopt any more cats. However, she made an exception to her own rule several months ago after I rescued a young female cat and brought her to the vet's office for temporary boarding. I made a promise that I knew someone else would adopt her. It took me a month to fulfill that promise, and the cat and her new Cat Lady could not be happier.

Writing about this is empowering me. A Cat Lady has to pursue her calling, no matter when or where.

Query of the Day: Do I or Don’t I?

The Ultimate Workout

I am lucky that I have never battled a weight problem, but the arrival of late middle age (which sounds so medieval!) has brought new challenges. I am referring to the upper-arm area. There are many best-selling fitness books offering advice on the most effective way to improve this often flabby body part. But I don’t need to read a book to get into shape. I have found my own, 10-pound solution.

Just try lifting two, 10-pound bags of Tidy Cats litter sacks simultaneously. I used to go easy on this routine, carrying one bag at a time, from the trunk of my car to inside our house and the garage apartment, up the stairs to the rooms where the litter boxes cannot be missed.

Now I walk with my shoulders back, my head held high, and with one hand clasping a bag packed with long-lasting odor control litter, and the other hand clutching a bag filled with immediate odor control litter. I buy six bags a week to change the eight boxes used by our ten cats, and you can do the math. This makes for a lot of heavy lifting.

With all due respect to our nation's First Lady, this Cat Lady says, “move over Michelle Obama." Thanks to my ongoing Tidy Cats routine, I will be baring toned arms this summer.

Query of the Day: Do your cats like to watch your workouts?

She Got It!

My husband and I reconnected this past weekend with a delightful couple—transplants from Chicago—whom we first met several years ago courtesy of Gloria, one my best friends from Chicago. I first began working with Gloria in the early 1980s at the Art Institute there, and she has gone on to become a renowned art historian who publishes widely. She accepts that I have become a Cat Lady who writes a blog.

Gloria also loves cats, as do her friends who relocated here to pursue their careers. Over breakfast, we all traded stories about our cats, and I was the life of the party when I began to speak about one of our most fascinating felines, L.B. For some time, I have wondered about L.B.’s distinctly manly qualities.

I am convinced that, in at least one of his previous incarnations, L.B. was a man. He likes to watch football (he’s getting excited about the Saints' conference-final game this coming Sunday), he jumps to the sound of a beer can opening, and he blatantly loves women. I can only imagine what it must be like for him now, negotiating life inside of an overweight and furry body. I hope that he does not consider me to be dull.

Gloria laughed at my anecdotes of L.B. and said matter-of-factly, “So, he was once a man, he died, and he came back as a cat.” She got it, never questioning my theories of L.B.’s masculinity. Perhaps I can persuade Gloria to turn her well-trained eye on the art of feline living.

Query of the Day: What is the measure of a manly cat?

A Loaded Question

There is nothing like a “drive-thru” for saving time, except for when the person at the other end of the intercom poses a question that puzzles the driver in the drive-thru lane. Such was my fate this morning.

I needed to pick up a prescription at Walgreens, and all I expected to hear was my grand total. Instead, the booming voice, the “Wizard of Walgreens,” inquired: “Are you related to Lucius?”

It turns out that I am not in the Walgreens system, but Lucius has his own prescription card because he is diabetic. The search by last name had revealed only one first name, that of Lucius, and the billing record for his insulin.

Am I related to him? That is such a loaded question. I am his caregiver, his guardian, his mother, and, of course, his Cat Lady. In his mind, as I have been told by our veterinarian, I am his wife.

Was the Wizard of Walgreens ready to hear my conflicted response, especially so early in the morning? The driver behind me starting to honk his horn, and I elected to keep my response brief.

“Yes, I am related to Lucius,” I said, with a satisfied smile on my face.

Query of the Day: Is your cat "in the system"?

A Letter of Introduction

I have been remiss since beginning this blog in formally introducing my feline family.

First, there was Lucius, in the year 2000. His neurotic behavior will be chronicled in many, many postings. That’s a guarantee.

Next came Lydia, whom we adopted as a girlfriend for Lucius.

Then a very young cat, Lillie, who was barely old enough to be a mother, had her first litter of three cats—T.J., Perkins, and Miss Tommie—underneath our old house in one of Houston’s few historic districts. Now I know why architects in the last century opted for building pier-and-beam houses. They were feline lovers, wanting to give cats secretive places for giving birth to kitties. Lillie had another two cats, Leo and Acorn. Sadly, we lost Acorn to a rare feline disease shortly after his first birthday. Happily, his brother is now approaching nine years old.

Linus graced our presence next, followed by L.B. Our last rescue, in terms of adding a cat to our own household, was of Alvar, in 2004. But rest assured: The cause endures. There is always a cat on the horizon who needs a permanent home, and there is always a loving person who will rise to the occasion.

Nobody can stop this Cat Lady from matchmaking!

