Bridget Callahan is Your Best Friend

Alright, lets start at the beginning...my cat. She's obviously my lifeline, so why not the beginning too? Long time readers and also anybody who knew me last winter, will remember the drama of "why won't my cat clean her ass and why does she insist on scraping it on every fabric covered surface in my apartment?". Well, that's died down a little now, thought not completely. Only when I forget to clean her litter box. However, Eddy never used to do that.

I got Eddy when I moved into an apartment in Duck Island, a silly tiny efficiency with painted shut windows and no room for a proper fridge. Peter died that winter, on Christmas, so I was going to bar by myself quite a bit. One night I went to Edison's, and that chubby blonde girl was working there. Anyone remember her? She had really curly blonde hair and enormous breasts and was quite short and not very cool at all. She collected stray cats from Tremont. So when this little kitten ran in from the snow and hid under the stairs, she wouldn't just throw the poor thing out. She said "I'll buy free drinks for whoever will take it" and so I did. I walked down to the cornerstore and bought a foil pan for a litter box and some cat food, then ripped the cat from under the stairs and took her home. She definitely did not want to go. Just think, if I hadn't taken her, Eddy might be a Edison's bar cat right now. She might be hiding under the steps mewling during Open Mike. She might have been killed by an errant dart.

So I drove her home and yes, she pooped all over the back of the car, and all over me as I walked her up. Which is why I know now that you should never feed stray kittens milk. She hid under the bathtub for a long time. I decided that I would make a practice of taking her to bed with me every night, so she'd be used to it. She has never gotten used to it. I bought her toys and tried to play with her. She stared at me, but then started a lifelong love affair with the chain from the bathtub drain. I used to sit in the bathtub with my knees up and she would sit on them.

Eddy has lived in multiple places. With other cats. With dogs. With people she doesn't like. She was okay at David's, but not happy, being stuck in the attic the whole time. Oh my god, have I always lived in attics? She was happy at my parent's house, she got to roam outside and sleep with my mom. But she ran away for a week then, and when she came back her tail was a bloody mess, she was pregnant, and she had no more interest in going outside. She had one kitten from that litter, the rest were stillborn. And it was a happy little kitten, and we gave it away. Then she got pregnant again, before we fixed her. We didn't know at the time, but when my mother took her to get fixed, she had a whole litter almost born. Mom insisted on aborting them, and we lived with Mom, so we didn't really have a choice. She took her to this dingy yellow house on 65th with dirty siding where The Man did cheap surgery on feral cats for cheap. Leaving her there overnight was the hardest thing. So Eddy has lost babies to the cruel structure of society. Her stomach has never recovered, its still saggy and waddly. I'm not completely convinced that there isn't cotton wadding or calcified kitten corpses still in her gut. When she sees kittens, she tried to kill them. Literally. She's a psychopath.

We moved in with other cats, in other apartments, and she seemed okay. There was living with Rob for a brief second and his cat. Then I went to my job interview and the bar downstairs caught fire. I came back to find Eddy in a carrier case, and we had to go track down Rob's poor kitty in the next door apartment. So she's been in a fire too.

Back she went to Mom's house, while I crashed at Buddy's, and I didn't have her for almost a whole year. Then we moved in with Sean. And Eddy really loved Sean, he rubbed her belly in the way only he could, because he has much bigger hands than I do. But then the butt scooting started, and other things happened, and we moved out again.


So now Eddy and I are all alone. I keep thinking about getting another cat, to keep her company. Because I'm not home half the time, and she's all alone. But I think she prefers to have me to herself, and also, she might kill it. When Sean comes over, she won't go to him now usually, as if she's afraid he's going to move back in and take my attention away. Every morning she wakes me up by shifting her 13 pounds onto my hipbone violently, and when that doesn't work, she paws me in the lip. Recently she decided that she only eats fancy feast, and when the litter box is not cleaned, she tips it over. I got a laser pointer recently, and she watches it very intently, with no intention of moving.

Things she has killed:

The mice in the stove
A bat she left by my bed
Multiple birds
2 large spiders
A purple feather

She still gets a little upset if I don't pick her up when I come home. And she freaks out when there's no food. And she freaks out about going on the porch, because if I shut the door, you know I might not let her back in. My cat and I are extremely similar.

What does it mean that I now rely on my cat for survival? Does it mean I really ought to have a child instead? :) Or does it signify my full fledged entry in Cat Lady-dom? I've been planning on getting a dog when she finally kicks it for years, but knowing her, she'll live forever. Is my cat fucked up because I'm fucked up, or because I suck at cleaning litterboxes? Does she come over to be with me when I'm crying because she cares, or because she likes licking the salt? How long could Eddy survive by gnawing on my corpse?