Newt has been behaving … oddly. Nothing to be alarmed about – quite the opposite, in fact. Been trying to articulate what, exactly, is different about him.
As near as I can explain, he’s been acting like a normal cat!
To clarify, not so much “Newt normal” but normal normal, if that makes sense. Not the “starving, must eat all the things hyena”, not the “heat-seeking, burrowing, little limpet”, not the “predictable, must have my normal routine” Newt. Just … behaving like a normal cat. (Well, as “normal” as a cat can be LOL)
He’s eating, but not huge quantities – acting a bit finicky, but not a mild hunger strike. He has been playing more than usual, with newly discovered toys, not just his preferred old favorites like Ball and Bouncy Bee. He has also learned a couple of new Scare Mum tricks, chief of which is to jump on top of the two large plastic yarn bins on top of the bookshelf, and perch precariously while regally surveying his domain.
I can almost hear him roar “I am the King of Yarnia!”
Well, at least until he decides to hang halfway off the ledge, rolling and writhing and preening while begging for head butts and belly rubs. Then he’s just simply ahhhhdorable.
It’s an odd feeling, finding a new normal. After four years of being hyper alert to every flick of a whisker, knowing so well all of his oddities, predilections and propensities, to discover that he is currently NOT acting in his normal fashion, but in what seems to be a new normal? Vaguely unsettling, but to be fully enjoyed – once we get over the shock, and adapt to the newest version of Newt normal.
In fact, just the other day, both Cat Daddy and I were marveling that he actually has been looking more like a cat these days, instead of our darling little half-grown adolescent kitten. His fur is sleek and glossy, his white markings are the whitest and brightest they have ever been, while his black spots are a rich, glowing ebony. Eyes have been a very light amber, and we haven’t seen his inner canthi in months. And his face seems to have filled out some more – more adult-like, and less kittenish. Oh, he still has that adorable little half-grown look about him, but he looks truly like a real cat.
Fascinating.
Strange, how living with a liver shunt kitty makes you truly appreciate “normal” in all its wondrous variations – even when the “new” version of normal causes an initial alarm.