12:36 a.m. - Sunday, Oct. 10, 2004
Honey Belle
I have found out that when I once stop writin' in my journal I can't seem to get back to it again. A lot has been happenin' in my life over the past few months. I won't be able to cover it all in this one entry. But I will tell about my new cat.
Yes...I finally have a pet all my own. She was adopted from an animal shelter. Her name is Honey Belle or HB as I call her sometimes. She's kind of a two toned brownish-orange-ish cat with some white on her chest and paws. Her species is called Bengal. She's kind of striped but not that much. HB has 5 front toes or fingers. She only has four on the back. But having 5 toes on the front paws is a characteristic trait of the Bengal line of cats. HB is three years old so she's not a young cat. Kind of middle age for a cat I suppose. She's usually kind of quiet and sleeps a lot. She doesn't like to be petted too much. She will let me know when she wants to be petted. She will let me hold her for a few minutes now but when I first got her a few months ago she wouldn't let me hold her at all. She may have been mistreated before the shelter got her. She arrived at the shelter when she was only a kitten and had been there for three years. That's what they based her age on. She may actually be a little older than that but not by much.
HB is used to me now and follows me around all over the house. She's strictly a house cat and won't go outside. I've even held the door open to see if she would go out but she won't. I bought a collar for her that has her name and my telephone number on it in case she did ever run outside and get lost or something. The collar is hot pink and has a little bell on the front of it that rings when she moves.
HB sleeps most of the day and stays up most of the night. She's pretty good natured but she gets feisty now and then. And she has mood swings. Sometimes she doesn't want to be touched. It's funny to see her arching her back downward toward the floor to escape being touched. And when I do something she disapproves of, like trying to talk to her when she's not in the mood, she will turn her back on me. She enjoys lying on my bed now and then, but she mostly sleeps on top of a scratching post beside the bed that is covered in carpet. She knows her name and will come to me when I call her most of the time. She eats Science Diet solid cat food and she has a feeder that will automatically release food as she eats it or (as she has learned) if she gives it a good shove. I think the automatic food refill may not be the best choice. She looks like she's putting on weight and everytime I see her it seems like she's eating again.
HB loves to exercise. She has some toy balls and mouses that she loves to chase or wrestle with. She wrestles all over the hall with an artificial mouse that will hold catnip inside of it. She holds it in her front and back paws and tries to rip it's head off with her teeth. She rolls all over the floor with it and bangs her head hard into the wall. It's a wonder she isn't crosseyed after one of her wrestlin' matches. Sometimes she will hit one of her toy balls and then chase it to the other end of the hall to bat it back the other way. There are also times, especially durin' the middle of the night, when she will race back and forth in the hallway and sounds like a little horse gallopin'.
HB sleeps curled up on top of the scratching post by my bed and she looks so sweet with one paw wrapped around her eyes. Sometimes she purrs in her sleep. She purrs in southernese and her purr ends on an upward note like she's asking the question: Purrrrrr?????
I enjoy havin' Honey Belle. She's a good friend. Now if I can just get her to stop climbin' up the window curtains.
