Johnny the Fierce and Pooms the Neurotic

The picture of Johnny and Pooms sitting next to each other on a couch didn’t really do them justice and was somewhat misleading, because A) the picture didn’t quite give me an idea of the scale of the size of the cats, and B) I have never since seen the cats occupy the same room without getting into a tussle resulting in a lot of noise and clumps of fur floating through the air. This is particularly bizarre since the cats grew up together, and were adopted as kittens by a young couple- Pooms first, and then Johnny half a year or a year later. Then the baby came and so the cats went, somehow ending up with a German lady though the details of the story are a bit fuzzy. A few years later, the German woman went as well, back to Germany according to the story, and was not able to take the cats. The guy I’d spoken to and who brought the cats to us fitted into the picture somehow, though no one’s really sure how. It seemed that the longer the story got, the less sense it made.

When Pooms wandered out of the carrier, we thought, “wow, that’s a large cat.” When Johnny exited his mobile prison, we thought, “that can’t be a cat, can it?” We thought maybe the guy had gotten confused and had brought us a mountain lion or a puma by mistake. Nope, no error in caged felines had been made. It just turned out to be one of the largest cats I’ve ever seen in person. Pooms, at around 5 kilos (11 lbs), is no miniature cat. She carries much of the weight in her middle, which probably explains her waddle. Johnny carries his 10.6 kilos (23 lbs) everywhere. The explanation for his girth is in his heritage (and also in the quantity of organic, free range poultry cat food that he chowed down on daily until being put on dietetic food after a trip to the vet). We somehow ended up with a Norwegian Forest Cat, one of the largest breeds in existence. How this double layered, water proof cat ended up in Jerusalem, I have no idea. As a cat bred by the vikings in the frozen Norwegian tundra, this doesn’t really seem to be the ideal climate for him. This discovery was only made by accident, after someone mentioned that the Norwegian Forest cat and the Maine Coon are the two biggest cat breeds. We lived with a Maine Coon for 16 years but I had never heard of the second large breed. I decided to do a Google search one day when I had obviously run out of cat videos to watch online, and to my surprise, the first picture that popped up looked almost exactly like Johnny. And so did the second one.

    From the face shape to the tufts of fur in strange places (ears, neck, haunches, and in between the toes) to the massive paws, Johnny had to be at least part Norwegian Forest Cat if not completely. He seems to be at least part viking as well when his belly, paws, or tufts are touched.

Before the cats figured out how to use the stairs (they had obviously never encountered such an apparatus in their previous residences), they were stuck on the first floor together. Pooms spent most of her time hiding behind a stack of folding chairs or behind boxes, while Johnny had free reign of the floor. On any occasion when Pooms ventured out to explore or sit on the couch, Johnny would wander over and a scuffle would ensue. Pooms would end up on the kitchen counter and Johnny had to be coaxed away so she would be left in peace. It was not always Johnny who would initiate the fight, but Pooms seemed to resent his presence and if she didn’t throw the first paw, Johnny would. Inevitably. Every single time without fail. How these cats made it this long with each other was a mystery. We hoped they would settle down at some point, maybe get used to their new home and settle their territorial dispute.

Then one day Pooms disappeared. We searched high and low. Behind boxes, under beds, in every single closet and small space we could find. Twelve hours later we had to admit to ourselves that she was not in the apartment. So we searched outside, and on the neighbors’ balconies, under bushes, and at all the known cat feeding stations in the neighborhood. We made signs and hung them all over the neighborhood. I had to come to terms with the fact that she was most likely dead. I felt awful. This poor sweet, squeaky, little cat had somehow gotten out, either by a window, the balcony, or the front door. She had either fallen a great distance to the ground, or had wandered outside and had had to defend herself from the veteran street cats. Either option was horrible to think about.

