I have three cats and enough cat hair in the house to make a fourth. Phelicity is the champ when it comes to fur. She's the champ at just about everything. She's also the youngest and the littlest, the Phurbaby of the house, a situation that is probably not going to change. She doesn't like that. But she deals with her wicked stepsisters....er, her sweet elderly Auntie cats admirably, because she has more tenacity than anyone in the house. Phelicity's name is spelled with a "Ph" because she's a pedigreed Bluepoint Birman, and the year she was born, 1992, was the "P" year for naming show Birmans. One of my nicknames for her is Phlipity Phluph. It just evolved. Not that I don't respect her royal lineage or would forget for a moment that she is a True Princess. She'd never let me. I think as she gets older, she becomes more impatient to be given her royal birthright of Queen. She doesn't let BamBam ("the Boss") intimidate her any more, and she is just as good now at Mewsette's games of oneupsmanship as Mewsette ("the Queen") herself. But while they live, Phelicity will be the Heiress Apparent, and she recognizes that as less than her due. I feel like England in the days of Elizabeth and Mary, the rival Queens. When I call her the Champ, I mean it. She is the furball champ of the house, to begin with. Have you ever watched a poor little longhaired cat grooming her ruff? The little tongue goes down the fur, the little neck stretches out to the max, and they run out of tongue and neck before they run out of fur. My poor baby sits there with a flash of utter frustration on her little face at each stroke, with a half inch of fur left at the end, but she continues bravely on, busily creating another furball to decorate the carpet with tomorrow. She is also expert at the "Birman huff", a genteel little puff of exasperation when she's being fussed over too much. We brush, we comb, we clean eyes, we clean ears, we do what we reasonably can to keep little gums healthy; and she sits there, patient and sweet like a good former show cat should, going "huff, huff", like little sighs. Then, depending on how many times I kiss the top of her head, she settles down and tolerates me or disappears at the first available moment. It's not easy being a Princess.
Phelicity doesn't like to be cuddled much unless she's really in the mood, and strictly on her terms. This is my fault - the four of us having established long ago that everything wrong around here is my fault - because I cuddled her unmercifully in her first year, lavishing so much adoration on her that now she looks upon me as the Cuddle Monster. I should have paid attention as the hint of reproach in her eyes grew more frequent in the prime of her Mature Cathood. I try hard not to scoop her up and baby her, disrupting her serene, mature reflections on Life, catkind and the spot on the wall. She rewards me for my valiant efforts by calling me imperiously when she does want me, sleeping on me every night when she's through walking around on me, and keeping me company when I take a bath. I believe her favorite part of me is one dry arm entended from a tub of bubbles to rub her head and keep her from falling in when she gets too enthusiastic. She loves the bathtub.
Her major accomplishments are in the field of communications. Never could a tiny cat make her royal wishes and commands as obvious as this one can. The sudden, plaintive wail from the bathtub (she knows it echos), uttering her clarion call at the top of her lungs of "Moww!", her unique combination of "Mom" and "now!" will bring me running. Her patient stance, when she's being her usual patient little self, in the bedroom doorway, waiting for me to notice that she wants me, is just as effective. That's when she needs an extended session of loving and petting, and wants to do her swish-and-bump dance. I must kneel down with one knee at the appropriate height for her to head-bump, as she swishes back and forth between me, the chair leg, and whatever else is handy, bumping and rubbing her head happily on all and pausing to let me run my hand down her back and tail in between bumps - not once, not 3 times, but exactly twice. She dearly loves this little routine she created, and so do I. I've never seen any other cat do anything like it. In fact, I'm never sure if she's being particularly loving at these times or just wants to scratch her head on me, but she will eventually flop on her side for the finale of lots of petting by me and happy purring by her. Sometimes she prefers to use the bed for this routine, and she'll let me know by pointedly looking at the bed, back to me, back to the bed. I better have lumbered myself up from the floor and got there by the time she jumps up, because she's dancing and ready to bump.