Carrie

Carrie is a very strange cat. She seems to have an inordinate number of quirky behaviors. I know a little bit about her life before she came to live with us at around four years of age. Before she lived with us, she lived with Hunter. Before him, she was bounced around to various members of his family (grandma, an uncle, another uncle?—it gets a little confusing). She had at least one litter of kittens before she was spayed, possibly more. She was declawed by someone before she came to us. Her vocalizations are very unique and none of them sound much like normal cat noises. She has a variety of cute little sounds she makes, though. Hunter told us that she used to be able to purr and meow normally, but something was damaged in one of her surgeries (declawing?, spaying?). I’m guessing something in her throat was damaged by a tube maybe? Instead of a purr, she makes more of a clicking noise, kind of like she’s going to purr, but her little engine won’t quite turn over. I love her strange little clicks and squeaks!

When we first got her, I thought her name was very odd for a cat. She knew her name very well, though, so I wouldn’t change it. I still think it’s a strange cat name, but now I’m happy about the name. Since my friend Carrie died last year, I’ve enjoyed thinking of her several times a day, whenever I say my Carrie-cat’s name. Though the cat wasn’t named after her, it has become a pleasant reminder for me.

She eats very little human food and isn’t as pushy of a beggar as some of the cats are. She will turn down almost any food offered to her. She does have one strange food pleasure. She LOVES to lick empty plates. She waits for me to finish all the food on my plate and then begs to lick the plate. She’s the only cat in the house who does that.

She starts off her night sleeping on either my or M’s chest. She used to then migrate up to her pillow throne (we have a pile of pillows between mine and M’s, and that used to be her sleeping spot. More often than not though lately, she’s been sliding up to my pillow and somehow gradually edges me off of it, so that I wake with her on my pillow and my head scooted of the pillow and onto the mattress.

Carrie has been driving me nuts at night over the last couple of weeks. She wakes me up several times a night, scratching at the blanket right near my face. She loves to go under the covers, but she doesn't like the covers touching her ears. She wants me to lift the covers for her, so she can go under, but I have to hold them up so they don't touch her ears, making a little tent for her. If I get tired and start to fall asleep and drop the blanket, she scratches at me until I lift it up again.

My favorite Carrie quirk, which I haven't yet been lucky enough to catch a picture of, is the way she pees. The litterbox she uses has tall sides but no cover. She goes into her box, puts her front feet up on the tall side of it so she's in a standing position, then she pees. It's not because she's avoiding nasty things in the box--she will do it in a perfectly clean, fresh box. She then turns and scratches to cover it, as most cats do. It makes me laugh every single time I see it! Someday I'll get a picture of it. I'm determined.