The Animal Meme

This time I couldn’t resist snagging an animal meme from bookeywookey. I don’t normally do this much memeing, but I’m too tired to think of anything more interesting this week.

An interesting animal I had:

My first pet was a gerbil, and I had two cats growing up. Hands-down, though, the most interesting animals have been our two current cats, both Cornish Rexes. We got them because neither of us reacts nearly as strongly to them as to normal cats. We read up on them first, though, so we knew they were a bit… different… than other cats. They’re very chatty, for one, and extremely high-energy. (Someone remind me not to get Rexes when I’m old, okay? I’d never be able to keep up.) They both have allergies, unfortunately, and one of them has asthma. They’re just the most affectionate cats I’ve ever met, though, and incredibly clever, if not always so bright.

One of my favorite cleverness stories regarding our cats: They were still kittens, and we’d just gotten them fixed. Of course this was a lot harder on Selene than Cahlash since it’s a much more invasive surgery for girls. We were keeping the two of them confined to our room until they healed up a little so they didn’t rip their stitches or anything. Selene was curled up on my husband’s lap and clearly just wanted to rest, but Cahlash apparently had a lot of pent-up energy from being cooped up at the vet’s. Well, he kept trying to pounce on her, and we kept pulling him off of her. Being the clever girl that she is (she’s more clever than her brother), she took a half-hearted swipe at his butt and watched carefully as we pulled him off of her again when he tried to retaliate. Then she hauled off and—WHACK!—swatted his ass hard! That’s when we realized we were going to have to separate them for the duration.

And yes, this is typical of their antics!

An interesting animal I ate:

I’ve had bison, ostrich, escargot, squid, octopus… I’ve had many of the weird things that you can at least get in relatively normal US markets or restaurants. When I visited New Orleans years ago with my then-fiancee (now husband), we went to a wonderful restaurant where we had, among other things, rabbit and, if I recall correctly, alligator. The manager at some point passed our table and commented with a grin, “we’re having all the fuzzy little animals tonight, aren’t we?” We loved that place.

An interesting animal you’ve seen in the Museum, library, or its natural habitat:

I love cheetahs, and got to watch some at the Smithsonian zoo not too long ago.

An interesting thing I did with or to an animal:

Now there’s an odd question! I suppose the closest thing I can think of is the way our cats deliberately teach us little games. Like, sometimes Cahlash races my husband to the bathroom in the morning—over and over, getting carried back out again each time, until either Jeffrey wins or Cahlash’s attention wanders. Selene, on the other hand, has taught me her own morning ritual. She sits on my right knee while I eat breakfast, and then almost always wants to be held on my left shoulder and cuddled. When I pick her up from my knee she’ll start turning her body in that direction to make it easier for me.

a favorite literary animal (that can be a literary character or a whole piece about an animal):

Darn it, that’s three mentions in two weeks of How it was with Dooms! If this doesn’t get people reading that, nothing will. 😉

I also love Moggett the cat in Garth Nix’s Abhorsen trilogy. While he does provide some amount of comic relief, he’s also kind of scary at times, so he isn’t your stereotypical YA fiction animal.

Anyway, Jeffrey’s coming back from yet another week of business travel this afternoon, and then it’s off to figure out how to eat almost-no-fat for a week (and apparently in the 24 hours before the ultrasound I have to eat entirely fat-free, joy) without going crazy. This turns out to be a great time to have a review copy of Tosca Reno’s The Eat-Clean Diet.

I’m almost as stubborn as my cat