Let’s get the important shit out of the way. The duvet cover and pillow cases are light green and the sheets are a lavender cover. My tastes sucks/blah blah blah, whatever.
At any rate, I have noticed that my relationship with Steve has really changed this summer. He’s so much more affectionate than he used to be, and I wonder if he is finally ready to accept this as his forever home. He was never standoffish, but now he is approaching Tunchesque levels of being a good boy. Constantly on my lap when before he would only come at night, follows me around a great bit more when in the past he would do more of his own thing, and at night, when he used to sometimes come in and sleep for a while, he now comes running when I yell bedtime and is right behind Lily and Rosie, bitching so I don’t shut the door.
Then as I fall asleep, he is right by my left side, and grooms himself for a bit, then makes me pet him for a bit, and then he props his front paws on my chest and falls asleep (as Maine coons like to do because of their hips). It’s kind of sweet, and non pet owners (are there even any here at Balloon Juice) won’t understand, but I notice a big difference. Could it be the haircut, too? I hope it isn’t that, because then I will feel terrible that he felt so bad the last few summers.
khead
The kittehs know who loves them. We are learning that all over again right now. Steve looks great.
Schlemazel
It may be that he is maturing from a teen cat to an adult and is accepting you as head of the weird pride he is stuck in.
Obviously he us happy so that is a good thing
bluefish
Could it be the inclusion of Walter on the periphery of the ancestral manse? Sweet cat. Nothing like having the babies snuggle up at bedtime. One of the best feelings ever. And, hey, ain’t nothing wrong with sage green and lavender!
Raven
The wife of my friend has asked that donations in lieu of flowers go to their rural Kentucky animal shelter. I thought that was nice.
bobbo
I love when my dog puts her paws on my chest but I can’t let her stay like that because no way am I falling asleep.
eclare
I noticed changes in my cat Neko as she got older, such as making sure she didn’t miss getting in at bedtime. One of my dogs, however, is becoming more neurotic as he gets older.
Rugosa
I’ve had my two adopted kitties for almost 4 years now. For the first year and a half, Jet gave me the stink eye every time we made eye contact. The cat version, of course – her ears just so slightly pulled back in disapproval. Now she’s my kitty girl who has to rub herself all over me when I get home from work and sleeps with me anytime the weather’s cool enough.
Zoey2020
Actually, John, I think this is Walter Karma. I know you only found him a few weeks ago, but apparently there’s been this great backlog of Karma due your way. I suspect Tunch is pulling strings off stage.
schrodinger's cat
Boss kitteh drapes himself across my shoulder when I sleep, with his head on my chest and paws on my belly. If he is in his zone, he will purr, make biscuits and drool.
Doug R
@bluefish: He can smell Walter on you, he’s just reminding you who loves you more.
SiubhanDuinne
Steve is beautiful. I’m glad he’s happy — nothing nicer than a contented kitteh.
Is it tomorrow that Walter heads off to his forever home with debit? I hope the travel doesn’t traumatize him too much, that he’ll remember you with gratitude always, and that he enjoys a long and happy life. I look forward to the continuation of his story.
RoonieRoo
I suspect what Schlemazal said could be part of it that he’s maturing. Grumpy and I had a feral show up at our house many years ago and announce that she was our new inside cat. It took us a year of living together before we could even pet her. Then as the years wore on she became the ultimate velcro kitty that had to be physically on your or riding your shoulders. Cats are funny.
JustRuss
@Rugosa: I inherited my mom’s two cats four years ago. The male is everybody’s best friend, but the female was shy and standoffish. In the last year she’s decided she loves to cuddle in the morning, hops on my chest and purrs. She used to be quite a drooler, but that’s almost stopped, fortunately.
Steve’s looking great, love the haircut.
AnnaN
Your bed sheets are an homage to the eggplant.
HeartlandLiberal
We got two new kittens six weeks ago, about one week apart in age, each around two months old when we got them. They have settled in as if they were siblings. It is hard to describe the cute overload we have been enjoying for the past six weeks. I will say this, and I am sure Cole will understand and appreciate, kittens grow fast, eat a hell of a lot of cat food, and poop constantly, requiring constant monitoring of two litter boxes. My apologies to John Cole that I have no kitty poop pictures to share.
The smallest of the two, a female my wife named Calvin because 1) she wanted to, and 2) she actually looks like the famous comic strip character, has decided that the place to sleep is on my pillow, nestled between the top of my head and the wall the bed is against. We believe strongly in bonding and socializing the cats with as much physical contact, affection, and play as possible, but this is the first cat in 70 years of having cats that wanted to sleep draped around my head. Sometimes she snuggles against my neck and shoulder, I guess to get closer and cozier. We have gone through two six packs of table tennis balls, the kittens run them as if playing soccer from one end of the house to the other. Every couple of days my wife has to go retrieve them from under furniture, and start the next round over.
