You might wonder why it took so long for me to post my Movies This Week entry last week, why I didn’t see The Life Aquatic this weekend when I swore I would, and why I’m taking extra antihistamines without complaint.
I would like to introduce you to the newest member of the household, the shy and retiring but still mischievous Rufus T. Firefly (aka Rufus, You Doofus, aka Mr. Fuzzybutt).
We went to the humane society on Saturday, bringing a cat carrier with us. The humane society was rocking—the parking lot was full, even. We walked down a row of cages and glassed-in cubbies, looking at little kittens and big fat cats, trying to figure out which one we might like to have living with us. This one was waaaay too feisty and we’d feared we’d come home from work to find him swinging from the curtains. That one was a little too skittish and scared and wouldn’t come out of his cat carrier—I wanted to name him Virgil, the Cooler King and put a tennis ball in there with him.
It turned out that the first cat we played with was the one we wanted to take home. A little timid, but he’d been living at the shelter for about six months so that was understandable. We brought him home in the cat carrier and set him loose in the house and he spent the afternoon hiding under one of the desks. My boyfriend told me that this was quite normal for cats getting used to their new habitats and I should leave him alone.
On Sunday morning, we awoke to find that he’d crawled into the fireplace (which we never use) and was sleeping there in the back, behind the grate. I guess it reminded him of his cage. It was the saddest sight. Eventually we coaxed him out and shut up the fireplace and he spent the day finding new places to hide. This morning, we found him under the chair in the living room. He also likes to lurk behind the stereo.
If we move too suddenly, or drop something, or make a loud noise, he runs away and hides. But he’s coming out more frequently when we call him and likes being petted and fussed over. My boyfriend even managed to brush him tonight, which he needed because he picked up a lot of ash in the fireplace and had turned into a black-white-and-gray kitty. He also likes playing with one of those feathery creatures hanging from a string on a stick. We think it was meant to be a bird but it looks like a turtle with feathers jammed up its butt. And yeah, I found out that it is really true that many pet toys look identical to sex toys. Weird.
We had to think of a name for him yesterday, because the name they gave him at the shelter seemed unsuitable. My boyfriend liked Shaun, after Shaun of the Dead and Shaun the sheep in Wallace and Gromit: A Close Shave, but it reminded me of Shawn Cassidy. I said since he liked the fireplace, maybe we should call him Ash … but he wasn’t an Ash kind of personality. (“Gimme some kibble, baby.”) We finally ended up making a list, not liking anything that was on it, and then my eye fell on the Marx Brothers boxed set on a nearby shelf. Harpo? No. And somehow I said, “Rufus T. Firefly” (Groucho’s character in Duck Soup) and we both agreed that yes, he looks like a Rufus.
See, I told you that Duck Soup needed to be on DVD. So many benefits.
I promise you, I am not going to be one of those people who participate in the Weekly Cat Blogging, or who write about nothing but their cat’s adorable antics. I can’t even imagine writing entries in the voice of the cat. My boyfriend and I did think of a cool way to incorporate Rufus into a Movies This Week entry, but that’s going to be an exception rather than the rule.
However, I have discovered that watching the cat scamper around the room can be much more fun than reading stuff on the Web, and it definitely competes with writing about movies. We have a wonderful new form of entertainment. Thank you, Rufus. Now I have to go reset the stereo clock again. Rufus has already learned how to press the Off switch on the power strips.
I’m SO glad you let yourselves be adopted by a full-grown cat, rather than a kitten. Older cats are generally the least adoptable, which is why I adopted six-year-old Elvis and Fabian last year.
The first cat my late husband and I adopted was from the San Diego shelter, and was the oldest cat there–about six months. I’ve never been without a cat since then–and that was about 46 years ago.
You know Virgil would’ve escaped at the first opportunity anyway. After all, he hasn’t seen Berlin from the ground or from the air, and would want to do both before the war was over.