My pet needs a pet

Last Monday, my roommate of 6 months moved in with her boyfriend, taking her incredibly large but surprisingly friendly cat with her.

It's been a strange transition for me so far with the room vacant and no plans to fill it (my man is finally moving up to NYC next month). I kinda like the room empty if only because it leaves so much to the imagination. I bought some frames for its walls tonight (figures that I'd buy frames before furniture) but have no idea where I'll go next with it.

Anyway, while it's been a strange transition for me, it's been a very difficult one for my little cat, Eve. In 1996, I adopted kittens who I named Adam and Eve. Sadly, Adam passed away last June from cancer. It was a very emotional time for me and especially his twin sister who had never been apart from him her entire life.

When my roommate Teruko moved back to Japan in August, the quest for a new roommate began. I decided on a cool chick named Nikki from Colorado because she seemed sane and she'd be moving here with a cat (whose company Eve desperately needed).

In October, Nikki and Machiatto moved in. At first, the cats didn't seem to like each other but by Christmas they had grown tolerant of the other's company. Their relationship had just advanced to the "stalking-and-chasing-each-other-like-freaky-cats-do" level when Nikki informed me in March that she'd be moving. Since Nikki and "the bob cat" left last week, Eve has been inconsolable.

On the rare occassion that she wanders the house, she meows incessantly the entire time. I've found her several times in the vacant room, facing an electrical outlet while meowing very loudly at it. After doing a lap of the apartment, she races to find me (still meowing) and doesn't leave my side for hours. When I'm on the phone, she meows the entire time. When I'm in the kitchen, she meows the entire time. When I go to the bathroom, she's still meowing. When I get into bed, she meows at me until finally falling asleep near my pillow.


Eve in the 2nd bedroom next to her new friend, the electric socket.

Granted, she's always been a "talker" but never to this (annoying) extent. Before, her meows were limited to food prep and wakey-wakey time. Now, it's an all day, all night meowfest. And, I awake to find one of Machiatto's toys that Nikki left laying in front of my bedroom door (despite me putting it back in the living room each time). Tonight, for the first time in her 12 years, she sat on my lap.

I know people have a tendency to read too much into their pets' behavior but I think she's in a great deal of emotional pain. I need the cat whisperer or something.

If she's been traumatized by all this coming/going of people and pets in the apartment, I wonder if I should get another pet to keep her company? But, getting another cat doesn't appeal to me and my schedule is just too unpredictable to get a dog.

Hmmmm, how crazy would it be for me to get her a pet guinea pig or hamster? If I did, how likely is it that I'd come home to find her knawing on its head?

Curious to see if there's an alternative to getting a live pet for my lonely pet, I Googled "pet's pet" and found "Snuggle Kitties," conveniently defined by the site as:

SnuggleKittie™ (Snǔg’l Kĭt’ĭ) noun. 1. A stuffed animal with a heart beat and heater. 2. An item to cuddle, curl up or sleep on for comfort. 3. A snug, cozy friend for animals that eases crying, loneliness and separation anxiety. 4. An award-winning virtual mom. See also friend of animals and your pet's pet.

While I can't be sure that dropping $30 on a "Snuggle Kitty" will put an end to Eve's 24/7 meowing and overall neediness, I'm 100% sure that doing so would qualify me for official "crazy cat lady" status. Actually, blogging about it is probably proof enough for a complimentary "Cat Fancy" subsription. Shit.

Jiminy Crickets!

Here's something you don't read every day: I just bought 10 pet crickets.

Ever since I left the suburban sprawl of South Florida in 2000 for the concrete confines of NYC, I've desperately missed the sound of crickets. It's not that there aren't crickets here; it's just that my apartment is situated 4 stories up between 2 towering blocks of brick and concrete. The only crickets up here are those being eaten by birds.

Why not get one of those sound machines? I have one and the crickets on it sound like nails on chalkboard. And, as part of the "meadow pond" experience, there's a splooshing noise every 8 seconds that I presume was supposed to sound like a frog jumping into water (but sounds more like someone dropping a deuce).

So, for the last eight years, my travels have been partly inspired by the need to hear crickets again. I mentioned this to my man last November as we fell asleep to their soothing sound in FL. It wasn't the first time I'd told him how much I miss them. I mused, "maybe I'll buy some and keep them in my room as pets when I get back to Brooklyn." He shot up from the pillow, "but that was going to be my Christmas present to you!" Confused, I asked, "you were going to buy me crickets for Christmas?" Yes, it was to be one of my gifts (he's cute and thoughtful like that).

