We Love Lucy

I was just sitting here in my living room, staring at my blog home screen, trying to decide on a topic for a new post.  As I was thinking, I looked over my laptop screen and saw my cat Lucy stalking something.  I got up to investigate, and sure enough, it was a bug.  The bug has now retreated under the coat closet door, and Lucy is sitting patiently by the door watching for its return.  She is ready for attack if it should chance to venture outside of its safe shelter.  Lying in wait.

What does this random occurrence have to do with my blog post?  Well, Lucy has inspired me to write about... Lucy!  My cat is the closest thing I have to a child, and people love to talk about their kids, right?  So, this blog post will be all about getting to know my "baby"... Lucy the cat.  Enjoy.

Blogosphere:  Meet Lucy.

1.  Lucy's real name is Lucifer.  Yes, I am a cruel pet parent.  But, she was an evil kitten, and she deserved it.  When I got Lucy, she was wild and flea-ridden... and pure evil.  Her cuteness was her only redeeming characteristic.  Lucy was the progeny of someone's barn cat, and I saved her from certain imminent death, so she should have been worshiping at my feet, thanking me for my generosity.  Instead, she gave me fleas, hid in the back of the washing machine and refused to come out, then scratched the living daylights out of me if I tried to touch her or hold her (or apply her flea medicine)... not to mention the hissing and growling.  It's amazing that such a little thing can make so much noise.  After enduring days of torture at her paws, I bestowed upon her the name Lucifer.  But, being the magnanimous human being that I am, I shortened it to Lucy, since Lucifer is obviously a boy cat's name.  She is much nicer now... at least to me and the hubby.  She hates basically every other person and will hiss or take a swipe at them.  Like a good guard-cat should.

Her glowing eyes of death.  Fear them.

2.  Lucy is fat.  Think... Garfield.  Though, at least Garfield had lasagna as an excuse.  Lucy is just fat.  We don't overfeed her, and she even eats the healthy cat food.  She is pretty lazy, but all cats are lazy.  I don't know why she's so fat, but she is probably a good 12 pounds.  I haven't weighed her in a while, mostly because I am in denial of her sheer massiveness.  People comment that she's a large cat, and every once in a while... I really see it.  When she lies on her back, she looks pretty rotund.  I'd post a picture, but the camera adds 10 pounds, and I don't want to embarrass poor Lucy like that.  Oh wait, yes I do.

Probably a good representation of her girth.  I love that Steve is drinking, and the Bluebook is on the couch next to him.  Life of a law student.

3.  Lucy enjoys rabbits... and birds... and bugs.  We have an abundance of rabbits in our backyard, and Lucy loves to sit in the window and watch them hop about.  They drive her nuts.  She stalks them back and forth across the windowsills.  All of the hopping drives her mad.  Then, there are the birds.  We have this tall grass plant thing in front of our house, and birds like to perch on it and eat its seeds.  The plant goes up to the second story (yes, it's huge), and Lucy will sit there and watch those birds forever.  She has never been outside, but I think she enjoys stalking the prey from inside... as she has no front claws and would never be able to actually catch anything outside.  It would be very disappointing for her, and I must protect her fragile self-esteem.  She's already fat... no need to let her know that she's a fat cat who can't hunt.  What she can hunt, however, is bugs.  She loves to hunt bugs.  She rarely catches them... because, let's face it, it's hard for a cat to catch a bug with its paw.  She will hold it down, then pick up her paw, then it creeps away again.  She will stalk bugs all over the place, pawing at them and watching intently for her chance to eat it.  She eats the bugs if she manages to catch them, which isn't often.  But, I still feel very safe with Lucy as my bug protector.  If nothing else, she alerts me to a bug's existence... which has come in handy when my most-feared house centipedes have been lurking in the dark of my bedroom.  Lucy starts freaking out, and then I know something is afoot... and without fail, she will be staring right at some fearsome bug on my wall, just waiting to crawl on me in my sleep.  And, I hate creepy crawlies.  So, thank you Lucy, my fearless bug stalker extraordinaire.

High alert!

