My Muse — Er, Mews !! Introducing Charli

Introducing my “Mews” Charli.

 

Lots of writers claim to have a Muse who helps inspire them. I have one, too.

 

But now I have an additional “mews” who is giving my ethereal Muse a run for the  money.

 

Her name is Charli.  (Yeah, probably because of the Chaplinesque mustache; she came to me already named.)

 

She was a real psycho at first. I thought I was going to have to find her another home. She would not shut up; she was stressed out and yowl-y to the max. She also dumped a load of kitty poop every single time she saw another cat in the house, wherever she was: standing, sitting or crouching.

 

Of course, she was younger then–smaller, and she’d been an only cat, so coming here was definitely culture shock for her.

 

After the first few days, she began to settle down in the bedroom. But it took her more than two months to get over being scared s**tless by my other cats. I didn’t punish her for losing her stuffing; that would have made it worse. (In fact, I never punish cats. That’s the way to create real problems. They expect to be treated as equals.)

 

About a week ago she started to mew and paw at the bedroom door, indicating she was ready to explore the world outside the bedroom, so I cracked the door open a tad and let her adapt herself to life outside it.

 

She came and went, gingerly, rushing back inside the bedroom whenever she saw  Patches (at first), my other female cat. She finds Mr. Hunter (my neutered male) intriguing and much less daunting, and she wants to be friends with him, but he isn’t really into it, yet.  He’s a gentleman and is not in any way rude to her; he just kind of ignores her; if she comes close, he  wanders away.

 

sign on the door of my den

 

Within a day or so, she discovered my den, the room closest to the bedroom. It’s my workroom, where I make money stringing words together. For the past several days she has parked herself atop my writing chair (or on the windowsill, or in front of me between my face and the keyboard) where she “helps” me do whatever it it she thinks I’m doing (or whatever she thinks I should be doing, which usually includes interacting with her.)

 

If I ignore her for what she considers “too long,” she sits up behind me on the chair, leans forward and bites the top of my head… hard!

 

Naturally, I do NOT reward her for this behavior.  I tell her no and put her on the floor.

 

As long as she remains nice, I reward her briefly with petting or kissy-face… and then I put her back on the floor and get back to work.

 

Putting her down four or five times in a row usually convinces her I’m seriously committed to getting my work done, so she settles down for  a nap…on  the back of my chair.

 

sacked out…

 

It’s nice having her around. She’s my bed partner, too… and yes, Patches is pretty put out about that, but until they come to some kind of reciprocal agreement to stop screaming at each other in the same room in the dead of night, that’s the way it’s going to be.

 

They have stand-offs outside the bedroom that are getting less mean-spirited, now that  Charli is big enough to stand up for herself. They’ll sit several feet apart from each other and stare each other down. When that doesn’t work, they both fall asleep in the same positions.

 

It’s a start.

 

At some point, I expect them to co-habit–not necessarily as best of friends, but as noncombatants who realize they’re both here to stay, so they’d  better get used to it.

 

I think Charli and Mr. Hunter will end up being friends, though. She’s certainly amenable and he’s thinking about it…

 

Well, back to work… if I can get Charli to agree to it, of course!  (Blogging for you isn’t work. It’s my play time; my “break.”  I take a break from writing by … writing!!! Or reading. Or napping. Or hanging with my goats…)

 

 

(This post should probably have gone into my KrisandKritters.com site, but what the heck. Let’s mix things up a little!!!) If you want to read more critter stories from me, check out that site!