war and peace

I like cats, as a rule, but I have realized in the last 24 hours that they are really strange creatures. Not that it’s a life goal, understanding housecats, but all I can do is shake my head, right now.

We currently have a cat, Ronya (her real name) staying with us, while her owner, the other daughter of my host family, is away on vacation. She has never seemed too mischievious, though she will come in and wake you at 7 am if you leave the door open. But she also came and curled up with me when I was sick (after which I learned that “zusammenrollen” = curl up). She was also very sympathetic to my terrible German when I first got here. It was good practice, saying hello to the cat.

But boy, are cats fickle. Last night, I was in a hurry to make dinner, and so got out these pre-packed dumplings that I bought when I could only eat bland food. Turns out they are like boil-in-the-bag rice, but dumplings (amazing!): a little smaller than tennis balls, they come in a perforated pouch and are just chunks of proto-dumpling. You then have to soak them, boil them, and let them sit, and voila! So, I take out 4 dumplings, put them in a pan of cold water, and walk away. I come back a little while later to start making quark with herbs, check the pot, and there’s only 3 dumplings. I had a bit of a time deciding between 3 and 4 originally, so I felt a little crazy, but I was in a hurry. I get some herbs, make the quark, and then leave again, to check email quickly, as I was dealing with banks from hell yesterday. I come back to the kitchen, and there is Ronya ON THE COUNTERTOP IN MY QUARK. Not “in” it, exactly, but definitely preparing to enjoy it. I made big noises about the cat being in trouble, and she scooted away on to the floor right toward…a dumpling. On the floor, a good ten feet from the stovetop. The cat hat gotten up on the stovetop, fished a dumpling out of a pan of water, carried in her little cat-mouth to another part of the kitchen, and attempted to open the perforated dumpling pack. When I told Juli, the daughter who is still here, she said, laughing, “Oh, I should feed her!” For the rest of the evening, the cat and I circled each other warily, to the extent that when I sat down for dinner and she jumped up on a chair to see what’s going on, and I had a bite of dumpling on a fork, we locked eyes, and she literally took a swipe at it with her paw. Impudent little twerp.

Later on, when I got home, Juli told me that they found little white quark-y paw prints on the countertop. So cat apparently likes garlic and oregano. We had also noticed these mysterious chunks of wax near the garbage & recycling – neither Juli nor I had any idea where they came from, and then finally figured out today that they were from some kind of wurst packaging, and that Ronya had somehow gotten them out of the recycling and was licking eau de wurst off of them or something. It’s like having goblins in your house.

Today was a slow day – I’ll blame the weird weather – and I finally hauled myself out to go for a run. It was nice to see so many people out & about for the Germany-Portugal condolence round game. Clearly this is not a fine-I’ll-take-my-toys-and-go-home kind of country; the fans are still playing to win.

I got home, pleasantly exhausted, and then plop down on the floor by my window to unwind. The cat likes this particular window because there are lots of birds nearby, and she came in. I thought she would just as soon hiss at me, but she started to purr and very happily curled up in the crook of my underarm. This may have been the only clearly available crook for the cat to curl up in, but she seemed noticeably happy to be nuzzled into my armpit. I had been running for 45 minutes. So apparently we’ve gotten over her stealing my food/me stealing back the food. Weird cat.

She hung around as I cooked & ate dinner tonight, but no similar mishaps...watching the Germany game now. Every call is very contentious. No one has scored, and the Portugese are attacking a LOT more than the GErmans.Klinsmann seems, well, tense. Cross your fingers, in German, translates to "hold your thumbs"...