Meet Mr. Rumble

I’ve always been a bit nuts about cats. I had MANY cats growing up (along with birds, fish, a rabbit and a raccoon!).

I went through a phase where I managed to make every school project cat-related.

And for my 12th birthday, almost everything on my wish list was kitty-something-or-other. Just a wee tad obsessed!??

Then in my 20s I discovered the freedom of not having any pets. No one to feed, no poop to clean up, no hair on my clothes… it was pretty fantastic. I thought I would never want or need pets again.

And then as a grown-up, slowly exiting the years of childbearing age, I realized I actually did want someone to take care of. I always thought I’d have four to six kids, but adopting as a single gal is just not something I’m prepared to do.

So after almost two decades of all kinds of roommates, I found myself living entirely alone. As a hardcore introvert, it was great!… for about three weeks.

Then I realized that the only other sign of life in my house was my houseplants. When there is literally no other life in your home, the scraping sound of the prayer plant moving its leaves every evening becomes welcome company.

I didn’t really want another roommate for the time being, so I started playing around with the idea of getting a pet again. Maybe I’d try something new and get a dog. Or maybe I should get a cockatiel again. What about a hamster?

Talking about it was about as far as I got….until this handsome face dropped into my life.

A few days before Christmas, a friend shared a Facebook post about an adorable kitten that she had found wandering around town. I offered to take him in (because her own cat wasn’t a fan of this intruder) until they found his family, figuring that it would be a good trial run to see if I really wanted a cat.

Well, within minutes of arriving he just curled up on my lap and my heart melted. By the second day I was so smitten with this snuggly little rascal that I just held my breath, selfishly hoping that he would be mine forever.

In spite of a valiant effort, and confirming that he wasn’t microchipped, my friend was never able to track down his origins, so Rumble has been with me now for almost four months and I can’t imagine my house without him.😍

I had always said I wanted an office cat at my previous job, and now that I have my own business working from home, I got the best Office Manager I could wish for… I mean, other than the fact that he sleeps all day and expects me to do all the work😉

But oh my goodness, how can you not just fall in love with that little face when it snuggles while you work? This became a daily routine😍

He’s a pretty good mouser though!!😂

And he does a great job of supervising when he’s awake.

Sometimes good kitties do bad things, but it’s so easy to forgive them when they’re so stinkin’ cute.

Did you know they make YouTube for cats?? We try to limit screen time to one hour per day so he doesn’t get too addicted.😂

Beautiful Birds and Squirrels in Canadian Forest is his favourite video. Highly recommend!

Got it!! We instituted some boundaries after this incident. Computer screens are off limits, as is walking on keyboards!

What I love most about having a cat is that he makes me laugh many times throughout the day!

One thing we can learn from kittens is to just not take life too seriously!

The smallest things can be interesting and create hours of entertainment.

If you fall, just get back up and keep going.

Work hard but never, ever forget to just be silly!

If you’re tired, just yawn and let everyone know it. Anywhere, anytime.

Almost any place is a good place for a nap…

But the piano is not one of them… Naughty boy.

Nor is a dirty bowl!… I think he was just doing this to make me laugh.😂

He actually sleeps like this often. This kid cracks me up.

One area where the cat wisdom seems to be a bit lacking — the table will NOT in fact protect you from the loud vacuum cleaner.

I never used to understand why childless women always seemed to have pets that they treat like their kids – they’d be in the family photos, they’d talk about them a lot, and call themselves Mommy.

I get it now. (Well, not the Mommy part. I still feel like it’s important to keep a healthy boundary between cats and humans. I might be a cat mom, but my name is not, nor shall it ever be, Mommy or Mom or any such thing. If you do that, that’s cool. Just not for me.)

I think it’s just innate that we want to care for and nurture someone or something other than ourselves. And of course, we want to go out in the world and do that, but I think for us single gals to dote on a cat or two like they’re sort of our kids… I think that’s okay.😊