Owned by a cat

Like most people with cats, we don't really own Emy, we are owned by her.

Most people would not have taken on the task of taming a feral cat that had lived out in a park for the first 1 1/2 years of her life. She's been with us for the last 1 1/2 years (she'll be 3 next month) and you wouldn't necessarily know that she started life as a feral. Emy's very friendly with us - loves to play, doesn't mind being picked up and cuddled a little bit - but she's invisible when strangers are around and she's not a lap cat.

Last night I had turned on a movie and was getting ready to ply some yarn for my installment jacket when I looked around and saw Emy huddled on the couch. She usually doesn't get up there unless one of us is there too. I sat down on the edge of the couch, picked her up and put her on my lap. Her head immediately tucked under my arm. I pet her and she purred but otherwise stayed huddled up.

About 45 minutes later, DH came home from playing chess with a friend and she was still on my lap, although by this time she had curled into a ball with her chin pointing up at me. When DH saw her peacefully sleeping on my lap he disappeared into the bedroom so he wouldn't disturb her. Near the end of the movie, he came out and sat on the couch with me. By then, she was stretched out on my lap, with her rear end hanging off my knees (she was only staying on because my arm was supporting that part of her).

After a total of 1 1/2 hours, she casually got up, stretched, and jumped down. By then, my left heel had gone numb and my right arm was shaking from holding up a fluffy cat rump.

Now, most people (non-cat people, anyway) would have felt that that was a waste of an evening. Both my DH and myself feel ourselves lucky when Emy deigns to treat us like mattresses. She's gone from a terrified, sick, underweight feral kitty to a relaxed housecat. Since she is feline leukemia positive, we live with the very strong possibility that we may not have the joy of having her in our lives for very long.

BTW - if you are interested in taming feral cats, this is an excellent book on the subject. We didn't get the book until late in the process, but we were doing almost the same things she talks about anyway. We were fortunate that Emy had had some human contact. There was (and is) someone taking care of the feral colony - feeding them and getting as many of them as possible spayed, neutered and vaccinated, and capturing and placing the kittens. We are the only ones I know of to take on one of the adults - most of them are totally untouchable.

Here's a semi-current picture of Emy - we'd have taken a picture of her in my lap but that might of disturbed her.

Knitting content will resume next week - we're going to see my violin instructor perform in a musical this weekend. Hopefully, much knitting (and maybe spinning) will take place also.

In answer to sillyewe's question about my violin playing - I don't perform anywhere, although I was in an ensemble for awhile (mostly for our own enjoyment). I'd love to know which orchestra you play your oboe in, though! Us Dallas knitting musicians must stick together!