Then a week or so later, after I had given up all hope of finding her again, I got a call from the neighbor saying she had found our cat three days before in her laundry room. She had heard meows for three days before finding a cat behind her washing machine. But she was sorry to inform me that she had shooed the cat out of the building, obviously not seeing the lost cat sign which had been hanging prominently next to the front door of the building since the day she had disappeared. I immediately called my father and informed him that the cat had last been seen alive three days ago and could potentially still be in the area. He ran out to look for her and call her name. The same neighbor ran out after him to inform him that the cat was in her apartment. How Pooms had gotten there (twice) is a mystery to all and will probably never be revealed, but she was quickly recovered and returned, chowing down on a few days worth of kibble.

Johnny was the only one not pleased by this development, as he had been the reigning feline for the past week. He at least had the courtesy to allow her to finish eating before swatting at her, but that was a brief reprieve. Even after both cats learned how to use the stairs (it only took two weeks), two entire floors was not enough territory for the both of them.

We all realized that this was not a sustainable situation. I knew that when I did finally move out, I was going to have to take Johnny with me as I was the only one he had bonded with. I was also the only one who had learned his body language, knowing when and where to pet him so as not to get the viking treatment. Poor Pooms showed the signs of long-term psychological trauma, hiding most of the day and hissing and running away from Johnny any time he approached. She was clearly an anxious cat, always on guard against attack.

This was the impetus for my quick move out of the ancestral manse. Interestingly, my life seems to be determined by small 4 legged creatures, both at work and at home. Which is still way better than a few bosses I’ve had.

Four Furry Towels, Three Scratching Pads, Two Cat Beds, and a Toy Mouse in a Cat Tree

 Very sadly, we had to say goodbye to two of the greatest and most entertaining cats to walk this planet. Cookie and Moby’s hobbies including snuggling with each other, finding warm laps to sit on, and snarfing chicken. Cookie was clearly the smart one- discovering a way onto the roof of the next building via the tarp on our balcony and an open window, and saving Moby from being locked out of the apartment (by meowing by the front door until we finally opened it out of curiosity to find Moby sitting on the doormat in the hall). She was certainly the more outgoing of the two and had an unfailing sense of who was allergic to or who disliked cats. We would often find in her in these people’s laps being reluctantly petted.

Moby was a bit more selective. He would hide in a cupboard or under the blankets when strangers were in the house. We would time him and about 30 seconds later he’d show up after they left to loudly demand a lap. He was basically a large brown lug with a tendency to get himself into trouble (for more on his adventures).

All in all, we were incredibly lucky to have had the opportunity to serve these cats. They were originally supposed to be loaners. We offered to take care of them for 6 months or a year for a guy from Jerusalem who needed to go back to England for medical treatment. Unfortunately, he never got the treatment and passed away a year or so later. That’s how we ended up with two 7 year old Tonkinese cats. We had the joy of living with them for 6 years until both got sick with cancer and had to be put to sleep within a month of each other.

As you can imagine, this was quite a blow. Being catless is an unnatural state for us, and we all knew that we’d probably never find cats as special as Cookie and Moby again. Nevertheless, we started feeling that itch. That itch you feel when the house is empty when you come home and there’s no one there to greet you. The itch you feel when it’s too quiet even though there’s chicken on the counter. The itch you feel when you’re alone on the couch with no sleeping furry bodies.

My father saw a post on Facebook about two young cat brothers that needed a home. However, they were only a few months old and we did not want the responsibility of kittens. We have no problem with being an old age home for cats. Older cats come as trained as they’re ever going to get, and with fully developed personalities. They’re not as wild as kittens, and there are fewer surprises in store. And as with adults vs. babies, you don’t have to worry about screwing them up too much, or coming home to find all of the toilet paper shredded all over the entire house.

I just so “happened” to be cruising the animals for adoption page of Yad2, and ran into a picture of two cats sitting next to each other on the back of a couch, one a tortoiseshell and the other gray and white. I thought, well isn’t that sweet, two cats hanging out together. I read the ad, which was for one 8 year old and one 7.5 year old cat that needed a home because their caretaker was moving out of the country and couldn’t take the cats.

I was sold. It doesn’t really take much to convince me past “cat needs a home.” Or even just “cat.” I showed my father the ad since he seemed to be in the market for two furry creatures, presumably so they’d entertain each other and maybe even keep each other out of trouble. He was amenable. Next step- convince my mother. She too was amenable to contacting the people to perhaps visit the cats.

