You've Cat to be Kitten Me Right Meow

I have a super power.

Usually it's not the best idea to broadcast something like that, but in this case I'll make an exception.  See, if I am in a public space and so is something warm and fluffy, I will spot it.  Since this is Alaska, and that description fits many of the males up here, my fluffdar sometimes gets false positives, but for the most part I only notice pets.

It doesn't matter their size.  I once saw an Irish wolfhound, said "Awwwitsapuppy!" and went over to pet it.  The thing was as tall as I am.

As we speak, I am covered in dogs: a lhasa apso/ewok mix, a chiweenie, and a collie.  Fluffy things are a fact of my existence.

Despite the dogpile, I have a confession.

I'm a cat person.

It started when I was a little girl.  We had cats and dogs (and birds and hermit crabs and rats and mice), but I really wanted a kitten of my own.  For my sixth birthday my parents decided to let me participate in the foster program, through Petsmart, to start seeing if I found a kitten I wanted.

Instead I found Ebony.  She was about 4 months old, terrified of people, and solid black.  She hissed through the bars of the cage and tried to scratch me.

Three or four months later, I'd earned her trust.  A few years later she was perfectly comfortable with my parents.  When she was 10 she finally started to be okay around houseguests.

When she was 12, I became allergic.

Isn't that the way it always goes?  I went to the doctor, who said I should get rid of the cat.  I laughed. Even if I'd been inclined to give away my childhood pet, we had two other cats.  That wasn't going to fix things.

Fast-forward seven years.  I am now in possession of a nearly-two year old siamese fiend, Jude.

He's a cat with attitude.  Cattitude.

My allergies haven't gone away.  If anything, they've worsened.  I get hives if he snuggles around my neck, I haven't had a good sense of smell in years, and more often than not I wake to find my eyes glued shut with allergy-induced discharge.  All he has to do is look at me sideways and my arms start itching.  Since he's crosseyed, that's a common occurrence.

And lately, I've been waking up to this:

My mornings are not gentle.

That is what a siamese cat looks like from two inches away, after he has been sleeping in your face all night.

These allergy attacks seem to go in cycles, and while I might spend months at a time being completely okay, lately I have been a sneeze-factory.  And now, after several months of this, one of my ears is slowly filling with liquid.

So if you see me in the real world, and I'm frowning and tugging on my ear, you know who to blame.