Emilia

I adopted Emilia back in January, after the snow finally started melting off. I got her at PAWS, which I would highly recommend to anyone. The PAWS adoption center is set up as a cageless environment, where potential parents can come into a large room where all the cats lounge about, and try to find the best match. I first spotted Emilia napping on a cat tree. She roused briefly when I petted her, then drifted back into her catnap. There were several juvenile cats following me around saying, 'pick me! pick me! But living in a small apt. I knew it would not be fair to put a gregarious cat in an environment where it would spend most of its time alone. So I picked Emilia, who was laid back and ambivalent. With her supple black fur, she reminded me of my friends' cat whom I bonded with while staying with them during my brief period of unemployment.

I spent some time alone with her in the cat time-out room, and she was very affectionate and seemed to take to me quite well. So off we went out into the crisp January air, Emilia in her little cardboard cat carrier, and me with a folder full of vet files and pet store coupons.
She spent the first day under the bed in the corner, and all I saw of her was a pair of enchanting golden eyes staring out at me.

We get along quite well. She loves the brush, and can't get enough of the little catnip mice. She dutifully removes their felt tails, then places them at my bedroom door during the night so that I might snack on them when I get up in the morning.

I don't think that Emilia appreciates at all the small fortune that I paid out for her benefit. The cat carrier, gourmet catfood, the scratch boards, the hepa-filter (more for my benefit than hers). Her favorite toy is a twist tie that she bats along the floor with vigor.
I believe that Emilia looks to the hepa-filter as an ersatz mother. Its low soothing whir draws her to sit in front of it, where she allows it to extract the dander from her pelt.

Emilia does not like to be picked up, but at one point a couple of weeks ago I made the mistake of thinking that Emilia and I had gotten to a stage of familiarity where she would make an exception with me. As I now examine my fading scar I see the folly of my thinking. Everyone has boundaries that they would like to be respected, and Emilia communicated to me that I had crossed one of her boundaries, and must pay with the claw.

Aside from that we get along fine. She announces to me when she would like to be fed. She doesn't meow, per se, but rather chatters. She chatters quite often, even if there is food in her bowl. Once when I got home from work she emerged from the cabinet where the catfood was stored at that time, and walked over to the cat dish and started chattering, as if she hadn't been stuffing herself all day.
She meows all the time, and I thought that maybe something was wrong with her, then I reminded myself that she is a female.