I felt kind of stupid about replying to the Yad2 ad about cats as if they were a sofa- “Hi, are your middle aged cats still available? Or has someone else swooped in and claimed them in the 24 hours since this ad was posted?” Unsurprisingly, they were still available. We agreed to go meet the cats, who were living on Emek Refaim in Jerusalem. Somehow “meeting” them morphed into bringing cat carriers, just in case. Which morphed into the guy driving the cats to us in Ma’ale Adumim with a car load of their equipment.

I just moved to an apartment in Jerusalem, and I realize now that I have only marginally more “stuff” than these two cats came with. Most of which sat ignored in my mother’s office. Two cat beds, 3 scratching pads, a bucket full of toys, 4 towels, a litter box, a box for the litter box, organic cat food, cat litter, a bunch of cat treats, a cat “tree,” and a stuffed camel. The list of their equipment is starting to sound like a Christmas song- “Four Furry Towels, Three Scratching Pads, Two Cat Beds, and a Toy Mouse in a Cat Tree.”

The Professional Student

 There’s a normal kid’s last day of school- hurray, moving up a grade!... then there’s Natania’s last day of school- hey, something is probably going to go horribly wrong! In addition to it being the last day of the school year, it was also the last day of my undergraduate degree at Hebrew University in biology. The 3 year degree of which I was currently finishing semester number 9. Yes, your math is correct. Four and a half years later and I had finally finished all my requirements (for a more in depth explanation of my academic delay, see previous posts). I had even gone to both my counselor and the secretary of the department to confirm 100% that I had completed all requirements and that none were lurking behind any corners or under any rocks waiting to pop out at me half an hour before graduation and ruin the plans I had foolishly made for life. It was confirmed. Twice. By two different unconnected people.

This was a huge relief. By this time I had moved out with my cat Johnny (more on that later) and had gotten the green light from my boss to continue at my job in the lab. Even better, my boss was pretty sure that once I officially finished my degree (officially being the code word for filling out a form and then waiting a few months for it to be taken care of, though they actually lost it the day you sent it in, so that you have to fill it out again and then it magically gets taken care of the next day, the result being that the degree is officially “closed.” In Israel you have to “close” your degree; it doesn’t happen automatically.), I would get an automatic pay rise from the university for having a degree. This was added incentive for me to fill out that form. Of course this turned out not to be the case for hourly workers, but I guess it doesn’t much matter now since I am sadly currently still enrolled as a student.

A few weeks after sending in this form, I got an email from the administrator of bachelor degrees in the math and science department saying that in fact the permission I got from my counselor (2 years ago!) for not having to do one of the labs was erroneous, and I was not going to be able to close my degree. But maybe I could send an email to the head of the department and maybe he’d pity me enough to do... something. I just sat there in shock for a few seconds until I started laughing. Of course something had to go wrong! Who did I think I was, someone who hasn’t gone through 4.5 years of bureaucratic and administrative disasters resulting in a year and half delay in my degree?! The more I thought about it the more I realized that I would have been more surprised had I been allowed to close my degree in a timely manner with no epic calamities or Hollywood worthy disasters. In fact, I realized I had been sitting and waiting for the next bureaucratic hurdle to come at me. It seemed to good to be true that I could just fill out a quick online form, press the submit button, and close my degree. Who ever heard of something so easy at Hebrew University?!

About 5 minutes after receiving this email, I got a phone call from the administrator herself. She informed me that she had decided to call because “I realized that receiving an email like that could send a person into a panic.” I assured her that this was indeed the case, and I was definitely in a mild panic at that moment. She reassured me that she herself was going to talk to the head of the department and see what she could do.

I didn’t hear anything about it for a few weeks so I shot her an email inquiring whether any progress had been made. The response I received was that I was not the only person in this situation. A few people had gotten erroneous permission not to have to retroactively take a required lab after switching programs. In fact, the situation had been upgraded to a discussion between the department heads and the dean. So it’s anyone’s guess whether I’m finishing school this year, though I can’t say I’m optimistic (I’m not a pessimist- my lack of optimism is based on experience). It also makes it difficult to answer the very simple question, “so, are you done with school yet?”

