Eowyn, Nayowyn.

Sometimes I find myself worrying about what would happen to my cats should anything happen to myself and Anton. They're all a little weird and have their own special needs and nuances. Chester is clingy and distrusting of anyone but the two of us. Kira is needy and delicate (or so she'd have you believe. Annabelle is straight up crazy and particular, almost to the point of OCD, and Boyd is his own special brand of nut. If any of them was going to do well in another home, it would be Eowyn. She is gregarious- she loves and adores everyone she meets, from friends and family to maintenance or the cable guy. The others I got while they were still young enough to have their age counted in weeks, bu she was almost twice that age when I brought her home. She definitely doesn't view me as a surrogate parent like Boyd and Chester, who were both bottle fed by me.

The spring after Taran died, a coworker mentioned finding a stray gray kitten and thinking it belonged with me. I told her no thanks- three cats was more than enough. A few weeks went by and I stopped at her house after work, just to hang out, and her husband met me in the driveway, a little gray bundle in his arms. I said I'd see. We went in, and she sat next to me the entire night. She was not even vaguely interested in exploring their house or their cats. I left with her, and she sat, very sweetly, on the car seat next to me on the short drive home.

I made a vet appointment, locked her in the spare room, and fell asleep on the couch. I woke up later to find that Boyd had expressed his outrage in the only way he knew how- he managed to get out the window, onto the balcony and out into the world. 

Employing my mom and her husband, we looked all day for that orange brat, finally finding him under a car the next building over. Apparently he decided he'd come back home, confused which building and sat outside the doors on the second story, crying his head of before hiding under the dirty car. He's nothing if not melodramatic. 

Tangent: When our crackhead neighbors burnt us out of our apartment a year laer, the cats moved in with my mom and we went to stay at my grandparents home until our new apartment was ready. The day we went to pick up the cats and move, Boyd waltzed into the room, ignored us as we called to him, hopped up into the tv cabinet and wedged himself behind the cable box and refused to come out. 

After Boyd was safely home and washed, I went back and forth on whether I should keep his new cat. One the one hand, I had room and she needed a home. On the other, none of my other cats seemed to like her at all. But she was sweet and mousy and meeped instead of meowed...

When we picked up the cats at my mom's, and Boyd was such a jerk, Mom happily handed over Boyd, Kira and Annabelle, but offered to keep Eowyn. She wouldn't leave them alone the few weeks she stayed there. She has this annoying habit of poking you and meeping until you pay attention to her, and they ate it up. A few summers ago when Anton's parents stayed with us, she was the same way. She absolutely smothered them (these people who do not like cats, especially not in the house)- she slept in the bed with them, sat on the table while they drank their morning coffee, sat on their laps while they watched tv...

The last week they stayed with us- probably the last night if I'm remembering correctly, Chester, who hid almost the entire time they were with us, cautiously climbed onto the couch, crept onto my father-in-law's lap, sat there, very still, for less then a minute, then went and hid again. Night and day, those two.

But Eowyn is not my cat. She tolerates me, somewhat. She usually only wants my attention if Anton isn't home. She bully's Kira and Annabelle- she even drove Annabelle to destroy our carpet in our last apartment because she wouldn't allow Belle into the bathroom where the litter boxes were. 

She is, for all intents, Anton's cat. When he first moved in with me, she was still in the hyperactive and frisky stage of kittenhood, and the caricature of a cat: destroying furniture, climbing the drapes, eating lasagna... He hated her. But, everyday he was home alone she sat next to him, wouldn't leave his side. As she got older and calmed down he decided cats weren't that bad. Even now he says if we split, he'd keep her and leave the rest for me. 

Not that I don't love that cat. I do. Around Christmas I found a bump on her side. I tried not to panic- the cats are always giving each other nips and knocks. A month later, it was still there. Thankfully, it turned out to be nothing but she still had me up nights worrying about her. Right now, she's got our whole household topsy turvy because Ms. Thang still thinks she lives on the streets and has to eat ALL THE FOOD. When Chester was still young, she was able to keep the weight off because he tormented her, but now both of them are a wee bit chunky. So, now, the cats are on a feeding schedule which my older cats absolutely hate. They've always free fed and it's always been fine. Now, Boyd wakes me up at 5 in the morning to remind me that he has not eaten since 8 the night before. It's so. Much. Fun. 

But I'd like to keep them all around as long as possible, so if I get less sleep so she can continue to pester us for the next decade or two, so be it.