He got me something else for Chrimbo but the conversation cemented the idea; as much as I'd missed the sound of crickets, I'd never seriously considered buying them to keep as pets. So, this week, I headed to the store to get all the gear I'd need to have a happy cricket colony in my bedroom. At long last, I'd have sweet chirping to lull me to sleep every night!

As I searched the amphibian aisle, one of the employees (no doubt counting the minutes until the store closed and he could return home to his D&D game) offered to help. He showed me a horrible contraption with feeding tubes and said, "this is the best way to keep crickets."

"Why would I want to keep them in that?!"

"So you can easily feed them to your snake or gecko or whatever."

As I explained that I intended to keep them as pets, I realized it was like explaining that D&D is a recreational game for pre-teens.

After many odd looks and careful consideration about my crickets' new digs, I rushed home to soak the peat moss and prepare their 2.5 gallon tank (seriously, it's such a lovely smell to have damp earth in your bedroom -- highly recommended for those who like camping or getting lost in forests).

I went back out to the pet store to get my crickets. As I looked over the selection, I was faced with a terrible realization that somehow hadn't occurred to me yet: crickets are bugs. I was picking out bugs to keep in my room. Um, yuck? (Honestly, if one of these suckers escapes, my first instinct will be to squash it.)

So, I opted for 10 baby crickets ("nymphs" as I later learned) who don't resemble cockroaches as much as their adult peers do. Yes, I know eventually these 10 crickets will grow but by that time, I'm hoping I'll have a relationship with them that transcends looks.


(bit blurry but whaddya want for a camera phone?)

When I got home, I released them into their gorgeous forest floor of a tank, turned off the lights and waited. And waited. And waited. No sounds. No chirping. Nothing. Nothing but the same sirens and "are you tawking to me?!" in the distance. I called my man to inform him of the problem. "Leave it to you to buy the only deaf-mute, homosexual crickets in the store," he replied.

Perplexed, I went online to research why my crickets weren't chirping. Turns out, I bought field crickets in their early adolescent stage (here's an interesting fact: crickets live one year -- who knew?!). At this point, they're wingless and crickets chirp by rubbing their wings (contrary to the popular belief that they rub their legs). And they won't grow wings for THREE FUGGING MONTHS!

Three months? I gotta wait 3 months to hear something?! No way, I'm going BACK to the pet store tomorrow to buy the ugliest, cockroachiest adult male cricket I can find! Mind you, most people buy buttloads of crickets at a time to feed their hungry snakes and lizards. "Yes, I'd like to buy ONE cricket, please. Uh-huh. Yes, THAT cricket." My roommate suggests I go in a bizarre outfit and whacked out hair (more so than usual) and really play up the crazy cricket lady part.

What an effort this has been just to get a sound most hear every night without any effort at all! I hope you fall asleep tonight with the windows wide open and the most profound appreciation for that sweet lullaby (forgetting, of course, the image of the gross bug making it)!

p.s. clearly, I've yet to recover from the Super Bowl.

ADDENDUM
Lest you think I'm totally nuts (and why would writing a novella about buying crickets make me nuts?), I learned in my research that the Chinese and Japanese have long kept crickets as pets for the very same reason I now do. In ancient China, the chirping was so highly regarded that the ladies of the Imperial Palace kept crickets in small golden cages on their pillows, so that they might fall asleep to the song.

Other interesting cricket facts (from Wikipedia):

* Crickets chirp at different rates depending on their species and the temperature of their environment. Most species chirp at higher rates the higher the temperature is (approx. 60 chirps a minute at 13°C in one common species; each species has its own rate).

* The relationship between temperature and the rate of chirping is known as Dolbear's Law. In fact, according to this law, it is possible to calculate the temperature in Fahrenheit by adding 40 to the number of chirps produced in 15 seconds by the snowy tree cricket common in the United States.

* To hear the mating call of other crickets, a cricket has ears located on its knees, just below the joint of the front legs.

* "Jiminy Cricket!" was originally a polite expletive euphemism for Jesus Christ (as in, "Jiminy Crickets! This was a long ass blog about crickets!").