Query of the Day: Where do your cats come from?

Who Dat?

Maybe it’s because I grew up in New Orleans, where the chant of “Who dat?” is sung by all of the fans supporting the New Orleans Saints football team. Or maybe it’s because I think of cats as “fur persons,” as May Sarton once wrote lovingly. I can’t refer to the “cat that”—and certainly never “who dat cat?”— but I always refer to the “cat who” came into my life and succeeded in altering my lifestyle. Make that ten cats who changed my life.

The question of “that” or “who” was played out in e-mail conversations I had in 2006 with Robert Rosenblum, one of the most distinguished art historians ever, period. He was coauthoring an art book titled Best in Show, and the freelance copyeditor persisted in changing every one of Dr. Rosenblum's references from a “dog who” to a “dog that.” Dr. Rosenblum would have none of that and wrote pleadingly to the editor, begging his case. He and I got into all sorts of interesting e-mail exchanges about the anthropomorphizing of animals. When all was said and done, we both agreed that there was no need to apply any convoluted theories to the care of our beloved pets. He loved dogs, and he accepted that I loved cats.

I personally took care of making a global correction in the Best in Show manuscript: every “that” referring to a dog became a “who” again, and I explained to the copyeditor the author’s and my reasons for doing so. I don’t know if she endorsed the fundamental reason behind this sweeping change, but Dr. Rosenblum offered to buy me a year’s supply of cat food to express his gratitude. Now “that” made this editor and Cat Lady very happy.

Query of the Day: Who are your cats?

Baby, It’s Cold Outside

…but my purrsonal space heaters kept me very warm and cozy last night. I’m blogging from Houston, Texas, where the meteorologists are famous for referring to the seasons here as “summer” and “not summer.” Heaps of blankets, six cats, and a husband protected me from the arctic blast. Last night was painful, though, for a different reason. The Texas Longhorns did not win the national championship title game against Alabama’s Crimson Tide.

Yes, this Cat Lady loves sports, and before the dawn of the new millennium, I was a fanatic about football and basketball. The past ten years, however, became the Decade of the Cat.

Our three orange tabbies—Lucius, Leo, and Linus—aka “the Orange Boys,” did everything in their power to cheer the Longhorns (the team that bleeds orange) on to victory. But winning eluded the Longhorns’ grasp. Now, just in case anyone from the great state of Alabama is reading this blog, shame on you for running up the score last night.

Query of the Day: Is there such a thing as “unsportsmanlike conduct” for a Cat Lady?

Crazy or Not?

Editors are often teased for being finicky people. We stare at sentence structures and pick apart phrases. We focus obsessively on word choices. I have thought a good deal about the necessity of using the preposition “for” when lining up the words “crazy” and “cat” and “lady” and then promptly rearranging them.

I like to think I have ladylike manners. It’s true that I have a lot of cats. In fact, one of my ten cats, Lucius, was diagnosed as being a paranoid schizophrenic. Our veterinarian says that he is simply crazy. There has to be a distinction between a crazy cat and a lady who is crazy “for” cats. I adore Lucius “for” all of his idiosyncrasies and mood swings, and mostly for his deep empathy and passion. Had I never met him, now ten years ago, I would have continued on my orderly, well-scripted path of life.

Query of the Day: Are you “for” or “against” the “crazy” terminology when used to describe a cat lady?

Cat Ladies of the World, Unite!

Even though I haven’t lived in New York City for 27 years, I can’t begin a Sunday morning without reading the New York Times. And during the holidays, I caught up with a hefty stack of the Times' newspapers and its magazine sections while surrounded by our six cats. My husband and I also have four other cats, and they enjoy living in our garage apartment.

I love the sheer pleasure of reading, and it’s rare that seeing something in print enrages me. I get angry when I watch TV. But a certain phrase jumped off the magazine page and made me mad: What is the “cat-lady stigma”?!

What does that mean questioned the editor trapped inside a cat-lady’s body? Or is the cat lady trapped inside of the editor’s body?

Anyway, the magazine article was about the well-known cookbook editor and author Judith Jones. You might know her from the delightful film Julie & Julia. In 1960, Ms. Jones gave the green light to a then-unknown author, Julia Child, and her Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Ms. Jones has authored a new cookbook, The Pleasures of Cooking for One. The NY Times writes: “every dish begets several sensual meals, none of which have the cat-lady stigma of single suppers thanks to Jones’s wisdom and gracious cheer.”

I can’t take this sitting down. All of us who are cat ladies know that we can dine out with the best of them. Although a good portion of our lives as cat ladies is devoted to opening cans of wet cat food and digging measuring cups into bags of dry cat food, that doesn’t mean we’re ill at ease eating with human beings. Right?

What's my No. 1 New Year's Resolution?

Cat Ladies of the World, Unite!

Query of the Day: When you eat at home, do you set places for your cats at the kitchen counter or at the dining table?