4.  She is lazy.  Yes, as I said, all cats are lazy.  But, I think Lucy is especially lazy.  She can seriously lay in one spot for hours on end without ever twitching.  We sometimes leave the house and return hours later, and she will still be in the same exact spot as when we left.  And, if ever she goes "missing" in the house, you will undoubtedly find her lying on the bed, the couch, her cat condo, or in the "cat trap."  The "cat trap" is a shoebox that she particularly enjoys laying in, even though it is really too small for her to fit in comfortably.  She bows out the sides and takes up every inch, spilling her fur over the sides of the box.  The hubby wrote "CAT TRAP" on it.  He's so funny.  Lucy often even just lies right on the floor, usually in a ridiculous position.  My favorite is when she lies on her back and has all her feet kind of bent into the air.  She looks like a dog wanting its belly scratched, and it just looks really unnatural for a cat.  She loves to lie that way, though, and the only thing I can figure is that it's comfortable for her blubber.  The blubber can't get in the way when she lays on her back!

Cats are weird.

5.  She has a stuffed animal.  Lucy only plays with two things:  laser pointers and her stuffed otter.  Laser pointers require a human to participate, and she's smart enough to get sick of it after a while.  The otter, on the other hand, she plays with on her own.  A lot.  We call it her "weasel" because that's what it looks like, and it sounds cooler than otter.  She has had this weasel since she was a kitten.  I wanted her to sleep in her cat bed, so I put the weasel in it with her because it was the same size that she was.  She enjoyed wrestling with it and attacking it as a kitten.  Now, as an adult cat, she still enjoys basically the same things.  She carries that weasel all over the house.  You never know where you will find it.  One time we lost the weasel after visiting my parents, and I looked everywhere for it but could not find it.  I tried finding a replacement toy, but she would not play with anything else, no matter how weasel-like it was.  Months later, we went back to my parents', and Lucy ran and found the weasel first thing.  It has never gotten lost again.  She carries it around in her mouth and makes these horrible crying noises while she has it in her mouth.  We still can't decide if she thinks it's her baby or her prey, but judging by the way she tosses it and attacks it mid-air, I hope it's prey.  She seriously whips it up in the air with her mouth, and it goes almost as high as the ceiling, and she will jump up and grab it.  It's really entertaining to watch.  She plays with it like this probably multiple times a day, and you can find it anywhere.  The stairs, the bed, the bathroom.  Sometimes it's by her food dish.  It's like a game.  Sometimes I've taken pictures of where I've found the weasel.  It entertains me to no end.

Can you see the "weasel" that she's hugging?  

6.  She sleeps on me.  Not with me.  On me.  I kind of like it, though.  I call for her at night, pat the bed with my hand, and she will come jump up with me.  I became so accustomed to it when she was smaller, it's easier for me to fall asleep if she's lying on me.  I attribute this to the fact that she weighs so much, it restrains my lungs and slows my breathing, allowing me to fall asleep faster.  Perhaps that's an exaggeration, but sleeping with 12 or 13 pounds on your chest is definitely noticeable.  She will sleep on my chest/stomach if I am lying on my back, and she sleeps on my hip/thigh if I am lying on my side.  She is quite adept at balancing, because she is wider than my thigh but manages to stay on quite well.  Even when I roll over, she sometimes maneuvers to stay on without falling off.  It's impressive.  She especially likes sleeping on me in the mornings when it's time for her food.  It's like she's saying "I am staying right here until you feed me."  Keeping in close contact to make sure I notice she's there and ready for breakfast.  Yes, I notice you, my gigantic Lucy.

This is actually her lying on Steve, but you get the idea.

7.  She likes to be in places where she is not supposed to be.  This is pretty self-explanatory.  It's one thing that convinces me that cats have analytical reasoning skills.  When she thinks of where she wants to be... she basically narrows it down to the exact places where she is not supposed to be.  Then, she goes to one of them.  I could explain all of her favorites, but I will share some photo evidence instead.

In a box + on top of the fridge = ultimate cat paradise.

"Oh, you like watching this?  Well, I like you to watch me." 

In the creepy head mug cabinet at the in-laws'. 

"Oh, you upholstered this for me to lay on.  Thank you."

I should have shut her in it.  That would teach her.

Laundry basket > dryer.

"Helping" me sort and fold clothes.  No drawer can be left open in this house.

We also can't own real plants.  To Lucy, they are all delicious snacks.

Well, that was a little look into the life of our "little wiener," as I like to call her.  Shut up, it's adorable when I say it.

I don't want any more of this "springing forward."

