Stumpy the Cat

Minuit’s delicate derriere

That poem by Sandburg, with the line “The fog comes in on little cat feet”? Well, Sandburg didn’t know Minuit.  Minuit is ‘rubinesque.’  She’s not quite as round as she is long, but she does a fair impersonation of that cat.  She is the antithesis of most cat adjectives, being neither stealthy nor particular graceful.

Minuit’s version of “Fat Cat Capsizing”

The fat happened when we lived in NJ for 6 months.  While Stateside, she became reclusive.  I’m not saying Grey Gardens reclusive, but she now has a tendency to growl and run whenever the doorbell rings.  She’s skittish – taking to darting ahead of you on staircases and hiding under the dining room table.  I think maybe one of those times when she was racing ahead on the stairs, she wound up underneath David’s feet and hasn’t ever been the same since.  She’s like a paranoid drug addict.

With all her extra weight, Minuit STUMPS around the house.  She STUMPS down the hall, she STUMPS to her food bowl, she STUMPS to the bed.  And now the Dean Martin Roast for Minuit:

“She so fat, she makes a grunting noise when she jumps up onto the couch.  We have mistaken her footsteps for that of our 12 year old daughter.  She can’t ever play the “I’m invisible” game with the other cats because you can hear her walking.   She’s so heavy that when she sits on my abdominal aorta – I almost pass out.”

Plus she stinks.  For an added “eeeeeew” factor, if you scare her – she gives a panicked jump and squirts from her frightened cat’s ass.

We’ve tried to limit her food intake, but with three cats in the household I can’t spend an entire day monitoring who eats what – it would mean that I’d have to lock her away for 1/2 hour at a time, morning and night, while she eats – basically I would be putting her into solitary confinement because she’s fat.  That’s never good for a gal’s psyche – human or feline. I’m thinking she might just have to stay fat…  We’ve tried to get her to chase a laser but she’s smart enough to know that we’re moving the laser and she just looks at our hand.  She sporadically chases after and fetches tin foil balls – but I’m thinking the 5 minutes at a time she attempts to gallop isn’t enough to get her in shape.  I would love to get David to build a cat exercise wheel and see if I could get her to use it, ’cause she has NO interest in walking on the treadmill with me.

And yet… and yet… she loves to sit on your lap and “prrrrrrowl” in pleasure.  She is adorable when she gets stuck after rolling on her back.  She has tonnes of personality.  She’s just… fat.