It's not that I have anything against those crazy cat ladies (and Laurie, if you're reading this, since I've never met you, I have no earthly right to call you crazy, but you do post about your cats a lot and your URL has 'crazy' in it, but I promise I don't mean it in a bad way; I love your cats and you're one funny lady!) but the thought of dedicating a post to the subject of my cat is somewhat... unsettling to me. However, that feeling is apparently not strong enough to prevent me from posting the following:

I have what is perhaps the greatest cat ever created.

There. I'll let that sink in. OK. Are you ready to proceed? Don't be angry. Don't look scornfully at your own cat and ask him/her why he/she couldn't be the greatest cat ever created. It's not his/her fault. It just wasn't in the cards. On the other hand, perhaps you doubt my assertion. Let your skepticism subside before continuing. I know that your cat is special. All cats are special. Really. I'm sure you must be very proud of your dumpy-looking cat. All right, are we ready to move on? Good.

On initially meeting my cat, she will seem perhaps not that extraordinary. She's an American Shorthair tabby (my God, I actually know what breed she is! Do you see what posting about your cat does to you?!). She's not exceptionally fat or exceptionally skinny. She's not overly-affectionate nor overly-aloof. She's not overly-vocal, but she's not afraid to speak her mind. She's also not super-psycho as cats are wont to be. Now I bet a lot of you are wondering just what it is about my cat that makes her The Greatest Cat Ever Created and I'll tell you.

It's her precise balance of all cat attributes that makes her so special. What cat do you know that's a complete balance of all cat behavior? Usually, there's a defining characteristic to a cat so that when you think of the cat you think, "Ah yes, that's Timothy, he's the crazy/lazy/fat/meow-y one." With Bailey (that's my cat's name), you're stuck for a single adjective, you'll start your introduction to her and you'll get to "Ah yes, that's Bailey," and then you'll pause. You'll try out how various adjectives fit with your own mental evaluation of the cat, but none will work properly. You might even begin sweating a little at this point. The pressure will build as your brain scans through all adjectives with increasing speed and anxiety. You'll reach the end of your adjective collection and still you'll be a blank. You'll think to yourself, "I must have simply passed over the correct adjective," so you'll start going through the pool again - this time in alphabetical order. At this point the person to whom you introducing the cat will begin shifting uncomfortably in the long silence that has developed.

Cycle through those adjectives as many times as you'd like, pal. You'll still come up empty and you'll be forced to shake your head in puzzlement and mild shock. Take a seat. You're not the first to fail at describing my cat in a single word.

That's what makes her so spectacular. She's the perfect balance of all cat features. She's warm and fuzzy and purrs when she's happy. She can be frustratingly aloof when you want her attention. She meows at you when you get home and she sleeps by your feet at night. She'll work her way into strange places in your cupboards and she'll stare intensely at blank spots on the wall seemingly expecting them to move suddenly.

So now we come to why I'm posting about my cat (I can't believe I've written more about my cat in this post then I wrote about my fiancée in my last post). Her favorite activity is sitting on her cat tree and staring out the glass patio door at the birds and squirrels. This can be quite amusing. You see, we happen to live in a wooded sort of apartment complex and there's a lot of interesting animals to capture my cat's attention. When she sees an animal that she finds particularly interesting, she makes this strange chirping noise. The intensity of her gaze coupled with the chirping never ceases to make us (my fiancée and me) giggle. This is what my cat looks like and what I imagine she thinks when a squirrel climbs down to our veranda:

As you can see in this picture, my cat is intent on actually getting to and devouring the squirrel that's out on the balcony. The squirrel is of course well aware that my cat is watching it and takes great enjoyment in my cat's muffled war chirps because it also knows that there's a panel of 1/4-inch thick glass between it and my cat. Because it knows this, it scampers about on our porch quite leisurely. I think I even saw it make a rude gesture at Bailey once, which caused poor Bailey to leap from her cat tree into the glass door in an attempt to wipe that smug little grin off that rodent's face.

For those of you who don't know what Bailey looks like from the front, this is her:

Here, she's waiting rather impatiently for me to put the fucking camera down so she can get a goddamn drink of water over here, Dad! She refuses to drink from her water bowl, so the only way for us to keep her hydrated is to let her drink from either the faucet in the bathroom sink or the faucet in the bathtub.

And at this point, I’d just like to admit the fact that I too am a crazy cat lady. I may not have the uterus, but I’m definitely one in spirit.

I need to go love on The Greatest Cat Ever Created now. Please excuse me.