Me & Jasper

My Dear Princess and Dear Fellows,

Jasper woke me up this morning. He meowed and meowed and meowed. I invited him up onto the bed with me. He sat just out of reach and complained I wasn't cuddling him. When I moved closer, he moved further away and then started complaining again.

He meows. A lot. He meows if he's not getting enough attention. Or if he wants biscuits - 

"Look," I'll tell him. "You've GOT biscuits."

"Not THOSE biscuits," he whines. "NEW biscuits. And you have to stroke me while I'm eating them or it's not the same."

He meows because he wants to get in the kitchen cupboard. He meows because he's telling you he's GOING into the kitchen cupboard. 

It can be quite wearing, when you are trying to have a lie-in on Good Friday. "Don't you know that JESUS DIED so I could have an effing lie-in??" I ask him.

"Meeeeeeeooowwwww," he replies. Bloody atheist.

He has quite a vocabulary. A grumpy, surly teenagerish whine. A sharp "MEOW!" that sounds like swearing. A "humph!" when you try to reason with him. And one with a question mark at the end. Me and Er Indoors feel we can have a full-on conversation with him. He always has the last word.

He's a very sociable little chap and those of you who have visited will have encountered the Jasper Charm Offensive. There's no loud meowing. He saunters into the room and rolls for you, showing you his white tummy. He might chirrup and purr. 

Visitors to our house typically end up on the floor with him. And he's so quiet they don't believe us when we tell them about his shouting.

"What IS that noise?" they ask when they call us on our phones. "Has someone sat on their Dudelsack?"

No, we have to explain. It is because we are paying attention to our phone and not to HIM.

But Jasper IS charming. He charms me all the time and always has. We got him in 2012 a few months after Punky's arrival. Punky needed someone to play with and so we found a five year old ginger cat named Charlie online at a cat sanctuary in Fife.

They told us Charlie was spoken for, but they had a kitten called Jasper.

A kitten? We weren't sure about that. But went out there to meet him. The taxi driver assured us there was no cat sanctuary in Kircaldy. But he dropped us at the address. "Is this it?" I asked.

As if by way of answer, thirty cats heads popped up in the window of the terraced house I was stood outside. 

When we went inside, the smell hit us like being whacked in the face with a bag of cat litter. There were cats EVERYWHERE in this tiny house. The lady took us to a room filled with cat-cages from floor to ceiling. Jasper was retrieved from one of them and placed in Er Indoors's arms. He flopped like a baby and looked in her eyes. Those green eyes slowly closed and he fell asleep, breathing and purring softly.

THE JASPER CHARM OFFENSIVE

(He has never EVER done this to either of us ever again, by the way).

So a kitten it was. I took the week off when he arrived (and I've talked about the day of his arrival before). I wanted to make sure the boys got on ok, but it was pretty easy. We were told we had to keep the kitten in a separate room for 48 hours, but after 24 Jasper had clearly had enough. 

MEOW MEOW MEOW MEOW MEOW MEOW

Punky was as desperate on the other side of the door, sniffing furiously. We opened the door and there was a bit of growling and a pair of fat tails. I sat on the floor with them both and gave them a bowl of tuna each. That was all it took. Then they were mates. 

It was exactly what we had been hoping for. The two of them chasing each other around the flat, pretend-wrestling and bouncing off furniture, then giving each other licks and falling asleep together.

Jasper also decided that we were mates in that week. I never really got a say in it. He wanted to sit with me all the time and still does. He's got a lot of endearing habits. He likes to "hold hands". The thing that calms him and makes him happiest is to put his paw on top of my hand. I don't know why this makes him happy, but it just does. 

And every morning he escorts me to the shower. He sees me grab my towel and follows me into the bathroom and sits outside the shower cubicle until I am finished. I think he worries I might slip down the plughole.

It's not going to happen darlin'. Your daddy is a fat b*stard. 

He likes to cuddle. Not for long. He gets bored and effs off after 10 minutes, but he loves to get high up onto my chest and paddle my stomach. Oftentimes he will do this backwards with his sticky little date looking at me in a threatening fashion. Then he will back up with his tail in the air.

"He wants you to give him a wash," Er Indoors says, helpfully. 

"Jasper. Jasper NO," I say. But he continues to back up. And he then spreads his legs and they straddle my neck. His tail flicks over my head up to my forehead.

He NEVER does this to Er Indoors. I am like his cushion.

If he does face me while lying on my chest, he likes to reach up and put his paw in my face.

"I think he just came out of his poobox," says Er Indoors, helpfully.

He sleeps next to me most nights, and I often wake up with him right next to me, or on my arm. When I'm hungover or sick he'll stay with me all day, or even get under the duvet with me. He should be a therapy cat. He seems to be able to sense when I'm down and makes an extra effort to cheer me up.

These are all of the things I need to remind myself of when the incessant meowing starts. When it is early in the morning, and I'm trying to go back to sleep and he starts playing his Dudelsack. I need to remember how loveable he is and how much I love him. I love him because he's this big, chunky substantial cat who loves to be cuddled. And because he's got such attitude. Look at the extras. That is him owning the couch and sticking his tongue out at me.

And anyway, now that he's successfully got me out of bed, he has gone back to sleep and all is quiet. The little bugger.

S.