Cats are often a creature of habit. some have their routines, and they stick to those routines very closely. Back when I was teaching in Alabama, my previous cat, Victoria, and I had our afternoon routines. She used to sit in an upstairs window watching and waiting for me to come home, then when I opened the door, she’d be sitting at the top of the stairs waiting for me.

This was her perfect vantage point for seeing through the window above the front door, and there she would wait. Occasionally, she’d come down the stairs to greet me, but more often than not, she would sit there and wait for me to come upstairs. I would be so exhausted from teaching, and she wanted me to come upstairs and take a nap with her. I’d go upstairs and to lie on the bed and take a nap; she’d come lie down beside me so that the bottom half of her body was by my side and the upper half would be lying across my chest. Them, we’d take a nap. She would get quite upset if I did not take my nap with her in the afternoon. Although, she had one unbreakable rule, I had to keep a shirt on. She hated laying on naked skin. Go figure.

Isabella has her habits too. She wants me to get up around 4 am to feed her, which I admit often annoys me. However, she realizes when I really need a little extra sleep, and in those days, she can be a bit more patient. But that’s not her only habit. She too will greet me at the door when I come home. She’ll also demand where I should be at what time of the evening. If I go into my bedroom before 9:30 pm, she comes and taps my arm to try to get me to go back into the living room. However, if I stay in the living room past 10 pm, she does the same thing, but wants me to go into the bedroom and go to bed.

We also have another routine each morning. I always thought it was really just for me, but I realize yesterday morning, that it’s become part of her routine. Each day as I’m leaving for work, she’ll be lying on her pile of blankets, and I’ll walk up to her, scratch her on the head and say, “Bye bye, Isabella. I have to go to work. Be a good girl today.” Yes, I know it’s silly, but it’s what I do. And each day as I say it, she looks up at me and meows like she’s telling me to have a good day. More likely it’s to say, you better come home on time. Yesterday morning, she was not on her blanket, and I wasn’t quite sure where she was, though I’d seen her only a few minutes before. So, I said to the room, “Bye bye, Isabella. Be a good girl.” I was not expecting a response, but she came running up to me and meowed. Where she came from, I don’t know, but I reached down and scratched her head. A few minutes later (I have a blink camera so I can check in on her while I’m not at home), she crawled up onto her blankets and went to sleep.  I thought it was kind of sweet that she was afraid she’d miss me telling her goodbye yesterday morning. 

Anyway, here’s your Isabella pic of the week

I didn’t know it at the time, but an event occurred on this day eight years ago that would change my life. Somewhere in Maryland, a small black kitten was brought into this world. For whatever reason, she and her brothers and sisters were taken to a shelter. Around two months later, she was taken north to an animal shelter in Vermont where they gave her the name Bridget. Two months and ten days after her birth, a very sad man walked into that shelter, saw her hiding under a chair, and fell in love with the little black furball he found there. If you haven’t guessed I was than man, and that little black furball hiding under a chair was Isabella.

When I adopted Isabella, I was suffering from the worst depression of my life. A little over six months before, I’d lost a very important person in my life to a tragic car accident. Susan helped me through that terrible time, but she lived/lives in New York City, or Manhattan as she’d correct me. However, I was alone in Vermont, and I had never felt so alone in my life. The song referenced above (and yes, it came to mind because of the total eclipse today) begins with the lyrics:

Every now and then I get a little bit lonely
Every now and then I get a little bit tired
Of listening to the sound of my tears

That pretty much described me eight years ago.

But, Isabella and her love came into my life. It didn’t take her long to get comfortable in her new surroundings, and she began following me all around my apartment. She still prefers to be in the same room where I am. Isabella became a great comfort to me. She’s never been cuddly except laying on my hip and just being near me, but there are times when she looks at me so lovingly, it warms my heart. I’m not sure I’d have survived if I had not adopted that little black kitten named Bridget (that name had to go immediately, my cats are always queens and while there was a 12th century queen of Sweden named Bridget she was a queen consort, not a queen in her own right like Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom or Queen Isabella of Castile).

The picture above of Isabella as a kitten was taken the day I adopted her. The pictures below were taken in the days and weeks after her adoption.