I owe Paloma an apology

Last you heard, my cat had emerged from beneath the couch and, despite a couple of bodily malfunctions that nearly destroyed my bedding and most of my sweaters, was acting like a normal cat. A playful, cuddly, ravenously-hungry-every-night-at-6:30-p.m. feline, and we were getting along great.

But I have not yet given Paloma the online introduction she deserves. The exclusive, in-depth exposé. Her virtual debutante ball, if you will. And that is the reason I owe her an apology. Because, friends, my cat is a quirky little weirdo, a lovable sweetheart with the softest fur I’ve every petted (I blame her happy life and overpriced food), a bit of a maniac and an incorrigible tinkerer who, from any small object, can create her new favorite toy.

Readers, were you aware that cats, like dogs, can pant? I had never seen a cat pant until one evening after a particularly aerobic session of chase-the-feather-on-a-string-on-a-stick, when Paloma opened her mouth and unfurled her tongue and started heaving like an obese golden retriever after a brisk and hilly mid-summer walk.

Don’t believe me? Believe YouTube, which of course already hosts a few cat-panting videos:

Weird, right?

(Truth be told, it kind of worried me, and some online research informed me that cat-panting can actually be a sign of a serious heart condition. If a cat pants randomly and not after vigorous exercise, and also if the cat’s tongue turns blue, call a vet ASAP. Luckily for Paloma, her bouts of panting have occurred only after playing, and her tongue has remained a healthy pink, and the panting stops after she lies down for a bit, so she is OK, but I will definitely be on the lookout for a blue tongue and any abnormal panting behavior.)

The panting, although odd, is far from the quirkiest of Paloma’s habits. The panting is, I believe, an unintended response to physical exertion, while some of her other idiosyncrasies are more intentional. More hobbies than habits, they are consistent and surprisingly creative ways my cat has found she enjoys passing her time.

It started with the thumbtacks and the cork board.

Hanging on the wall in my bedroom, next to my bookshelf and above my desk, within reach of a medium-sized cat standing on the desk on her hind legs and extending her front paws, is a small cork board to which I tack various bills and photos and printouts of magazine or newspaper articles I plan to read.

In the middle of the night a few weeks after she came out from under the couch, Paloma discovered the cork board. I awoke around 3 a.m. to the scrape-scraping of claw on cork, the swish of paper, the plunk of something small dropping to the ground, and then the sustained rattle of that same small object rolling along the wooden floor, propelled, it must have been, by my insomniac of a cat.

That night Paloma made three important discoveries:

1. Thumbtacks can be extracted from cork boards
2. A cat paw, claws out, digging, can extract a thumbtack from a cork board
3. Thumbtacks make excellent toys

She must have known she was acting a bit the rebel, because she saved her thumbtack-excavating excursions for the wee hours, when I was too woozy to reprimand or stop her. Now, a couple of months later, only two photos remain on my cork board - two silly photo-booth renderings of my sisters, our cousin and me, taken at my going-away party in Chicago - and the rest of the board is a gouged and battle-scarred mess, its surface as chipped and pock-marked as a building pummeled by war.

My cork board has become unusable, at least for its intended use. I should probably move it somewhere unreachable by cat claws.

But how Paloma loves those thumbtacks. She pushes them around the floor for hours, hunting them like prey, and carries them around in her mouth and throws them in the air with her paw and even sometimes drops one in my lap, mews imploringly and, after I throw the tack, runs after it, pounces on it, picks it up and brings it back to me, requesting that I throw it again.

Yes, that’s right - Paloma plays fetch. Not only with thumbtacks, but also with wine corks, store-bought toys, bottle caps and magnets.

Magnets, which she a few weeks ago discovered are even less connected to refrigerators than thumbtacks are to cork boards.

This hobby developed while I was out of town. When I arrived home I could not figure out why some of the photos on my fridge were in different spots than I had left them. Then, days later, I saw my headstrong feline sitting on her haunches, reaching up to the fridge to knock a magnet to the ground, and I realized the photos must have been rearranged by Paloma’s cat-sitter, who must have found them on the floor when he came over to feed her and put them back where he hoped they’d be out of reach.

My smaller magnets are now concentrated in the center of the fridge, where Paloma cannot get them from below or above (she sometimes jumps on top of the fridge and reaches down, intent to knock off one of many defenseless targets), or they are lost, out of our reach beneath the fridge, or fallen between couch cushions or hidden under my bed or disappeared forever, into the void. I really couldn’t tell you. I haven’t seen them in a while.

Paloma’s love of little household objects makes me unlikely to buy too many more cat toys at the store. Why spend $13 on a Booda Wacky Cat Ball when 3 bucks gets you 24 binder clips your cat will love just as much? That don’t make no sense. Binder clips are where it’s at.

But what I will continue to buy, along with litter and food and cardboard scratching posts, is catnip. Catnip plus Paloma equals a tripped-out, erratic shit-show the likes of which I have only seen in movies about heroin and at concerts full of tweens.

The instructions that came with the scratching post were simple:

1. Put the cardboard post in the plastic box
2. While your cat is watching, dump the catnip on the post
3. Rub the catnip into the cardboard’s many crevices
4. Watch as the scratch-fest begins

I was halfway through Step 3 when Paloma threw herself body and soul atop the scratching post and started rolling, high as a lark, in the psychotropic roughage. She even tried to huff catnip fumes from the empty catnip bag she found minutes later on the floor.

Yes, people. Of course there’s video. For your viewing pleasure, Paloma Gets Blitzed:

I hope you found that as entertaining as I did.

And that, in a nutshell, is my crazy cat. Thank goodness she can’t surf the ‘Net or feel social shame, because if she stumbled upon this post I would owe her another apology - one for public embarrassment.

To make up for exposing to you a hearty slew of her weirdnesses, let me end with this:

At the end of the day or in the mornings before work, and also a few times while writing this post, my nutso cat will calm the eff down, hop onto the couch and curl up beside me or in my lap, purring contentedly, happy. And when I get home from work or the store or wherever, I can count on her to be waiting by the door meowing, pleased to see me, and she’ll only stop meowing after I pick her up and hold and pet her. She’s a cuddler and a sweetie, and she follows me everywhere and loves new friends and visitors and, in spite of and because of her odd and unexplainable quirks, she’s a great little girl, and I’m lucky to have her in my life.

Now wasn’t that cute.

So there you have it. Paloma, you weirdo, welcome to the web.