Cat Kisses

I realized a bit ago, that Cat really hasn’t had a lot of instruction on how to cat to humans. I say this bc I was quite unwell while I had all the cats and really didn’t interact or play much bc I knew they had each other. I made sure they were eating and healthy and doing normal cat things, and of course I played with them when I could, and we all cuddled and they loved to be near me. But that was mostly at first, when they were less than six months.

I went into a deep depression in 2018, and, in fact (this doesn’t seem possible), I refer to 2018 as The Bad Year and it gets that distinction above everything else, bc it really was that bad.

Those cats were literally the only things that saved my life countless times. It wasn’t bc I loved them. It was bc the logistics didn’t work.

I knew they wouldn’t starve bc at that time my neighbour and I were mostly friendly, and even though part of this time, we were not speaking, eventually, they would either check on me, or have someone else do it. Besides, the cats would meow once they’d eaten everything that could be eaten (yes ew), and they would check that for sure.

Some days all I could do was get up, feed and water the cats, and that was it. I left them alone to cat a LOT. Also, I knew they were going to be rehomed, so it took the pressure off feeling like I was the only source for them learning that. And they really were fine.

So when I put all these pieces together, I realized that Cat never really saw me interact one on one with a cat. I also had a lot of rules then. Like my door was closed every night otherwise I’d have tiny razor needles (four sets of four) attacking/playing with my feet all night, and one night I kicked one by accident! Also, they weren’t allowed on my bed bc otherwise I would drown in cat hair.

The one thing she did learn, though, was how to smile. Her mom (Arla) taught her that bc she would do it with me. But Arla would grin, it was hilarious (every now and then Cat grins, it’s the best).

So I was still in a depressive state by the time all the other cats were gone and it was just me and her. So we kind of kept to ourselves for a while. Once I came to my senses, I realized I was emotionally starving her, and I grew back some needed empathy. I’ve promised her I’ll make it up to/better for her for the rest of her life. She is spoiled.

All this to say… I know Cat hasn’t learned much from anyone on how to cat to a human, so we’ve been learning together really recently. I’ve been teaching her how to kiss, bc she doesn’t do cat kisses. Nobody showed her how. And so I’ve been dramatically making kissy noises and over time, putting my face closer and closer to hers. She lets me kiss her now, which is super nice of her, since she wouldn’t have anything to do with my face near hers at first!

But she won’t kiss back like cats do. And I mean, it’s disappointing, as a cat owner, I’m not gonna lie… I want cat kisses! 😤

So, tonight, I went to give her kisses, and she was all weird like she is, but she sniffed back, and as I pulled away I made a kiss noise like I have been for months now. She looked right at me, did a weird mouth thing that, in the moment, made me think, Wtf is she doing?! Bc it wasn’t a yawn or any other normal cat mouth thing she does… and, almost imperceptibly, but very distinctly, she mimicked the exact same noise back.

WHAT. JUST. HAPPENED.

!!!!!!!!!

I mean, that’s way cooler than her doing the regular cat kisses and I’m 1000000% ok with it

Now to test if it really was on purpose…