Everyone Loves the First Day of School!

 There's a normal kid's first day of school- new, oversized Spider Man backpack, peanut butter and jelly sandwich courtesy of mom (or chocolate sandwich with chumus for Israeli school children), a super exciting ride to school on the cool yellow school bus (or the green Egged bus mowing down slow moving pedestrians for Israeli school children).

Then there's Natania's first day of school. To be fair, I counted and this is the 13^th time I'm starting a new semester. No, I'm not going for a record, though if they wanted to give me a prize for being an extremely slow academic developer I wouldn't object. So obviously the excitement has warn off by now. It wore off about 10 semesters ago. Regardless, there are constants that one comes to expect on his first day of class. For example, class. However, my experience has taught me never to take anything for granted.

I arrived to my first and only class of Sunday to find a notice that the course had been canceled due to not having enough participants. It wasn't even a printed out sign. They passed this critical information on to us via a chalk message written on the board.

As I wandered back downstairs to the secretaries' office to figure out what I was supposed to do now that I was down 2 of the 9 credits I had left, someone approached me and asked if I knew where room 506 was. I answered, “it's upstairs but don't bother going since they canceled the course.” He must have gotten the same memo about it as I did judging by his face.

Apparently they had in fact sent us an email that morning, but like most non-morning people I wake up at the last possible moment, shuffle off to the bathroom, shove something in my mouth for nutritional purposes, and shamble out to the bus stop. I don't stop to read my emails, sniff the flowers, or to glory in the ceaseless wonders of the universe. There's time for all that after coffee consumption.

As the secretary looked over the courses I'd taken, she noticed that I was missing 8 credits worth of electives and 2 labs. One lab I had permission not to take, but I didn't even realize that I was missing the other one. And I knew nothing about electives, no one ever having mentioned them before that moment. So on my first day of school, not only did I not have the class I was supposed to have, but I had suddenly had another semester added to my eternal degree, every semester of which brings me closer to breaking a world record.

I immediately went to the library to rearrange my schedule and sign up for all these courses I now had to take. Signing up for 8 credits worth of electives was difficult since they had to be courses offered in the humanities or social sciences. The few potentially interesting ones were already full. I tried to sign up for “Mummies, Pyramids, & Redemption- an Introduction to Ancient Egyptian Religion,” “Homo Sapiens- from the Agricultural Revolution to the Scientific Revolution,” “An Introduction to the History of Christianity,” and a course on Islam, but all of them were full. This left such fascinating courses such as “An Introduction to Israeli Thought,” (though this would probably have answered a few questions I have about Israelis and their thought processes) “An introduction to the Bible,” (I think I'm a bit past that stage) and “Japanese Politics and Foreign Policy (clearly relevant to my life).” I ended up signing up for Microeconomics this semester, which incidentally I took about a decade ago at Ithaca College with a senile professor, and Urban Geography next semester. Still not sure what that course is about, unless it's a course about navigating your way to the supermarket.

The Microeconomics course is a bit worrying. The first day of class, which takes place twice a week at 8:00 in the morning- not my favorite time of day, the professor started telling us about the final. It went something like this:

“The class isn't very hard. The final is hard though. Quite difficult. In fact, it's sort of meant to make you fail. Last year's average was a 48. We couldn't even tell the difference between who understood the material and who was just guessing. We did give a curve, which raised the average to a 77. We didn't want to give too much of a factor though.”

He didn't seem to think there was anything upsetting about this statement either. He looked perplexed by the fact that the entire class was crying.

A Job I Don't Work At

 When I was hired to work at my job, I understood it was a part time job. That was fine with me since I had finals at the time and I'll have time for school whenever it starts (I haven't bothered to check when. I just know that like everything else, it will start “after the holidays.”). I didn't quite realize how part time the job is. For the first 2 weeks I came in every day for 3 or 4 hours, except when I had a final. I had plenty of time to study, but I also had a routine, which is important for me. Especially since I'm physically incapable of sitting at home. I need to have somewhere to go or I start going out of my dishes (this is a direct translation from the Hebrew expression for “to lose one's mind.” It is a strange expression whose origin is unknown to me.). This usually entails reorganizing drawers, boxes, and various rooms in the house. After that's done, the baking commences. This is ok until we run out of room in the freezer.

