Bookends: January 2025

In 1996, I adopted a tabby cat that I named Maurice (from the Steve Miller Band song), and in 2000, my spouse and I added a second cat, a black-and-white tuxedo kitty dubbed “Owen,” because I was a mega-fan of A Prayer for Owen Meany. Both were pretty long-lived; we said goodbye to Maurice when he was 18 in 2014, and to Owen just after his 20th birthday in 2020. They were both short-haired, and while I loved them with the ferocity of a person who considered her kittens her babies before she had human babies (and we have the thousands of photos to prove it), for 20+ years I would look at floofy cats and think, “Wouldn’t it be nice to have a long-haired cat?”

Then about 6 months after Owen left us, two adult cats came up for adoption at the humane society. Littermates, they were both tuxedo cats, a female black-and-white short-hair and a male blue-and-white long-hair. We brought them home and kept their previous names (Camille and Silo), and Silo was just as fluffy as I’d imagined my future long-haired cat would be. In fact, he gets compliments from everyone he lets touch him about how soft he is. A new vet at the clinic we go to was particularly effusive. She got Silo out of his carrier and said to the tech, “Have you felt this cat? You’ve got to feel this cat! It’s like petting a chinchilla!”

And petting Silo is, in fact, much like petting a chinchilla.

But what I didn’t realize was that long-haired cats come with some…complications.

For one, Silo has very furry feet, which means he gets litter all over the place. Like, even with litter-catcher mats at each litter box, I need to vacuum at least once a day. I got a robot vacuum to help out, but even she’s like, “You have got to be kidding me,” and just goes back to her base.

The other isn’t as frequent, but it is grosser: Sometimes Silo’s fur gets in the way while he’s doing his business, which means that periodically I have to tackle him and clean poop from his matted butt fur. I’m not sure which of us is more dramatic about this process. It’s definitely undignified.

This isn’t to say that I would go back and not adopt Silo. He’s a super sweetie, and in addition to his chinchilla coat, he has the most epic whiskers which make him resemble Salvador Dali just a little. He’s also got weird allergies and digestive issues we haven’t gotten to the bottom of and has had to have all but two of his teeth extracted, but really, if you itemized all of the hassles, would any pet seem worth the effort? (For that matter, would any kid seem worth it? The positives outweigh the negatives in significant but intangible ways. And at least my cats show no interest in going to college.)

It’s just that I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into when I got a long-haired cat. But after living with cats for almost every one of my so far 48 years, I think I’m ready for the challenge. It’s kind of like the emails I get from the place from which I order my houseplants that say, “Now that you’ve bought the equivalent of an indoor jungle, you’re ready to level up with plants that are more difficult to care for!” And so far, they’ve been right (touch wood), just as I appear to be ready for the leveling-up required for parenting a long-haired cat.

And this is what I have to say instead of writing about what’s going on in the news right now.

January was about 30 years long and February seems to be the equivalent of a long weekend, so I’m just getting to my first Bookends post of 2025 more than halfway through the month. I do have some fun updates from February to share when I post this month’s books, but for now, here’s what I read in January! (Spoiler: January was an excellent reading month! So many great titles from the Tournament of Books Longlist (and shortlist)!)

January Completed Books:

My favorites from this bunch:

• The History of Sound by Ben Shattuck
• Colored Television by Danzy Senna
• Playground by Richard Powers
• The Book Censor’s Library by Bothayna Al-Essa

Currently Reading:

• The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West
• Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

To-Read for February:

In addition to my StoryGraph, you can see my Litsy profile for status updates throughout the month.