One of my favorite stories about my grandma was an occurrence at the bank when my dad took her to look at her accounts.  My grandmother suffered from Alzheimer's, which was obviously very sad, but it also produced many moments of lighthearted humor.  My grandma was constantly asking people to take her to the bank to see her accounts, as she was convinced that people were taking her money.  So, my dad finally took her, and he had the cashier show her the statements.  My grandma looked at the ledger and saw "credits" in one column and "debits" in the other, and she asked what "debit" meant.  She was told that a "debit" was when money went out of your account.  In all seriousness, my grandma replied, "Well, I don't want any more of these debits, then.  Only credits."

And, that's how I feel about "springing forward."  I don't want any more of this "springing forward."  Only "falling back."  That's right... I'm talking about good old daylight saving time.  And by "good," of course, I mean "awful."  Seriously, who invented this monstrosity?  Probably the same person who invented leap day.  Though, at least leap day causes minimal disruption in our lives.  And, it only comes once every four years, so people have learned to embrace it as sort of a novelty that is enjoyable because of its quirkiness.  Like a comet or an eclipse.

Daylight saving time, on the other hand, screws us up twice a year.  It's never a set day, so no one really remembers it's happening.  It just creeps up on you, and it always seems like a surprise.  Somehow, you forget that daylight saving time even exists... until it's time to change the clocks.  And every year, you curse daylight saving time in the spring, and relish it in the fall.

It's like, in the fall, you are oblivious to the fact that the wonderfulness of "falling back" has to be balanced, eventually, by "springing forward."  But, when you fall back, you aren't thinking that far ahead.  You are thinking, I get to sleep an extra hour.  And, that's exactly what it is:  ONE extra hour.  Because, the next night, you force yourself to stay awake and adjust your sleeping schedule to go to bed an hour later (at your normal "time").  Then, you are still sleeping the exact same amount, only shifted.  I can say that, in all honesty, I have never woken up an hour early when we get the extra hour.  My body sleeps that extra hour without fail.  It doesn't want to get up at my normal time... it enjoys that little bit extra.

Springing forward, however, you lose an hour of sleep.  And if you think far enough ahead to go to bed an hour early to compensate, I dislike you on principle alone.  Who plans things like that?  Undoubtedly, most averagely-organized people, like me, lose an hour of sleep.  And, losing one hour of sleep, unlike gaining an hour of sleep, does not just affect one night.  It affects your sleep schedule for weeks on end.  You still aren't tired until your "normal" bedtime, which is now an hour later than it was before.  And, you are now having to wake up an hour earlier than before.  So, it's really like losing 2 hours of sleep for a while.  So you are grouchy, tired, and basically a zombie for weeks before you adjust.  It's not only adjusting to getting up earlier, it's adjusting to going to bed earlier, too.  You know how hard it is to make yourself go to sleep an hour early?  Have you ever tried putting a kid to bed an hour early?  "Oh, your bedtime is at 8?  Well, you are going to bed at 7 tonight!"  Yeah, it's that hard.

I think the worst part of daylight saving time is that I always have grand plans for my extra hour in the fall.  When "fall back" time comes around, I think to myself, "Oh, well, I'm used to getting up at 7... now I can wake up at 6 with no problem!  I will use that extra hour to go to the gym, or run, or write my fake novel... or, gasp, watch the news and eat breakfast at home instead of at my desk at work."  All of these ideas run rampant in my head at the idea of being "given" an extra hour.  Guess how often I've actually followed through on these ideas?  Yeah, that's a big goose egg.  I'm still eating breakfast at my desk.  I set my alarm an hour earlier than "normal," and my body sees that number, and it is not having it.  Five snoozes later, I'm up at my normal time... vowing that tomorrow I will get up the hour early.  Then, I continue setting my alarm for the hour early, and continue pushing snooze five times... and this continues indefinitely.

And, now, I'm stuck in a cycle of setting my alarm an hour early and hitting snooze five times before I get up.  Which poses a problem... because if I now set my alarm to normal time, who knows when I would wake up?  My body robo-snoozes five times every morning.  I'd have to move my alarm clear across the room to make myself get up at this point.  And, I can't do that... because I can't see across the room without my contacts.  So, not being able to see the numbers would inevitably lead to me waking up in a panic at some ungodly hour every morning, freaking out that it's way later than it is and that I've missed my alarm.  I know; I've done this many times.  You'd think that "springing forward" might negate the forward shift in alarm time somehow, but I'm pretty sure my body is too stupid to figure that one out.  My mind might even be too stupid to figure it out.  I'm seriously sitting here writing out the different time changes and alarm times to see what matches up with what.  And confusing myself.

I blame the time change...