Back off, PETA

I've deduced that my cat has abandonment issues.

This morning, I was rudely awakened by a noise I will liken to that of a prairie dog getting sucked into a vacuum cleaner.

Given that I was deeply entrenched in my REM cycle, I did not take kindly to being ripped out of it. Plus, I was having a perfectly ludicrous dream... which I can no longer remember (I hope I was visiting the crayon factory again). The reason this scared the cotton balls out of me is that Stella very rarely makes any noise, so this yowling that took place outside my door was very uncharacteristic. And obnoxious.

Also, by nature, she's not a very affectionate cat. When I was in college, we had a strict morning schedule. I would wake up and she would allow me to pet her for about 10 minutes. After the 10 minutes was up, she would usually bite me and then we were both free to start our respective days.

Lately, however, if she had her way, I would wake up at 5am, pet her for 4 hours and then we would repeat this process at about 9pm later that night. In fact, as I'm writing this, she is pacing in front of me and staring me down. I'm choosing to ignore her because I'm still pretty pissed that I was up before the sun this morning.

Oh, back to abandonment issues. Well, when I went to China, I thought it best to leave Stella with my parents. When I came home, she wasn't having it. She was pretty hostile (moreso than usual) for the first week or so but eventually, I was allowed to sleep in my bed again.

Then, I went to the Netherlands. Upon my return, I was expecting an unfriendly reception, but was pleasantly greeted with a warm welcome from the Mistress of Calico. Slowly, the sweetness turned into insistence and the insistence turned into mild obsession and the obsession turned into Kathy Bates.

The worst part of all of this is that I'll be moving out eventually (third time's a charm!) and chances are, I'll leave Stella here with my parents and my dad's cat, Cindy. Stella and Cindy have an odd but effective relationship. They play/fight for a few hours, ignore each other for a few hours, nap and repeat. It works quite well as Stella is mean and Cindy has the IQ of packing peanuts.

I just noticed that Stella is currently getting lit off of a catnip toy, so I'm going to take this opportunity to use the restroom without her watching (judging) me.