Meanwhile, our older male cat is NOT a happy camper, to the point my son and I force feed him a tranquilizer pill dissolved in cream so I can squirt it down his throat while my son holds him down completely wrapped in a thick blanket, otherwise he would rip my hands and arms off.
schrodinger's cat
@AnnaN: I think they may be actually beige. Its the lighting.
sacablue
It might be the shave. I had our semi-feral long haired monster shaved in April because he stopped letting me brush him and was extremely matted. Two days after his lion cut (shave) he became a lap cat. He now demands to be petted and brushed. Very weird cat.
debit
@SiubhanDuinne: Walter hits the road on Saturday. I’m assuming the driver will arrive in Minnesota sometime on Sunday. I have extra large sized poop bags, so I consider myself ready.
Gemina13
With Steve, I’d say he’s come to know you, Lily, Rosie, and Thurston (plus Walter), so things are no longer strange. Add in maturing, and you have one happy, loving cat who knows you won’t throw him out, nor shove him away when he tries to get close.
My housemate got a kitten after I had to euthanize Lucky. I was heartbroken, and determined not to get attached. The kitten, a Siamese named Little Bit, likewise decided she’d make herself at home, but not come too close. Then she realized the hairless monkey gave chin scritchies and pets. Soon I saw she needed a quiet place to eat, and set up a dish in my room. The combination of shelter and affection did it. She’s still my housemate’s cat, but she comes running when I get home, loves on my hands and ankles, shows me her belly, purrs like a small engine all the time she’s around me, and will sleep by my bed. And I have lost my heart to her. Damn it. ;)
TaMara (HFG)
At about the 10 year mark, all my cats changed a bit – matured, I guess – more laid back, bigger snugglers. So maybe that’s it.
debit
Julian is like Steve, but he’s always been a little doglike; always has to be in the room I’m in, always sleeps with me, responds to “let’s go to bed” by bolting up the stairs to my room. Maybe Steve just took a while to realize his home with you was forever and so it was safe to love you. I kidnapped Julian as a kitten, so I’m pretty sure he knew right off the bat I was never going to let him go. :)
Althea the Bootstrapwoman
Maine coons are so sweet and lovey. My neighbor had one who would just rub his face aggressively against yours while you were holding him. I am no longer a pet owner for sad reasons I won’t go into, but yes I certainly understand and there was a time when I slept in a sheet cocoon anchored by three cats, unable to do anything other than roll ever so carefully within my sheet burrito, to my other side, so as not to disturb my bedmates.
gvg
almost youngest cat started getting very affectionate about 6 months ago after years of shy Willow. she must be 7 or 8. Surprising personality change. I have to call her almost youngest because nephew who is 8 finally earned his own kitten. Will be gradually acclimating Robin to older cats. We had to get a kitten because my grump boycat never really accepted my sisters now elderly cat but surprised the heck out of us by acting put upon but well behaved when Willow kitten didn’t find a home and we kept her forever. Apparently he behaves for kittens not adults.
SiubhanDuinne
@debit:
Really, what else do you even need?
(Seriously excited for you and Walter! You are planning to inundate us with photos and detailed stories, are you not?)
debit
@SiubhanDuinne: Yep!! Tons of pictures, until John gets sick of me emailing him.
Pogonip
What do Maine Coons’s hips have to do with their falling asleep?
Trollhattan
Steve’s goin’ domestic–all in all a good thing considering he’s a gazillion-pound cat.
Our puppeh went in for his final round of puppeh shots and chipping this a.m., so soon we can do walkies and play dates and the stuff that will (hopefully) wear his little butt out. I should say smallish butt because in a mere three weeks he went from fifteen to twenty-three pounds, or fifty-percent moar dog. Yikes!
Mnemosyne
@HeartlandLiberal:
Have you tried the Feliway diffuser? It really helps with our anxious cat who sometimes gets a little aggressive with the other two.
Anxious Cat has gotten into the habit of wanting to lay on my chest to be petted, and then flop over into the crook of my arm to purr her head off.
tulip
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZRb1we80kM
Steve’s Theme Song
I adopted two grey tabby sisters about a year ago… they are more affectionate with each other than with me normally. But occasionally they demand snuggles and pets! I’m hopeful as they age they will become a little more needy and a little less independent.
Felonius Monk
John, you naughty boy, have you been eating in bed again? Looks like your dropped your meatloaf. Oh! Sorry, Steve.
Pogonip
@Trollhattan: Is he on the Walter Food Plan? (“Feed dog. Feed dog more. Feed dog still more. Scoop poop. Scoop more poop. Feed dog. Feed dog more. Feed dog still…”. ad infinitum.)
John Weiss
John, you mentioned that your lilac and green color combination was in bad taste. I couldn’t disagree with that assessment more. It is a great combination! Who doesn’t like the sight of spring violets?
I have other reasons as well.
Trollhattan
@Pogonip:
He’s definitely on the gobble-and-discharge schedule, but as ribs occasionally show themselves we can’t be overdoing it–he’s just outgrowing his britches at a startling rate. Never had a puppeh before so this is new territory. Dear god they’re fast.
