Heeeere Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty

I will be writing a bit on Liza Bean Bitey tonight, and it occurred to me that because it's been a while, and because there are new readers, the cat may be unknown to some.  

For your reading pleasure:  Liza Bean Bitey, The Beginning...

People say to me, Pearl, they say, you're not really what I think of when I think of people who talk about their cats. You don’t have anything cat related on the walls, you don’t have any items of clothing with pictures of cats on them, you don’t dress said cats...

That's not true, I say. I dress them.

Just not against their will.

Several years ago, my mother had called to say that she had the perfect cat for me.

I pointed out to her that I didn’t need a cat.

“You don’t need a cat, you need this cat,” she said.

And two weeks later, there she was:  Miss Personality, a 12-week-old bundle of tiger-striped love. “Me! Me!” she said.

Liza Bean Bitey is an attractive cat; a tidy, small-pawed cat; one of those tail-held-high, mischievous, string-chasing, straw-fetching, lap-invading cats that makes you think, Hey, I should get a cat.

It would not be revealed for quite some time that her "kittenhood" was a ruse, that Miz Liza Bean Bitey, of the Minneapolis Biteys, was a master of disguises. Fluent in several languages, wanted on espionage charges in Bulgaria, an in-demand studio musician, and one-time possessor of a piece of the True Cross, Liza Bean had us fooled.

In other words, for a year, all was well.

And that was when we decided that Liza Bean Bitey needed a companion.

Dolly G. Squeakers (aka Salvatore Dolly, aka Here-Kitty-Kitty-Kitty, aka No-Kitty-No!!) had been at the Humane Society for less than four days. A gorgeous, long-haired, Siamese mix, she appeared to be about the same age as Liza Bean.

“We don’t know much about her, of course,” the woman at “check-out” told us. “It does appear that she’s got a touch of gingivitis going on...”

Say no more, my good woman. What’s a little gum inflammation between friends?

In the beginning, we kept the two apart; and in that time Dolly put on quite a bit of weight, although how she did it with four teeth is a mystery. While there is nothing inherently funny about gingivitis – and I think my dentist will back me on this – there is something very funny about watching a cat pick out one piece of kibble at a time and chew it thoughtfully on the side of her mouth with the most teeth.

Her lack of teeth was also evident when she spoke. Dolly had been through a lot, apparently, and had plenty to say about it. She meowed in a questioning tone often, her brilliantly blue and slightly crossed eyes trained on your face, her little black lips coming apart to reveal pink gums, a tooth here and there.

And so when the day finally came to introduce the two cats, we were shocked that the “playfulness” exhibited by their reaching under doors to paw at each other turned out actually to be a testing, on their parts, for weaknesses.

Their intent, upon first meeting? Murder.

Over the next couple weeks, Willie and I kept them apart during work hours, determined that their reunions would be under careful supervision; and while there were no further “incidents” of a violent-kitty nature, we had to admit that perhaps we’d made a mistake in bringing home another cat.

“Call your mother,” Willie said.

And so I called her, told her what was going on, told her everything I could think of about Dolly, asked her if she’d consider taking her in. She said she’d think about it and get back to me.

A day later, she called me back.

“Pearl?” she said. From the sound of my father’s muffled laughter in the background and the barely-contained chuckling from my mother, I knew it was not going to be the outcome I had hoped for.

She cleared her throat.

“Upon reflection, your father and I must decline the opportunity to adopt your cross-eyed, toothless, and possibly mentally retarded cat,” she deadpanned. “But we do thank you for thinking of us and hope that you will call us with future offers.”

Dagnabit.

Eventually there was an end to the war-like hostility between the cats. Tins of tuna were shared, water drunk from the tap, paws extended in the name of peace; and while it is true that Dolly Gee sometimes still childishly orders pizzas delivered to the house in Liza Bean’s name, Liza Bean no longer contacts Immigration with concerns regarding Dolly’s citizenship.

And for creatures who share a smallish living area, that’s not bad.