Qatteri Cat Trims the Tree
3:30 in the morning, and I am wide-awake. I can lie in bad and toss and turn, or I can get up and make use of all this energy now and take a nap later, which is what I decide to do. I want to get a Christmas tree up, and I am hoping Qatteri Cat will not take too much interest. Two years ago, he pulled the tree over in the middle of the night, utter chaos.
Toss a load of laundry in the washer, pull down the tree box, get it set up, lights on – it’s great putting on lights while it is still dark out (I can see the ring of fishing boats along the horizon, and I shiver, thinking it must be really, really cold out there with the near zero Centigrade overnight temperatures) because I can see where I am putting them and how they will look when it is all finished, not too many lights in one area and big empty spaces elsewhere.
And then – the ornaments. When I have my own house, I usually have one big tree in the living room and one smaller one in the family room. The big tree has all the beautiful ornaments we have collected over the years, and the smaller tree is usually a theme tree – Maybe all red and white, pepperminty, one year and all blue and silver another. It’s my experiment tree. But we never mess with the serious family tree – it is thoroughly eclectic, and that is the way we want it to be. Hmmm. I think I will do a separate entry later on the ornaments.
The lights are on – just as the sky is beginning to lighten, the Qatteri Can and I finish up. The Qatteri Cat goes and gets his babies to share the tree with. Thanks be to God, he is not showing any interest in pulling on anything this year. We enjoy the lights together.
We put on Christmas music and I get a cup of coffee so I can sit and see if the tree needs more. Here is one of my very favorite Christmas CD’s (I have a collection of very old Christmas music, along with some very good more recent Christmas music)
The Qatteri Cat says he is finished. He is exhausted. He is going to take a nap. Wouldn’t it be nice, to have the life of a housecat?
Post Sunrise November 13, 2008
It’s a little chilly this morning and the Qatteri Cat is cuddled up next to me, right on my left typing arm, so I am pecking away as best I can. It’s another beautiful day – and, as forecasted, there are small, light, fluffy clouds gathering – and a 20% chance of rain tomorrow. Here is what this morning looks like in Kuwait:
Have a great day, Kuwait!
QC Misses AdventureMan
Just seconds after AdventureMan was out the door this morning, Qatteri Cat came in crying, carrying his baby. He often does that when AdventureMan leaves. I am good for giving fresh water, giving food and providing warmth. AdventureMan is his true love, and the Qatteri Cat grieves for him when he leaves, crying piteously.
This last summer when I was on vacation with my family, my sister’s grandson, 18 months old, would light up and shout her husband’s name every time he saw him.
“Gooey!” he would shout, his eyes alight and run for his Grandpa. My sister, who was working patiently and lovingly with him to learn her name wasn’t even on his radar – at that stage, he was more focused on men – his Dad, his Grandpa and another uncle he called “Nom!”
My sister would say “what am I, chopped liver?” which always scared me, because kids pick up on things we DON’T want them to pick up on, and what if he started calling her Chopped Liver???
But this morning, when Qatteri Cat is inconsolable at the loss of his favorite, I feel a little like chopped liver. 
Qatteri Cat and Ramadan
“You haven’t taken any photos of the Qatteri Cat for a while,” AdventureMan chided me this morning. “You know you everyone loves it when you do a blog entry on him.”
He’s right. The problem is that the Qatteri Cat doesn’t lead such an interesting life. The best thing that happens to him is when the window washers come, or air conditioner repairmen – something new and interesting. Second to that, he loves AdventureMan’s suitcase when he comes back from a trip, full of great new and exotic fragrances.
The Qatteri Cat is a perfect Ramadan cat. He comes alive at dusk, and eats and drinks during the long dark hours of the night. Occasionally, he will come tell us that he wants to play, but we are not very kind to him, when he tries to wake us in the middle of the night.
And then, when we get up and are moving about, he looks at us with great annoyance, even irritation, as if to say “What is it with you two, don’t you now it is time to snooze???”
Qatteri Cat Takes a Bath
“The Qatteri Cat really needs a bath,” I say to my friend as we sip coffee in her living room, “He’s gotten all matted in the heat. The truth is, I’m afraid to bathe him. He has calmed down so much since we got him, but when he gets scared, his primitive brain takes over and he has scratched and bitten me.”
I am thinking particularly of when we first got him. He was scared of me, he didn’t much like women at all. He adored AdventureMan (still does) and slowly, slowly warmed up to me.
He had a house outside, called a “cat containment center.” Go ahead. Laugh. All our friends did, too, but it gave us peace of mind. Qatteri Cat could be outside in the garden, and we knew he was safe. People put out poisoned fish in our neighborhood, to kill stray cats, and we didn’t want that heartbreak.
