The Grand Duchess Abigail Abramova: Royalty in the Personage of a New Cat Deigns To Appear in Our Humble Home
As readers of this blog may know, my husband David and I
have two cats: Mama and Barney, both rescued from the wild, and each with
amazing stories—for example, Mama Cat once saved my life, no exaggeration [see
Related Posts below]. Neither one of us
had had much experience with cats in our earlier lives, but we’ve learned
fast. Mama and Barney have been with me
since shortly after my heart transplant in 2009, and David and I have been
living with them together for over three years.
 |
| Barney, Mama, squirrel |
Mama is scary smart (we have to spell words like “food” in front of her,
and we suspect she’s beginning to figure that out) and Barney, though small of
brains, is very lovable. He adores us
both, but particularly David, who’s patsy enough to succumb to Barney’s loving bats
on the nose each morning around sun-up when David, laughing, rises to feed the
cats.
Our happy home life changed dramatically last fall when I viewed
a Facebook feed in which a kindly woman explained that you should always have three cats. The reason was that if one dies the survivors
can comfort one another if there are two, but the survivor will suffer in solo
grief if only one is left. This led me
to propose to David, who (admittedly) was dubious, that we should acquire
another cat, so we soon went to Colony Cats (a rescue operation near us, where
I had acquired Barney in 2010), and, after various maneuvers, purchased a very
black female cat with very soft fur who came to us already answering to the
name of “Abby.” She’d been owned by
little old lady who’d had to enter a nursing home and, sadly, give Abby up for
possible adoption.
Abby’s label on her cage said that she was “Scared of dogs,
but good with other cats.” I don’t know
the truth of the dogs part, but she hissed at poor Mama and Barney from the
first moments last October when she arrived until this very morning.
In truth, it seems there’s been a mistake. Abby is, alas, not an ordinary cat. Oh, no.
She is in fact the Grand Duchess Abigail
Abramova, Russian royalty mysteriously transported to Columbus, Ohio, and
forced to battle impossible surroundings, not at all like the palace of her
native land.
Barney, ever a go-along-get-along
sort of guy, isn’t much of a problem, and the Grand Duchess dismisses him with
a flick of her tail, so he (usually) cowers appropriately if she deigns to give
him a minor snarl. The bane of her life,
and a major problem, is the other female, the hated “Mama,” who presumes—get
this— to rule this household,
inexplicably incapable of understanding her humble place in life. This has led, appallingly from Abby’s point
of view, to two declawed cats rolling in fierce battle across the floor while
bigger mammals jump about, yelling at them to break it up, damn it!
 |
| Mama and Abby in Peaceful Moment |
After a couple of months of this,
a silent peace treaty between the females has been dickered. In truth, lately these battles seem more like
play than serious combat. At meals Mama
and Abby are, happily, “sisters” begging the big mammals (usually David) to
feed them, and both are as cute as kittens while achieving this mutual (and
damned important) goal. But, as Oscar
Wilde observed in his comedy “The Importance of Being Earnest,” women only call
each other “sister” after they’ve called each other a number of other names
first. For the rest of the time they ignore
each other, with minimal growls, bored with the conflict and willing to settle
for something like a peace treaty.
 |
| Supper Time for Mama, Abby, Barney (at bottom) |
As for Abby’s relationship with
the humans, it’s been very much like that of any Grand Duchess forced into
contact with the lower classes (“Don’t know you, don’t know you, don’t know you”). David’s birthday is in late December so I presented
him cards from each of the cats. Mama
compared him to capnip in her affections, and Barney confessed that he couldn’t
remember David’s name but nonetheless adored him with all his heart. Abby’s card was much darker. It was black themed, and was addressed to “Peasant Number One.” [I am Peasant Number Two.] It assured him that when he stopped feeding
her he would die.
Ah, but I have discovered another
side to the Grand Duchess Abigail Abramova [David’s name for her].
Here I have to brag. I’ve always had some talent at getting into
the brains of those I deal with, which had made me a successful teacher, and
helped with things like acting, playing bridge, hosting parties, having
conversations, and even more intimate matters [see my blog post “Good Sex, Bad
Sex: Advice on Making Love; http://douglaswhaley.blogspot.com/2011/11/good-sex-bad-sex-advice-on-making-love.html]. When petting cats I try to view the activity from
the cat’s point of view, and I enjoy
exploring what can happen after a cat first trusts you and then lets you pet him/her
in ways no one else ever has done (such as slowly touching the inner ear, or gathering
up the neck by the scruff the way mothers carry kittens, or slowly massaging
their paws). I experimented first on
Mama, and she loved it, and so did Barney, so I tried it on Abby and was very
surprised.
She’s a slut.
Okay, at first Her Highness felt very
uncomfortable in letting an unwashed peasant touch her, but (it must be
confessed) she did miss the gentle petting the little old lady gave her, so she
reluctantly endured my advances. After
days of the usual sort of petting, Abby was surprised by what it feels like to
have a human just barely touch your body when you want more, and then to feel a
strong touch, and then a finger moving all around your ear, and then grabbing
your neck by the scruff, and well . . . eventually even a royal cat just has to
give in and expose her belly to rubbing, while purring for more. Lady Chatterley had a good time with that gardener.
And thus it came to be that the
Grand Duchess Abigail Abramova has become a gentler cat, and a much happier
member of our family. She’s had to give
up some of her royal demeanor, but we’ve introduced her to other delights:
exploration of the garage, the mysterious red dot that bounces all around the
room, and more, particularly catnip, which turns her into a kitten.
Below is a photo of all three cats
asleep on the bed.
We are a family again at last, and we have royalty in our midst.
 |
| David and the Grand Duchess |
--------------------------------
Related Posts:
“A Guide to the Best of My Blog,” April
29, 2013; http://douglaswhaley.blogspot.com/2013/04/a-guide-to-best-of-my-blog.html
“How To Impress People In a
Conversation,” October 10, 2010; http://douglaswhaley.blogspot.com/2010/10/how-to-impress-people-in-conversation.html
"Teaching English to
Cats," August 6, 2010;http://douglaswhaley.blogspot.com/2010/08/teaching-english-to-cats.html
"Two Cat Stories: Mama and Barney in the Wild," July 9, 2011; http://douglaswhaley.blogspot.com/2011/07/two-cat-stories-mama-and-barney-in-wild.html
“Mama Cat Saves My Life,”
October 23, 2011; http://douglaswhaley.blogspot.com/2011/10/mama-cat-saves-my-life.html
"Stepping on Cats," February 8, 2012; http://douglaswhaley.blogspot.com/2012/02/stepping-on-cats.html
“Barney and the Big
Mammal Nightmare,” January 7, 2013; http://douglaswhaley.blogspot.com/2013/01/barney-cat-and-big-mammal-nightmare.html
“Some Lottery
Winners Score $400 Million”—An April Fool’s Day Joke," April 11, 2014;
http://douglaswhaley.blogspot.com/2014/04/some-lottery-winners-score-400.html
http://douglaswhaley.blogspot.com/2014/04/some-lottery-winners-score-400.html
Comments
Post a Comment