Queen of Hearts, Despite Some Bad Habits

Introducing our third and final feline, GreyGirl. Somedays I call her The Queen. Other days I call her StopThatRightNowMissy - Missy for short. Maybe I'm not so bad at naming critters after all. I mean, that cat has three names. I'd say I'm doing okay, quantity-wise at least.

GreyGirl came to us after she was hit by a car, taken by the police to our vet, surgically rehabilitated by him, and never claimed by anyone. We were looking for a companion for BoyCat after his brother died from liver problems at less than two years old. The brothers had come from the cat shelter as identical black fluffy kittens who played together, slept together, got into trouble together and were mighty cute together. After BoyCat's brother died, he was lonely. We decided he needed a friend.

GreyGirl did not turn out to be a friend. She turned out to be The Queen. She bosses BoyCat as if he's her servant. When she plops down in front of him, she's not looking for company. She's looking to have her face cleaned, and pronto.

Sometimes, she doesn't even plop down in front of BoyCat. Sometimes she plops down across the room from him, and just stares at him. First he tries to avoid her stare, then he tries to ignore it, then he helplessly bumbles his way to her and does as she has commanded with her demon eyes. He doesn't like it, and he usually ends up rebelling and jumping on her near the end of the face-cleaning, but it's amazing that he never refuses to do it.

GreyGirl, aka The Queen, aka StopThatRightNowMissy, has a bottomless pit for a stomach. And her girlish figure has suffered for it. We have tried several diet foods but she has a delicate system (she is The Queen, after all) and could not tolerate them.

When Missy wants to be fed, which is every second she is awake, she will sit by her food dish and meow as if a very large imaginary person is standing on her tail and perhaps even grinding it into the floor with their big heavy imaginary workboots. It is pitiful and it is like nails on a chalkboard and it drives me to grind my teeth and forget important things. Even if she has just eaten and should by all accounts have a happy tummy, she will meow anyway.

This behavior is getting worse as Missy gets older. My current theory is that she has some worsening brain damage caused by her run-in with that car, and she actually forgets that she has eaten. This theory of cat dementia has not caused her to stop meowing, nor caused me to feed her less - it has only allowed me to keep my sanity. She remains convinced that if she meows long enough and hard enough, food will appear in her bowl. And you know what? She's right.

GreyGirl/The Queen/Missy is a wonderfully affectionate cat, however. She will lie in my arms and stretch out one paw to touch my face, and purr until she finally falls asleep. Ahhh ... peace. And love.

Here she is:

Missy with  her piercing stare. She was looking at the birds here. But this is the same look she gives her adopted brother when she wants her face washed.
 Snap to it, slave. Spare no spit.