Me and My Martin

I am surprised at how well my “Boo-Boo” kitty has adjusted to our tiny new living quarters here in Midtown Manhattan. We’ve officially been here for more than two months now and Martin has not once cried by the front door to go out into the scary beyond. I’m really surprised at this. Of course, he gets so much attention from me these days that I’m not quite sure why he’d even consider extending his explorations to the 9th floor hallway of the Gershwin. No belly rubs to be found out there!

Truthfully, I think because this particular apartment has a long hallway leading in from the door, Martin knows that I am usually not within view of that door. So he must think it’s useless to even try sitting there meowing to go out if I cannot observe his pathetic demand for sympathy.

Another thing that I’m proud of is he no longer drinks from my water cup at night! This is a years-old habit finally broken. Soon after we moved in, I ordered a special kitty fountain for him from PetSmart.com. This was after researching the drinking peculiarities of other cats, as described by their owners, on the Internet.

I was able to confirm that the reason Martin didn’t like drinking from a stainless steel bowl is that he cannot determine the water level in the bowl. I’ve suspected this for a few years, ever since I first saw him pawing the floor next to his bowl each time before drinking. I also suspect he didn't like the taste of the water here because he had stopped drinking from any bowl almost entirely. Another thing I found out is that cats like their water VERY fresh and VERY cold. Hence Martin’s delight in drinking from my freshly filled green plastic cup of ice water each night before bedtime. (Even then he would paw the night stand before drinking - so green doesn't help with the water level problem either.)

So I plugged the fountain in. It took a week or two before he finally gave up drinking from my bedside cup. Little by little, he gave it up. And now he drinks exclusively from his fountain.

See – cats aren’t that hard to figure out. I tell you what, he sure seems happy here. So my eight months of worry about his adjusting from a 2,010 s.f. home to a small 1-bedroom apartment was all for naught. That sure makes me happy.