It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these! Olympia (pictured above, enjoying some window time) has been living with us for just over a year now, and if you met her today you’d never know she had previously been living as a feral cat for six or seven years. She has become indistinguishable from your average domesticated house cat now. The change is remarkable.
She doesn’t hide when strangers are in the apartment anymore. She barely spends any time under the bed, choosing instead to sleep on top of the bed all day, or spend time with us in the living room in the evenings. She likes to sit with us and be part of things. She often enjoys watching the shapes and sounds coming from the TV screen. (That’s right, she loves TV just as much as I do! Like father, like daughter?) She has no qualms about coming right up to you and asking for affection. She’ll even let us pet her while she’s eating now. She remains bonkers for the laser pointer, and has come to recognize the sound of the drawer opening where the laser pointer is kept, to the point where any time she hears it she comes running.
The only thing she’s still not into is being picked up, but we’re getting there. She’s not much of a lap cat yet, either. Give it another year, I think, and she’ll be all about laps.
One of her new favorite places to sit, other than the window sill, is on top of a yellow box of Swiffer Duster refills in front of the same window. (Pictured above, slightly out of focus.) This is where she has started greeting me from in the mornings, when I stumble out of the bedroom.
She and Galapagos are getting along about as well as can be expected. When they’re tired, they have no qualms about sharing the bed. When they’re awake, though, it’s punch-and-chase time, with Galapagos usually doing the punching and chasing. (The punch is probably more of a “hey, let’s play” tap, but it resembles a punch to my eyes.) Galapagos has maintained her dominance due to seniority — she was here first and she’s not going to let Olympia forget it — which means she’s usually the one doing the chasing, not the one being chased. Though once or twice we’ve seen Olympia chasing her in return. It’s rare, though. They roughhouse, but it’s never that bad and no one gets hurt. Galapagos also doesn’t like it when Olympia eats breakfast before she does. Despite there being two bowls of food available, if Olympia gets to one first, Galapagos will muscle her way in and start eating from that same bowl, usually forcing Olympia to back off while I remind them each time, fruitlessly, that there are two bowls. Cats. What are you gonna do?
So that’s about it. Olympia is doing great. She’s gotten a lot more comfortable here, which means she walks upright with her tail held high instead of doing that weird lizard-scuttle she did when she first arrived. Her head tilt isn’t as bad as it used to be, either. It’s still there, as you can see in the photos, but I think stress was making it worse, and now that she knows she’s safe and cared for, the stress is gone and she holds her head a little bit straighter.
Oh, and the other day she sat and watched me get out of the shower with a “What the f— are you doing, you’ll get wet in there!” look on her face, which I think may be the last hurdle toward true house catdom.
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