Cat World

It's the first day of spring - the vernal equinox.  Day and night are of the exact same length, balanced, in equipoise.  The equinox holds the promise of warmer temperatures and better times ahead.

To be frank, winter 2020 sucked.  It started here in Georgia with incessant, non-stop rain, the ceiling started leaking and I had to replace my roof, and then the CV pandemic kicked in and the economy crashed.  Other than that, though, it's been a delightful winter.

But I don't want to bellyache about the rain or the flu today.  Locked up as I am in "social distancing" self-quarantine, I'm reminded that although I think that this pile of bricks on a hill is my home, I'm reminded during this self-imposed isolation that it's really Cat World and I'm just living in it.

My two companions during this quarantine are two cats and as I watch them, I realize that they aren't concerned at all about the rain outside or the cost of a roof replacement (although the noise of the roof replacement was a pretty big deal to them).  They're blissfully ignorant of the Trump Flu pandemic.

But there are things going on in Cat World that I can barely comprehend.  For several months now, one cat, Izzy, would not go into my bedroom no matter what.  Sometimes, if he wanted something while I was in there, he would sit and wait patiently at the door for me, but he wouldn't come in.  The other cat, Eliot, had no problem with entering the bedroom - in fact, at nights I have to close the door to keep him out.  

But for some reason, there was some Cat World rule that Eliot and Eliot only could enter the bedroom, but Izzy was forbidden.  I have no idea why.  If I picked Izzy up and carried him into the bedroom, he wouldn't freak out or protest, but as soon as I put him down and let him go, he would dart right out.

And then the roof replacement started.  The noise, the strange human voices, and pounding and the thumping on the roof, terrorized the cats.  Eliot put up with it but was clearly distressed and unhappy, but Izzy would have nothing to do with it.  He darted for cover, first behind the sofa and then, as a refuge of last resort, into the bedroom and under the bed.

It took a roof replacement to get him in there, but once there, he apparently realized that whatever it was that had made him stay out wasn't such a big deal after all - there was no boogy-dog in the closet waiting to eat him.  He finally came out from under the bed after the roofers left, but ever since then, he's had no fear of entering the bedroom any more.  He now comes in every morning when I get up and open the door, and he's even spent some sleepy afternoons on the bed.

That's  just one example of Cat World rules and issues that I don't comprehend.  But here comes the biggie.  

As everyone knows, with the panic buying over covid-19, the supermarkets have been stripped clean, especially of toilet paper.  I didn't hoard - I didn't get the chance to, the stock was already gone before it even occurred to me - but I was reasonably well set with at least a six- to eight-week supply, maybe longer, already in place.

Enter Cat World.  This being the absolute worse time they could have gotten it into their heads, one of the cats (I suspect Izzy - it's so like him to do something like this), figured out how to open the cabinet beneath the bathroom sink and discovered my TP supply.  Examining the goods, he also discovered the joy of shredding the  toilet paper, and he completely destroyed at least a half-dozen rolls of precious, irreplaceable  toilet paper.  I didn't even realize this had happened until I reached into the cabinet for a replacement roll and found instead a big huge pile of shredded paper.  

Normally, it wouldn't be that big a deal - they've shredded far worse (like my $4,000 Pottery Barn sofa).  But of all the times for the cats to decide that toilet paper might make a good toy with which to sharpen their claws, why now, when replacement stocks are probably a good four weeks off?

Despite their best intentions, I still have enough rolls to last me (and only me) through a 14- to 21-day quarantine, but after that, I'll have to use Kleenex tissues.  When that runs out, strips of magazine paper (where are newspapers when you need them?).  

If that doesn't work, I swear to god, I'm going to use a 14-pound grey-and-white cat to wipe my butt.