Yes, there are a certain amount of boxes that we just leave on the floor for their pleasure.

Have you ever thought how strange human beings are?

Somehow we’ve normalized collecting certain animals and keeping them in our dwellings for the sole purpose of bossing us around. Mostly dogs and cats. We do collect other things occasionally, but it’s mainly those two that really run the house. You can have a fish, a bird, a snake, etc., but since they’re usually in a confined space, they don’t end up with the absolute power to rule that the other two do.

I’m not complaining.

Most of the pictures my husband sent me while I was in San Diego were of our two cats. Hell, we send each other cat pictures from the other room from time to time. We care for them like they’re little humans. It’s wild! Just the other day, my friend was telling me about her rough day and capped it with the fact that her daughter might have pink eye. One of my commiserating responses was, “Cloud had pink-eye when he was a baby. It was annoying but it cleared up fast with medicine.” Like we were having a conversation about similar beings.

Another friend of mine fosters puppies. (In addition to having her own dogs and LOTS of fish.) She was driving around today running puppy errands and giving me advice about Cloud, who Dean had to take half a day off work to take to the vet.

Yes, he took half a day off work to take Cloud to the vet. Cloud has a sore on the inside of his hind leg that I noticed the day after I got back from San Diego. I did the free online vet chat and they recommended some antibiotic wipes, which we tried, but it was looking more red and raw, so we took him in. They gave us additional medicine which we are to alternate with the wipes and did a culture for ringworm. He got another vaccine he was apparently overdue for. All total this was near $300.

As a person with shitty insurance, I can say that this is comparable to a human doctor visit.

Now, don’t get me wrong, this is all right and good. If we’re going to take animals into our homes, we make a promise to care for and protect them. (Similar to the promise you’re making to a child if you choose to become a parent.) If you can’t provide an animal with love, care, and safety, you shouldn’t bring one into your life.

That said, isn’t it so weird when you think about it? We, humans, go out to find a non-human creature to share our lives with. We venture forth and pick one out (or the universe plunks one into our path), then we bring it into our house and live with it. It sleeps in our beds, it runs all over, it leaves behind hair, we deal with it’s poop, it destroys things, and occasionally requires chunks of cash, but we love it and would do anything for it.

Cloud has this thing he does where whenever we go to clean the litter box, he runs in and shoves us out of the way so he can get one last deposit in before we scoop. Thanks, Cloud! He also likes to come into the bedroom when I’m trying to sleep—he only does this on weeknights when I get up at 5 a.m.—and just yowls for no reason. Like he’s distraught that I’m resting. He does not like to be held. Until he does, and then he will follow me around and scream at me until I pick him up. We call him the goblin prince because he’s such a little creatin.

But I’ll happily pay all of his vet bills so we can get that sore on his leg healed faster. I love him.

On interspecies relationships.