A little note

I know how works a blog, thank you.
I just want to tell all my history before to begin with the normal part – the day-by-day of this house.
So, be a little more patient, and I will finish the history of the early days as soon as possible.

Who rules this house?

Manu adopted a respectful behavior, I have to admit. She tried to stay out of my sight and never reacted when I beat her for being… Manu.
In the first days, I hissed to her a lot, beat her a little and showed her that I am the owner of the house. Actually, I truly believed that my humms would see that they had made a mistake and they will return her for wherever she comes but, after some days, I saw that she comes to stay. And I began to be used to her company.
I even could see some good points in her: differently of my humms, she has soft fur and is good to take a nap in her company. She help me to take baths (she is good in cleaning my ears, for example) and we discovered that there are some plays that we could do together. And her food was excellent, too.
But I also noticed that she was a pain in the neck. She pretended that she was mellow, and pretended that she liked the lap of Mom, who was in some way bewitched by her. She made a lot of strange sounds that the humms liked – for example, when they opened a can of tuna, they loved to hear her humiliating begs for the food.
It was not an honored behavior, but I learned that I had to let her act the way that she likes. As I like to be left alone great part of the day, to have another cat in the house helps to avoid the excess of humms attention.
And I always can beat her if she did something that I didn’t like, so, let’s the life goes on…

The annoying little thing

My humms returned from their trip, we resumed our routine and everything seemed well. I had good food, good places to take naps, a nice bed to sleep all night with them, I couldn’t complain about my life.
But something had to happen.
I was preparing for my first birthday when the Dude made a little trip. He always did that for 2 or 3 days, and I was not worried. But mom was acting in a strange way and, suddenly she arrived home with something weird in her arms.
At first sight, I thought that was another toy for me (I love toys, mainly the ones with catnip), but the smell was wrong. And the little thing was making some strange noises, too, and was moving alone.
It took a while until I noticed that it was a cat.
I mean, it did not look like a cat. Cats are like me, gray, tabby, big, a little fat, strong, beautiful and smell very good.
This thing was white, had big blue eyes, was small and smelled funny.
I heard Mom calling the Dude by phone and telling him that she had brought home a Siamese. And I heard when she asked the Dude’s son, Henrique, to choose a name for her.
After a while, I was formally introduced to Manuela Mocca de Las Canduengas or, simply, Manu.
My life was never the same again.

The Friends

I am a little contradictory, if you think about behavior and personality.
I am a bully, a macho-man, aggressive with other cats (I will return to this point later), and I have the tendency to impose my desires over my humms (I do it in a very easy way. For example, it’s I who decides how much of the bed I will use every night). At the same time, I talk with them a lot, sometimes I show that I love them and I’m always near them when they are at home.
Nothing unusual, isn’t it true?! But, if any stranger arrives, everything changes.
I can’t explain why I act in this way, but I am very shy with people that I don’t know and my first reaction in the presence of someone new is to run away and hide myself.
After a while, I finally approach the stranger and I try to sniff him or her and I can even lick him or her – what amuses my humms.
I believe that part of this behavior is a result of a trauma in my childhood. I was abandoned. And by my humms, can you believe it?!?!
Without warning, they put a lot of clothes in cases and disappeared for 3 complete weeks.
I was just beginning to become used to their presence and they made a trip, without asking my opinion about it. This was a disrespectful, rude and irresponsible behavior, that’s what I think.
The good part is that they asked some friends to show up and take care of me. Sora and Ana came every day, and they played a lot with me with paper balls or little toys, and they cleaned my litter box and fed me great amounts of good food. Excepted that I was really missing my humms, I was having a very good time.
Well, eventually, they returned. I decided to show them that I didn’t like what they did, so I stayed away from them for some days (I only climbed on the bed in the middle of the night, but I don’t think they ever noticed it) and it worked: They promised me that they would never again make long trips without me.
I thought this was a great victory. Actually, I should have asked them to promise that they would never make any trip, but I only realized my mistake when it was too late.

