The Joy of an Extroverted Cat

An ode to my affectionate but mysterious fluffy companion.

I told you not everything I write will be political!

Meet Chianti.

Don’t you DARE scroll past without saying hello!

As you can see, she is a cat [citation needed]. Less scientifically, she is a floofedy fuzzball - a mass of fur with eyes, half tail by volume.

She is black, the most mysterious of cat colors (and the second craziest, after orange of course). She is my void, my spooky girl. By night, she is invisible. By day, she is unpredictable.

In many situations, she is both.

Lexie and I had wanted a cat for a long time. I had grown up with them and as I reached my mid-thirties, I was interested in having one again. I was used to their temperaments and eccentricities, but Lexie had never had one before. She wanted a black cat, and I wanted to make sure our kitty was sociable and wouldn’t just hide around the house. Who wants their first ever cat to reject them??

We moved into a pet-friendly apartment on May 4, 2023. I spent my 35th birthday driving a U-Haul, moving boxes back and forth, and rebuilding my bed frame that I had dismantled piece by piece for the move. After getting settled in and furnishing and decorating, we decided later in the month that it was time.

I warned Lexie, based on my experience and research on local options, that we may need to keep our minds open to cats of different colors, or visit more than one shelter to find our perfect new companion. It turned out I was wrong.

Right there, at the first place we visited, barely a mile away, Chianti (named Ananda by the shelter) was milling about with a dozen other cats of all ages and sizes. She took an immediate interest in us (unlike her much more aloof sister), and did not recoil from being pet. There was a momentary debate between this beautiful all black adolescent kitten or an older male tuxedo cat (and whether we wanted both), but we knew Ananda was the perfect cat for us.

I’m not superstitious and not a big believer in karma or fate. But we found a cat with every trait we wanted, in a city we had lived in for only three weeks, at the shelter closest to the apartment I hadn’t initially wanted to move into, who wasn’t alive when I took the job that necessitated we move in the first place.

I think we both agreed adopting her was a good decision.

To say we were lucky is almost comically understating it. She’s the one. We’ll probably adopt another cat in the future to give Chianti a companion, but for our first? After nearly two years, I can’t imagine having chosen another cat that Sunday afternoon.

For her name, we wanted to eschew the stereotypical black cat names - Salem, Luna, Midnight. Boring. Passé. Unoriginal. We retconned her into being Italian and named her after our favorite Italian red wine: Chianti.

I neglected to tell my apartment management that we got her, and to this day, I haven’t paid the $500 pet deposit and $50/month extra rent for her. I don’t know if the other shoe will drop and I get in trouble for not reporting her, but I’ve resigned myself to the likelihood that either way I’m probably not getting my security deposit back. 🤷‍♂️

Enough history. Just what is she like?

A little wild in her younger days!

I think the easiest way to answer that question is to list my typical day-to-day nicknames for her: Slashie. Bitey. Insane cat. Sassy mama. Fluff monster. At any given time, it’s about 50-50 that she’s either zooming around the house or flopped somewhere. She loves to climb, but she knows where she isn’t allowed. She loves to be under stuff, especially Lexie when she’s working from home in our office. She’ll nip at me, or bat her paws at me, but always in a way that doesn’t actually hurt.

She is a queen, and she enjoys reigning over her domain. She commands our attention, she revels in our affection (she’s the rare cat that enjoys tummy rubs). Her predator instincts are still potent; whenever our bird feeder is full and attracting wildlife, she is keenly observing and ready to pounce, even if the sliding glass door is in the way.

The birds don’t know how lucky they are that I don’t let her out, seriously.

She’s loyal: almost every night when I get home from work, I see her laying on the bed next to a slumbering Lexie (conveniently right in the middle of my half of the bed). I can always count on her to join me on the couch while I watch hour long political video essays or baseball highlights on YouTube, because I’m an old man now and old men like to watch shit like that.

No one in my household is tired of me constantly repeating this 10 year old meme every time I see the cat, no sir.

Chianti is the strong and silent type. She rarely meows, and even simpler vocalizations like squeaks and chirps are uncommon enough that we notice every time. But we always know how she’s feeling - she is an expert in nonverbal communication. Whether its just sitting and staring at you, or engaging in random zoomies for no reason, I definitely get the message from her.

As I get ready to start my family in the next 2 years or so, the joy I experience from Chianti is a daily reminder that there is a lot to look forward to. My cat is a lot more low-maintenance than my child will be (good luck feeding a baby only once a day), but the pure love I feel toward this animal won’t be dissimilar. I often just look at her and think how thankful I am that she exists.

I said I’d avoid politics or getting heavy in this piece, but I’ll say this: in an era when we’re bombarded by news and opinion media that distress us (including this very blog, my bad), it’s imperative that we engage in the aspects of life that bring us happiness. We can’t forget about the people we love, the hobbies we enjoy, the hedonic pleasures of the world, even our vices (drink responsibly, everyone!). I don’t take for granted a single day that my spooky crazy floofy void is in my life, especially because cats can live for well over 15 years. It’s wild to think she might be around when I’m 50 and my kid(s) is/are entering high school! While I’m not sure if animals understand love as humans do, I know she’s as happy we chose her as we are.

Now excuse me while I change the litter box and dispose of a bag of poop… in a way, another reminder of what I have to look forward to when the baby comes along. And just like Chianti, I eagerly await the happiness and love that will fill my soul when they become an inextricable part of my life as well.