It was only a matter of time before I put up a post about Chloë, Miss Chloë the vet tech calls her at the animal clinic. She’s my tiger-stripe domestic short hair, and she keeps me company every night while I’m typing on my desktop (or playing on-line Scrabble during my too frequent literary lapses). My partner and I have a two-bedroom apartment and I’ve dubbed the guest bedroom: “Chloë’s room,” sometimes to discourage unwanted houseguests, as in “Sorry, but Chloë doesn’t like sharing her room.” But before Chloë came along, the guest bedroom was my home office so we’ve worked out a co-habitation arrangement—she’s not allowed to jump on the computer desk and I’m not allowed to harass her while she’s sleeping under the guest bed. Actually, neither of us follow these rules, and we end up glowering at each other for stretches of time over the invasion of our respective personal spaces. But we never stay angry at each other for long.
The title of this post references Gregory Maguire’s Wicked series (the “animals” and “Animals” that inhabit Oz), and like a true Maguire geek, at least once a week I take Chloë aside and ask her the question. Chloë is immensely interested in household chores like sweeping, dusting, cleaning the toilet and washing the dishes. It’s awfully annoying to have someone watching you do all the work without even offering to help out a little. So my partner and I fantasize sometimes that we could dress up Chloë in a maid’s uniform and cap and have her bus our dinner dishes, tidy up the kitchen, mop the bathroom every now and then. The least she could do is clean up her own litterbox considering she is so fascinated when I do it.
Chloë doesn’t think much of books. She prefers television, but when it comes to entertainment, she’ll forsake any kind of media for the joy of attacking my shoe laces or batting around a shiny piece of foil. She’s really quite a tom boy. When we bought her a fancy glass beaded collar, she was insufferably tetchy and greatly relieved when we took it off of her. But in case any Christian evangelists are thinking that her unladylike tendencies (she’s downright bullying at times) are the result of her upbringing by two dads, let me make this clear: she was born that way. At six weeks old, she used to chase me around the apartment like Davey going after Goliath. I like to tell our friends that Chloë is a lesbian, but really, Chloë keeps her own counsel regarding matters of the heart. It wouldn’t matter to me if Chloë chose a boy cat or a girl cat. I’m open minded that way.
Someday I’ll write a story about Chloë. It will have to involve birds, toilet flushing, chewing up flower arrangements, cracker boxes—all her favorite things. I envision something in the thriller genre, maybe a detective novel, though she doesn’t have a long enough attention span for a convoluted plot. Or mayble I’ll write a story in the vein of M. Night Shyamalan. Like most cats, Chloë can see dead people.