PaulW
It took years for my first two cats to come to any kind of “cuddle with human” mindset. They would roll themselves up at the foot of the bed, then hop up to the front atop the pillows, and then finally settle on the space between the arm and chest for a proper curl-up.
My newest kittehs are not there yet. They’re both in the “let’s hop over his chest a few times before jumping off for the nearby dresser.”
Betsy
@HeartlandLiberal: All right. We really need to see a picture of Calvin.
SiubhanDuinne
@debit:
Oh, wonderful! But may I gently suggest that you also send them to Anne Laurie, just as a backup? She is … how to put this so as not to offend our blog host? … more predictably reliable about sharing garden and pet pictures and front-paging meet-ups and making sure there’s always a place for rikyrah to greet the dawn.
Mike In Oly
I had a maine coon for years and she always had problems with mats. We’d take care of them when it got bad, but usually ignored them. Then a vet told me they were actually painful for her so we started being diligent about keeping her coat mat free. She became a completely different cat. Where she had always been grumpy and stand-offish she started being super sweet and affectionate. Then I felt terrible for not knowing this sooner.
phoebes from highland park
@sacablue: I agree that it might be the haircut and the relief of all that hair weighing him down. Is it possible to keep his fur short from now on?
rikyrah
I am a non-pet person.
Steve still scares me, but I am glad to hear about the progression of your relationship. ☺??
misterpuff
My boy Ash was very affectionate as a kitten, but got less demanding over the winter. Now, he’s sleeping with his head on my pillow and demanding attention in the morning. Great purr box……
NotMax
Recognize those linens. They’re 800-thread count.
lollipopguild
You are a Good Man Charlie Brown/John Cole.
Mel
Steve is one handsome kitty! What a good boy!!
My Maine Coon rescue kitty had a similar bonding time frame. He was dignified, courteous and tolerant of our attention while still a teen, but morphed into a gargantuan lap rat / love bug when he hit year 3.
It might not have hurt that we brought home a rescue kitten whom he adored. He turned into a 28 pound, befanged Mary Poppins after the kitten’s arrival: grooming her, cuddling her, letting her have his favorite toys, and even pulling a Marvel Comics superhero move and defending her against a 3-legged, short-term foster German Shepherd that somehow managed to make a sudden and totally unexpected leap (from a casual standing position, to straight up and then over a 5 1/2-plus foot safety gate in about 1.5 seconds), and elude 2 frantic humans.
I have never seen a cat look as scary as our Maine Coon guy did when he leapt between Miss Kitty and foster doggy to buy us the precious seconds needed to capture the foster pooch on the stairs. (Nor did we ever expect a doggy that was a very recent amputee to apparently possess the power of levitation, but live and learn.)
The moral of this story: always make sure your canine fosters are truly cat-safe (or ferret-safe, bunny-safe, other-dog safe- whatever manner of critter you share your home with), no matter how physically challenged or well-socialized they might seem, b/c prey drive is an astonishingly powerful motivator.
Also, Vive le Maine Coons!!
KlareCole
@Zoey2020: I like this idea and so would Tunch. I’m sure Tunch is pulling strings or whiskers.
KlareCole
We had a himalayan cat years ago, Allegro, a total sweetheart. He was sweetly vain about his stellar beauty, always posing, picking pretty backdrops. We called him ‘movie star kitty’. One occasion, we had to get him trimmed pretty short after a days long escapade chasing bunnies. He hid for a couple weeks he was so mortified. Maybe Steve is adjusting to his new ‘do,’ in his way.
We now have a black short hair, also a rescue, from babyhood. He has always been affectionate and very well mannered. But last year when I read Werebear’s ‘Way of Cats’ blog from front to back, his relationship with both my husband & I skyrocketed. I felt like such a dork, all the little catty things we had been missing. (I’m sure everyone here has read Werebear’s blog long before I stumbled into this paradise of animal loving liberals.) Of the many changes I made, one really stood out. That when a cat appears, they really like to be noticed, spoken to, touched, etc. Their appearance into the room is a full body message. ‘I’m here! Who cares?’
So John, I figure all your cat caring ways have finally sunk in on Steve. He looks really pretty & so do the sheets. Which reminds me that our cat gets just drunk over clean clothes out of the dryer. You would think they were washed in catnip. And very possessive of them. Towels, sheets, Tshirts, anything just out of the dryer, warm or not. Cats, they are such sweet fun.
dp
We have two Catahoula Leopard dogs (Louisiana state dog, I’ll have you know) who will be two next month. Euphemistically speaking, they are “high energy”; my daughter dubbed them the Catahooligans. The girl is about 50 lbs, and the boy is about 95. They follow us from room to room, only abandoning their people when they go outside to run around like maniacs in our huge yard and protect us from serious threats like neighbors cutting their grass. Last night, gigantic boy dog slept all night cuddled up next to me with his huge head and neck draped across my legs.
Pets are the best.
sherparick1
@Gemina13: I agree, I think this is right. But I also think the haircut helps.