(This is called the cat penthouse, and it is created by Kittywalk. They have all kinds of things for pets, including, I am not kidding, pet strollers, in case you want to take your cat for a walk, but they don’t walk, they ride. I cannot imagine using one of these pet strollers in Kuwait. . . . or anywhere.)
So Qatteri Cat is out in his cathouse, and I hear an snarling, howling YOWWWWWLLLLL. His friend, Satchmo, from up the street has wandered over to say hello and Qatteri Cat is totally out of control. He is mad, he is running and throwing himself against the walls of the kitty penthouse, and Satchmo – all he wants is to be friends!
I get the trusty squirt bottle and shoo Satchmo away. I talk calmly to Qatteri Cat, calmly, calmly, and I open the door. He tries to rush out and I get him by the scruff of the neck, you know, how they tell you so the cat will go immobile? He can’t scratch and bite if you have him by the scruff, right?
Wrong. Wrong. So very very very wrong.
I still have scars. I got him inside, and gave him a 30 minute time out in the bathroom to calm himself down. When I did that, he totally forgot what had happened and would be fine. Actually, most of the time 5 minutes was enough, but I figured with all that adrenelin going through his system, 30 might be safer.
Fast forward. Bath time.
My sweet friend really knows animals.
“Don’t try it alone, Intlxpatr. That isn’t a job for one person. Get AdventureMan to help you, tell him to hold him by the scruff of the neck! Like his mother. He needs to know you are in control.”
So yesterday, I talked AdventureMan through what we needed to do. I will get everything prepared, and then one of us has to hold the Qatteri Cat and one of us has to soap him, massage him and rinse all the soap out.
AdventureMan chose to hold the cat. I was greatly relieved.
We got him into the bidet (first mistake, QC is a BIG cat) with a towel in the bottom, and when I started pouring the water, QC started howling. We are not talking your everyday miow here, we are talking, as AdventureMan put it, the sound of a cat having surgery without anaesthesia. I was so afraid our neighbors were going to report us for pet torture – because that is what he was howling.
Not only that, but it’s one thing to try to hold a terrified cat by the scruff of the neck (bad enough!) and another thing totally to try to control a terrified, wet, soapy cat. I was scrubbing, pouring, QC was howling, AdventureMan is saying “Hurry up! hurry up! I can’t hold him much longer” and there is water water everywhere. We have the bathroom door closed, so when QC gets out of AdventureMan’s grasp, we quickly capture him again. We are all soaking wet, QC is still soapy, and AM and I are panting and laughing and we need to get this job DONE.
We transfer him to the bathtub and finish the rinsing, and wrap him in a towel. At no time does he stop his shrieking, not until we let go. He is still very very wet, but he won’t let us – or a towel – anywhere near him. Finally, I put a towel in a sunny spot and leave, and when I have been gone a significant amount of time, QC seeks the nice warm towel in a nice warm spot.
I check on him every ten minutes or so. He doesn’t want to see me. Finally, maybe an hour later, he comes in and stretches out on my legs. All is forgiven, if not forgotten.
But here is the really cool thing. As terrified as he was, he didn’t scratch and he didn’t bite. Maybe he might have, if AdventureMan had not held him firmly, but we have held him firmly before and gotten terribly scratched and bitten. I think, as bad as it was. Qatteri Cat trusts us enough to suspect we were not trying to kill him. And his coat is a lot nicer, now, except the holes show where I have been cutting out the lumps.
Qatteri Cat Catches Up
Ha ha ha ha ha, Qatteri Cat! Take that! I’ll show you what it is like being awakened from a nice snooze! I’ll take your photo!
After racing around all night, rearranging the carpets and playing in places he should not have been playing, the Qatteri Cat is ready for a nap – and I am getting revenge for his nighttime capers! Actually, his fur is getting all matted, and while he is napping, I often take the scissors and cut out the badly matted hunks, and try to comb him so he won’t get so matted.
One of these days, I really want to give him a bath. He has come a long way in the four years he has lived with us. He is a gentle cat, a sweet cat, a snuggly cat. Underneath all that veneer of civilization, however, is still the WILD cat. All it takes is for him to be scared, tired, hungry or mistreated and all the wildness comes back to the surface. I know I can’t attempt to give him a bath on my own – I need to have AdventureMan with me to help handle him. In all these years, I have never given him a bath – I am a little afraid of him!
Qatteri Cat’s Lazy Summer Days
The Qatteri Cat sends his greetings and wants you to know he is doing fine, just kicking back and enjoying the hot summer sun. He has a couple favorite places, near windows, where he can watch the world go by. He steps down to nibble a little grass from time to time, or to go get a bite to eat, or sip a little water (especially after AdventureMan has showered, he says that is the BEST!), but he is just taking life easy right now.
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