At the end of these two weeks, the 2 masters students that apparently also work in the lab (surprise, you have colleagues!) returned to work. Up to then I'd been working alone with the doctoral student. The professor was still out of the country, so it had basically been just us 2 (and the 6 or so other people who have temporarily moved into our lab while theirs goes through renovation). In point of fact we were greatly outnumbered 3:1 before the other students returned. This would have been the ideal time for a coup but fortunately the other researchers seemed not to be very ambitious or have any interest in the expropriation of biological equipment.

The last I heard at the end of those 2 weeks was, “we'll call you when there's work.” The other two girls were adequate for whatever daily tasks there were except for entering the animal unit, due to a little mishap involving expired permission forms. As long as there were no new mice, I was not required. Two weeks later, I finally got word that the woman I'd been working with wanted me to come in on Tuesday, the day that also happened to be the day of the mouse course. Apparently the professor was coming back to work that day so she figured he might have some work for us all to do. I told her I'd come in after the course ended at 11:00 or so, which I did.

We had to go check on the mice and take more DNA samples but she kept saying, “I hope we have enough time.” I wasn't sure what we didn't have enough time for but figured she was in a hurry to go...somewhere. As it turns out, they were having a welcome back party for the professor at 12:00 in his office (which I was finally made privy to after a parade of fruit platters sailed by the lab). That was a particularly awkward party for me, as most parties are when you don't know the guest of honor and there are only 6 people in attendance, all squashed into a small office. It was made even more awkward by the fact that I walked in 15 minutes late after finishing up with the mice upstairs and there was nowhere to sit. I had to drag a chair down the hall after finally being introduced to the professor, and sit through first the small talk, and then what basically turned into a work meeting. Seeing as I'd only worked there for a grand total of 2 weeks, I had no idea what they were talking about. I may have dozed off for a few minutes but probably no one noticed. Scientists are not known for being particularly observant of anything not under a microscope.

I worked the next day as well but was then once again told that they'd call me when there was work. It's always nice to know that my work schedule is determined by mice.

After 3 weeks and no word, I was beginning to think that maybe they'd fired me but forgotten to tell me. It felt like one of those breakups that occurs when one party just stops answering the other's calls. I had sent a few text messages but after the first one I didn't even get responses so I stopped trying. Everyone kept telling me to call them or go in and discuss things and bla bla bla, but I didn't really feel like it. If there's no work, there's no work. Why bother having a discussion about it? I started looking for alternative jobs and even contacted a few people.

People kept asking me what I was doing over the summer and my response was that I have a job I don't work at. Then they would say, “well as long as you're getting a paycheck, I guess it doesn't really matter.” Getting a paycheck? I just raised my eyebrows and looked at them until they realized that what they'd just said was quite ridiculous. In point of fact, I haven't yet received my paycheck from July. Maybe the mice take care of the salaries as well.

I finally decided at the end of 3 weeks that I would call them up and ask them if everyone was still alive and kicking (imagine how bad I'd feel if everyone had died of the plague, and while I'd been spared I was badmouthing them all not knowing that they were all piled in a shallow grave outside the hospital). If they answered that there was just no work or that they'd only need me once or twice a month, I would tell them it was unreasonable of them to expect me to work that infrequently and that they certainly never mentioned how little work there would be when they hired me. I would then bid them farewell, after thanking them for giving me the opportunity to jump through the flaming hoops of bureaucracy in vain. I was getting all hyped up to tell them where they could go and what they could do with their mice.

I finally called the woman I'd been working with, and she picked up and said “oh, Natania, we were just talking about you. We have work for you on Sunday. Can you come in?”

My figurative balloon deflated and I just stammered out, “oh, uh, sure. I guess so.” I've since reclassified my job as “a job I work at sometimes.”