Into my first house

My humans picked me up from the house where I lived with my relatives and moved me into their apartment.
It was a little apartment, but there was a big window, and I could look all the time the streets and lots of birds flying. There was a lot of good food, a litter box room exclusive for me (ok, there were some boxes and cases in there too, but it was a litter box room that only I used) and a lot of good places to take a nap.
I had some favorite places – under the bed, under the dresser, over the clothes washer, behind the books in one of the bookshelves, but I begun to grow up a lot, and soon I didn’t fit in some of the best places. But life was good, and I begun to feel very comfortable, and I enjoyed the place.
I developed also a beautiful relationship with the guys, after our first problems. Actually, after knowing them better, I discovered that I loved them (don’t let them see this, it will be embarrassing).
I loved them so much that I had to demonstrate it, even in my discrete way. So, I begun to licked them. In a little while, I was licking them in a stronger way and, even before I noticed what was happening, I was biting them. It was something that came from inside me, do you understand? It’s stronger than I!
But it was not a big deal. They would even bleed a little, but the marks normally disappeared in a few days.
But it was useful to demonstrate that I had adopted them as mine.

before the origins

My Mom (she is not my biological Mom, do you understand? I’m adopted. But don’t worry, I’m OK with that) says that she had a dream about me before she knew me.
She was thinking about adopting a cat, and she had this amazing dream with a beautiful cat (me), with gray tabby fur (me), green eyes (me) and a lot of personality (me, definitely).
So, when she and the Dude decided that it was the proper time, they asked two friends (Sora and Ana) to help them to find… me.
And they did.

Me as a kitten

I can’t remember very well the first days with Mom and the Dude, but they tell that I was a little nervous and frightened. I used to hide behind the curtains or a big vase with plants but, when everybody was in the bedroom and the lights were turned off, I used to climb on the bed and tried to find a comfortable place to spend the night. Usually, over the Dude’s pillow (it is easy to get him out of there. I still do this until today).
And this is the pattern of my behavior since then: I don’t like very much when the people grab me and put me on their laps. It’s something that annoys me, can’t you see? But, if nobody is paying attention, I can get closer and closer and, sometimes, I even climb on a lap for some seconds. On these occasions, I ppppuuuuuurrrrr a lot, but only if nobody is paying attention. This is a private thing, so…
I know that Mom doesn’t like very much such behavior. In her dreams, I would be a very mellow cat, who would love to take naps in her lap and who would come when somebody calls.
But I stand all night in her side, warming her, covering her with my soft fur, even when she doesn’t notice this.
I think she should be very happy with me.

still the origins

I was born in a very crowded house.
Besides my biological dad (soon moved out of there for his bully behavior) and biological mother, I lived there with 3 sisters, 1 aunt, a strange thing that I would later discover was a female dog (bleargh!!) and two female humans.
So, when I moved into my first home with my humans, I was 3 months old and I was used to be the Alpha male of the pack.
That was my first problem with the Dude.
The Dude is my male human. He has a lot of great qualities – for example, he is very warm and it is good to take a nap in his side of the bed. He is very useful, too – he is the one responsible for cleaning up the litter box, and for putting regular food for me. But, when we first met, he was not prepared to accept that I would be the new boss. I think that he was resentful of loosing his kingdom to me, and the fact that I was so young just made the things worse.
He didn’t understand the clear signs, either: I pissed in his side of the bed, in his clothes, in his chair in the office, even in the place that he used to seat in the living room, but he is some kind of slow-to-learning guy, so I had to be radical: I pissed direct on him.
That was something that he couldn’t ignore, and he didn’t.
He took me then to the Evil-Vet and they did something strange in my parts. I lost some of my natural vigor and enthusiasm, but not all. And I learned that the Dude plays dirty so, after this incident, we began a more pacific relationship.
It is going well, for now.

The origins of my name

Someone said that I am like this dude: an alley cat with an attitude of noble, and my humans thought that would be funny to name me after him.
Well, I do like my name. And, certainly, I am much more noble – and much less mutt – than him. And I sing as well, too.

in the beginning

First God made heaven and earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. And God said, "Let there be cats"; and there were cats. And God saw that the cats were good; and God separated the cats from the rest of the creation...