Nice kitty...now, put those claws away

I had every intention of posting here yesterday.

The cat had other ideas.

A little background: About three weeks ago, my roommate brought home a cat. She'd been looking for a cat to adopt for awhile, and talking about it even longer. So, when a cute little stray turned up in her classroom and kept coming back no matter how many times she took it out and let it go off school grounds, and after it kept coming up to her while she was out supervising on the blacktop, she decided that she had been adopted. Also, the school's administration was going to call animal control, and that wouldn't have been good, so she asked them to put it in the boiler room until the end of the day and then she'd take it home for the weekend, until she could find out if the cat belonged to anyone.

It didn't, as it turned out, and so we got a cat.

The cat, which appears to be a female, had obviously been living rough for awhile. While she is not emaciated, she's skinnier than she needs to be, and so we're feeding her on demand for the time being, until she gains a little weight. But, despite having been on her own for awhile, she has clearly had people in the past. She's cuddly and affectionate and very sweet most of the time.

Most of the time. Which brings me to why I ended up not posting here yesterday.

Apparently, Frost (because she reminds my roommate of her first cat, Frosty) decided yesterday that my function is life is to be her entertainment director. You know, sort of like Julie on "The Love Boat". (Look it up. It's on Wikipedia.) If I tried to read, she'd get between me and my book, wanting attention. If I tried to write on paper (some of us still do that), she'd sit on the paper and try to wrestle the pencil out of my hand so that I'd have both hands free to pet her. If I tried to do something on the computer, she'd sit on the keyboard.

At one point yesterday morning, I wasn't quick enough to pet her, so she nipped my arm just enough to draw blood.

Bad kitty. She got a time out for that one. She got another time out for trying to jump-attack me from the back of a chair in the living room, with claws out. She's still got to learn that she needs to keep her claws and teeth to herself.

No. She really isn't a bad cat. She's just still new to the household, not especially pleased to find that she's now an all-indoor, all-the-time sort of cat. And she is, to all appearances, a teenager. And you know teenagers; their main job title is Tester of Boundaries.

This is all new to me, too. I've never lived with an indoor pet before. And so I'm learning, too...and mostly what I've been learning is that a young cat is like a young child. Frost needs kindness and gentle handling, but she also needs to realize that the Feline Overlord act isn't going to cut it and that she has to learn that there are rules to be followed, and that repeatedly breaking the rules isn't going to make them go away.