Kako noticed me sitting at the desk tinkering with the camera. When I noticed she noticed, I decided to snap a photo.
She stared at me for a moment with a somewhat dismissive glare painted on her face, but then she did something that completely surprised me. In fact, it shocked me.
She turned, looked directly at me, and smiled.
Her face didn’t even break! I’m on the phone with Guinness World Records at this very moment…
After posting the old photos of Grendel and Kako when their love affair was first taking shape, I thought it only appropriate to post some photos of their relationship these many years later. So after seeing them falling in love, here’s a cursory glance at them being in love.
Do pardon the quality of the first photo because it was taken almost ten years ago with a disposable camera.
One of their favorite spots is to cuddle together on the back of the couch. Here are some shots of their various entanglements there. As you can see, these two can get comfortable in nearly any position, especially when they’re together.
And finally one of them actually sleeping together on the bed. You’d think lovers would make that a favorite spot, but apparently these two actually find it a bit too pedestrian for their tastes.
Kako was trying to nap on the bed when I walked in with the camera. Being the busybody I am, she looked like a good target for some close-ups. I therefore knelt on the floor beside her, put the camera in macro mode to see if I could gain some comfort with that setting, and proceeded to get all up in her business. Well, she was sleeping at the time and I was convinced she wouldn’t mind too much as long as I didn’t disturb her.
That being the catch: not disturbing her.
Something I failed at miserably.
At first, she was sleeping soundly and made the perfect subject. She was still, she was in perfect natural light (or at least usable natural light), and she looked so content and peaceful.
But if you look closely, she wasn’t really sleeping soundly. She was almost asleep, and there’s a huge difference between the two.
Her eyes popped open and she immediately turned enough such that she could see me clearly—without looking at me directly. It’s the feline equivalent of eyeballing someone peripherally so they understand they’ve crossed a line they shouldn’t have crossed, the gaze that says you’re not worth a direct glance but do need a clear message.
For reasons I can’t explain, I ignored the scowl on her face. I continued to lean into her personal space instead of taking the hint and leaving her alone. Woman needs her beauty sleep—or, in her case, her good mood sleep.
Finally, and undoubtedly because I’m such a feeble primate that I didn’t understand the look she was indirectly giving me, she turned to fully face me and put on The Look. It’s the face the vet knows, the one that earned her the veterinary term of “very unpleasant.” It’s the direct look with head lowered and eyes raised, the one that says some boundaries are not meant to be crossed and any hope for my personal well-being requires that I back away quickly.
That’s when I turned the camera off, gave her some quick and innocuous attention, apologized profusely, and left the room. Thankfully I got the hint. That’s evidenced by the fact that I left her with all my limbs intact and no excessive bleeding.
I’ve discovered a few more of the old photos I think are worth sharing…
About ten years ago, one of the smaller pieces of feline furniture I owned was what Derek and I called The Loki Dream Home. It was a simple piece of furniture: mostly plastic with short carpet in all the right places, a canvas cover over the top sleeping platform with another platform below that, and firmly planted on the ground via two sand-filled bases. It was one of those cheap things that catches your eye while at the cat store, something in a small box that assembles into something that would never fit in the car… like most furniture.
Loki absolutely loved the thing. Grendel wasn’t as fond of it, but part of that could well have been due to his hip surgery and inability to climb or jump for several months. He mostly used it as a scratching post but otherwise ignored it.
But oh how Loki loved that thing. He’d sleep on it, play on it, use it as his own personal watchtower, and generally claim it for his very own. Well, since no one else was using it…
One reason for the dichotomy in their responses to it, at least back in those years, has only recently occurred to me. Grendel has always loved people and spends his time hanging out with anyone in the house. Loki, on the other hand, spent his early years treating people with disdain, keeping them at a distance, and pretty much ignoring them. That included me. So for him, The Loki Dream Home provided a wonderful place where he could keep an eye on the resident humans without being too close to them… you know, where they might actually touch him or something, an action which usually provoked incessant bathing on his part in an attempt to wipe away the monkey cooties.
But Loki is a rough-and-tumble kind of cat, hard on furniture just as he’s hard on people and the rest of The Kids, so it wasn’t too long after he fell in love with his Dream Home that he began destroying it. It started with prompt removal of the feather toy attached to the top, something that hung over the side and made for a bit of fun while sharpening claws. I suppose the toy remained functional for about two weeks—give or take. Then one day it magically appeared in another room after having been brutally detached from its perch.
And when the toy was removed, what next? Well, there was that canvas top covering the highest sleeping platform. It attached to the furniture with six thin plastic rods that held it in a nice tent shape.
To Loki, however, that covering was more than just a roof over his head. It was obviously meant for play, to be climbed upon, to be pulled and bitten and attacked, and eventually to be destroyed like the feather toy before it. That’s why you can see part of it sticking out like a broken bone (on the left side of the photo).
Once he’d dismembered its pieces and parts in bloody and ongoing battle, I removed it for his safety as well as for aesthetics.
That happened after The Twins were adopted, though. When those two little ones came home, Kako discovered The Loki Dream Home and tried to stake her claim. Bad move…
The first time Loki found her on the top perch, he kicked her to the curb like refuse. She never again challenged him for that spot. In spite of the cruel treatment at the hands of a mischievous god, she did learn she could use it as long as she didn’t provoke his wrath. She accomplished this by staying quiet and meek and planting her tiny behind on the bottom platform where she was as inconspicuous as possible.
It was never really safe for her there. Loki would get in one of his moods and drop upon her like a plague of locusts sweeping down from the sky. She rarely knew what hit her.
And do you think he did it because he wanted her spot? Nope. He did it because he didn’t want her on The Loki Dream Home. It was that simple, that selfish. He’d return to the top platform as soon as he’d ejected her.
Yet another reason for his name…
I’m continuing my journey through old photos, and I’ve discovered two more I think deserve some airtime.
Grendel and Kako have always been called The Lovers. She thinks of Grendel as her man and he enjoys the attention from her.
This relationship started early. In fact, its beginnings could be seen in Kako shortly after she and her brother Kazon were adopted. I’ve always said that, as the only female in the house, she knew immediately that paring up with the alpha male would be her best bet. And that’s just what she did.
Although Grendel was still recovering from hip surgery and attempting to grow back his fur, he commanded respect while remaining as lovable and affectionate as always.
So here are two photos from autumn 1998 when Kako and Kazon were newly adopted and Grendel tended to his post-surgery rejuvenation. What you see is one little lady, Kako, falling deeply in love with one very tolerant cat, Grendel.
Oh, and that blur in the second photo is yet again my big paw dangling in front of the camera lens. And you wonder why photography has never been my career… Similarly, pardon the quality. Both pictures were taken with a disposable camera almost ten years ago.
In the first one, you can practically smell the adoration dripping from Kako as she stares lovingly at her new man.
As for the second one, it’s almost as if I walked in on two teenagers being a little too familiar. Just look at her face. It’s as though she’s been caught by her parents doing something she knows she shouldn’t be doing. Either that or she thinks I’m going to challenge her for Grendel’s company, and she’s ready to fight for what’s hers.
Let me finish by saying I’m still going through a large number of old photographs and will continue posting those I think are worth sharing.