My Cat and Me

I moved my cat across an ocean. Unfortunately, she is finally getting comfortable with it. This means that cat is back to her usual routines.

To my cat, the day is for sleeping. The warning bells should have gone off, sleep during the day equals play at night. My bells did not ring loud enough for me to wake her up so I had to suffer the consequences. When I need to sleep, she is ready to play.

The other issue is that she is adjusting to a new home and new people. The sounds and movement of several people in a large, new space freak her out. In my room, she is comfortable. It is smaller, full of my smell, and usually only the familiar presence of me occupies it. Her normal personality comes out in this space.

This morning, the combination of daytime sleeping, comfort in her new space, and usual routines came together in a bad way. At 5 am, she was up. I know this because she woke me up. It is hard to sleep with a cat running over your body, repeatedly. She was making spastic laps around my room. Attack dirty laundry, check out the window, try to claw a suitcase, get yelled at, up on the bedside table, run over me, attack lumps in the comforter that move, off the bed, and back to the dirty laundry. It was great circuit training for her and bad sleep for me.

Finally, I kicked her out and got some sleep. Her timeout worked and she returned and was ready to sleep, just as I needed to get up. I hope I can break her of this routine.

Decide

Sometimes it is easy to know when things are decided. Accepting them is another thing. Accepting ice cream is not.

I discovered a new ice cream franchise today. Ten varieties of soft-serve ice cream and a multitude of topping options too. The staff offered samples. The more I tried, the harder it became to begin to choose my flavor. With self-service, if you stay out of the way, you can delay the decision time until the thought of ice cream seems unappealing.

I almost had that tragedy.

Into my container, I served myself coconut and praline pecan. A third option almost got added but wisdom of the two being good and three's a crowd applied. I bypassed the multitude of toppings for caramel and cookie dough (a very adolescent choice). The dessert was tasty and fun, I enjoyed every bite.

Staring at the decision line, I could not remake my choice. Repeating the process strained my brain. The experience delighted my senses but making the decisions without a strong emotional pull hurt my experience.

Then I shook my head. Everything in the store was tasty. Unless I mixed the ginger sorbet with the chocolate and topped with licorice, I would have been alright. It was not a big decision, it was an easy one of good and better choices. While the combination of flavors and toppings seemed endless, all I had to do was pick. Picking was easy and eating was easier.

Decisions on ice cream need not be hard when all the options are good. Maybe I should think less about ice cream and enjoy it more.