Midnight Mutterings | Life With Rose and Molly

||| MIDNIGHT MUTTERINGS by JACKIE BATES |||

The Tabby Sisters, from the bucket of kittens, are six months old now and are huge. While they weigh only about seven pounds each, they are lanky and can stretch to two and a half feet in an effort to get closer to that intriguing, invisible spot on the ceiling. I had in mind, small cats with big personalities, like Sybil-the-Cat, a stray who lived with me for sixteen eventful, eccentric, occasionally violent years.

The plan was to have two kittens, one of which would belong to my son in Bellingham and the other would live on Orcas with me. We imagined the kits having a short bonding time and then visiting each other in their respective homes, with lovely, warm reunions at the humans’ convenience, and possibly both eventually living together with my son if/when the cats outlive me. We should have known better than to imagine that we would have any control of circumstances.

Of course, things turned out otherwise. It seemed more than cruel to separate the kits when they were so young and such a comfort to each other, in addition to being raucous playmates. Then came my non-Covid pneumonia, which meant that Rose (my cat) and I were better off in Bellingham for the duration. After that came the cold weather, the snow and the wind, which meant it wasn’t a good time for ferry travel and extended day by day through Christmas. At that point I returned to Orcas cat-less, while Rose and Molly went about their kitten lives, growing and growing wilder and more feral in their feline tribe. In mid-January, I took Rose to Orcas and both cats went into depressions, missing and looking for each other. While on Orcas, Rose ran away twice, the first time running into a neighbor’s garage and hiding under his antique cars. I didn’t dare leave to get some smelly treat to lure her out, for fear that she would get lost forever. Fortunately, my friend Sara happened by and returned with a can of tuna juice, which did the trick, and Rose emerged smelling like oil. And then, a couple of days later when I was loading the car to catch the ferry for a kitten reunion, Rose escaped and we made the ferry only because Sara, again, came to the rescue with tuna juice.

What we imagined would be a warm reunion of cat sisters after their cruel separation, turned out to be anything but. Rose was ecstatic to be ‘home’ where she belonged, but Molly (after only six days) saw no good reason to share her space, food, bed or air with a dangerous stranger. All Molly had to offer were growls and hisses and the odd slap across Rose’s eager kitty face. On the third day, Molly gave in and took Rose back into her heart and bed, and I returned to Orcas without Rose.

Now I have been back in Bellingham for a week plus of appointments and off island tasks and no decisions have been made about who returns to Orcas with me. Meanwhile, I am having a lovely time with the girls as a welcome (it seems) visitor. The cats, now huge, look very much alike except for a different pattern of stripes on their backs, but they have distinctly different personalities. Molly is very cat-like—playful, sweet, interested in her food and likes to look out of the window. She also roughhouses with Rose and the two of them have rendered a good number of household objects to the trash: a lamp, some dishes, the shower curtain, blinds, and any paper left in their reach. Each night they noisily chew and tear a paper grocery bag into wet shreds, which they leave artfully around the house. My son has locked them out of his room in self-defense, but I am still a sucker for their company.

Several times at night they rip off my covers and request my joining in their games. Then, when they have exhausted themselves and me, they sleep curled together on the foot of my bed until their nocturnal natures wake them again for another round of Chase the Cat.

Rose is less a cat, though she looks like one. (In fact she may well be a reincarnation of her predecessor: Sybil-the-Cat. They look a lot alike and have the same Jekyll and Hyde natures: one minute soft and purring, bared teeth and carnivore eyes the next.) Rose is more dog/crow than cat. She is very fond of pens and carries them around in her mouth exactly like a dog with a stick. I suppose we should supply her with sticks, or she wouldn’t have to carry other things, like any long, stick-like object, preferably metal. An old radio aerial is a favorite and she raids an open toolbox for loot.

Then, her crow nature emerges, and she has a cache of shiny objects under the bed which she guards with her life. There’s money–in fact she is wealthy for a cat– and small balls of aluminum foil, knobs from somewhere, paper clips and a lot of rubber bands (which aren’t shiny, but it’s worth it to Rose as they are Molly’s favorite). Rose also seems to have a crow’s sense of humor, and she doesn’t hesitate to make fools of her humans, and sometimes Molly.

I can’t pretend to imagine how the future will be with these cats as I have been so wrong so far, but I do hope I get to have custody of at least one, at least some of the time. My father, who pretended not to like cats, finally gave in as he got older. He always described his serial cat companions as ‘the cat that has me.’ I only hope a cat will ‘have me’ for the rest of my years. I’m just not sure it will be Rose. After all, it’s ultimately her decision.