Who Makes You Happy?

I've been thinking for a lot since I read Jen's assignment about who or what makes me happy. So, I've decided to write about my cat Chris.

At my house, I have three cats, Leo, Jack, and Chris and one dog named Sasha. Now I love all my animals, but I would have to say that out of all of my cats though, Chris is my favorite.

We originally fostered Jack and Chris. They came to our house at about 3-4 weeks old with their mother, Angel, and five more brothers and they all came with respiratory infections. We had to give them all this pink medicine that got all over them. Then the stuff usually stuck on their faces because they didn't know how to clean themselves and Angel had her paws full with seven rambuncious little buggers running around my parents bathroom. Sometimes we actually had to wash them in the sink because they were covered in feces and medicine. Eventually at about 7-8 weeks old we had to give up our little buddies. But little did we know that we were going to end up taking Jack and Chris back.

Around the very last few days of October 2004, my mom, my brother, and I decided to adopt Chris and Jack. For months after returning them and their family to the shelter that we fostered from, my mom and I visited them almost every Monday after my piano lessons. Eventually it was down to those two and they kept being passed up because they caught feline herpes from the kittens in the cage next to them and that Jack has a bad eye. Unlike the kind of herpes people can receive from others, feline herpes is actually a kind of viral disease that just never goes away. With symptoms like coughing and sneezing to corneal ulceration, it was easy to see that my cats were "damaged goods". Fed up with the lack of treatment and the "unadoptablility" of our foster babies, my mom decided to adopt Jack and Chris as a late college graduation gift to my brother.

Though I love all my cats, Chris would have to be my favorite, you see Chris was very shy and not very social with humans, he didn't like to be petted and hated to be picked up. Then there is the fact that he's sort of the black sheep of the family. He is the cat that receives the most grief from our dog Sasha, whenever he's on my bed and our oldest cat Leo gets up there too, Leo jumps off almost immediatly, just because Chris is there. Even his own blood brother Jack gives him a hard time sometimes, once while talking on the phone with my brother, Chris came over and sat down in front of me and Jack came up behind him and just randomly bit the back of his neck as hard as he could and made Chris cry out. I have no idea why that even happened, it just did. So, you can see that Chris gets most of the grief from the animal part of our family. But we soon discovered that our little black sheep loves to be scratched and likes it even better to be brushed. It's one of his favorite things in the whole wide world.

Why might this little cat be my favorite? I guess it might be because he's sort of the underdog of our animals. Or the fact that he's probably the cutest cat in the world and our other animals are just jealous of him. (He's like that guy that is so good looking that no matter how awkward the angle, he still looks good.) But I guess one of the reasons why he's my favorite cat is because I'm his favorite person. I know that sounds kind of pompous, but it's true.

While most of the animals that reside in my house really like my mom the most, Chris for some reason likes me best. Everyday he spends most of his day lying at the foot of my bed sleeping and at night he snuggles up aganist my feet. Sometimes he will try to snuggle aganist my stomach, but it's mostly my feet and shins. When I come home from school he usually gets on the island in my kitchen and does a little head bob to get my attention so I'll scratch his head. Usually when I watch T.V. he sits somewhere in the room, like on the other side of the couch or on the floor somewhere. I know it's not very obvious, but he doesn't really do this for anyone else, even my mom.

Chris even comes when he's called, occasionally. One time I was just sitting on the couch and did my little Chris call, "Chris Chris Chris" and after a second or two, I was met with silence so I went back to what I was doing and a minute or two later, Chris was walking pretty quickly towards me.

My little cat doesn't really like to cuddle that much, or sit on someones lap, or be held for any length of time. But one day while I was watching T.V. and doing my math homework out of the textbook, Chris took the initiative when I took the book out of my lap, to get in it. Never the less, awkwardness persued. I sat from probably fifteen minutes cross-legged with my awkwardly postioned cat spread out across my knees. To someone who is not familiar with Chris, they would probably think that this isn't special, but to me, Chris sitting in my lap ment the world to me. It was sort of a token gesture that he really did enjoy my company and that he cared for me in his little cat mind.

I guess for me, Chris makes me happy because he's "my cat". He likes to be around me and shows me in the little things that he does that he likes me best and it makes me feel good to think that he cares about me in his own way, whether it be meeping at my adorably or sitting in my lap awkwardly, Chris has created a bond with me, his favorite person, that is truly amazing in my animal activist mind. (Though sometimes I think seeing if I could get him to model for L.L. Bean catalogs)