Lucy at 6 Months

In the beginning, God put man at a position of dominion over all animals. Somewhere along the line, the message didn't get through to all the species. Lucy Ricardo's excuse is that she skipped class the day they taught that lesson. Since she wasn't there, she doesn't consider herself accountable for the requisite behavior of submission. She is queen, and that is that! There IS no king, either.

Of all four felines I have had living with me, Lucy is the first cat to purr while she bites. What a dom! She eats me and enjoys the meal. I pet and pet and pet and eventually she is turning herself over, and grabbing my finger with all four paws and throwing her teeth at it, all the while having fun. "Tee hee hee, you taste good, Daddy!"

This orange tabby lady is a very athletic little critter, running and jumping as she always has, but with ever more speed. One of the funniest things that happens is when I go up the stairs, and she darts ahead of me up the steps, into the bathroom, up to the toilet seat, then the tank top, and finally the window ledge.
But sometimes that last leap is the most hazardous, as her back paws don't always grasp the top of the window ledge, and she hangs by her front paws, while the tail end gets up there with the rest of her. A book on cats tells me that a baby cat doesn't always know that her tail is actually hers. She chases it, because she's trying to catch this object. One good bite clarifies that, I am sure.

There are very few horizontal surfaces without cat hair on them around here. She has a way figured out for getting most anywhere she wants to go, and that is anywhere there is to go. When I saw her get upon top of the the wicker shelving, I saw the mountain lion in her. Of course, being a kid, she got bored with that. She doesn't have to be on a high surface to know she's on top of Daddy.

She usually eats dry food from a bowl, but occasionally I get her a three ounce can of something or other. Its usually far away from where I first put it down, when I find it empty on the floor. One time I brought home rib bones from a meal. She learned she had to work at this, that her burlap tongue wasn't just going to lick it off. Lucy's first ribfest was rather frustrating, trying to pull the meat off with her teeth. She worked for that feast! What she got off she liked, tho, because she kept at it, until all 7 bones were clean.

At half a year, she is quite grown up, three times as long as that orange baby I brought home from Berclair Animal Hospital back in July. But she still joins me on the "chill chair" when I sit down and throw up the footrest. It's a Lazy Boy, and when the UT blanket lands on the legs she is Lucy on the spot for a catnap, Leno, Law and Order or ER.
She is what she has always been and always will be- Daddy's Little Girl!