A Moveable Beest

The Beest is less cantankerous than ever. She's been pretty friendly to everyone who's stopped in from the beginning, here. She adores and demands a lot of attention. She will bop you with a paw when she wants it. She will crawl onto you when you are sitting or lying down and hook her arms around your leg. However, she doesn't like being handled. The evening I tried clipping her claws is imprinted on my mind, and arms. I've been looking for gauntlets since.

And so I determined to socialize her.

Since she perches for a good deal of her time right beside me on my desk leaf I started picking her up and holding her. This was met with scrabbling for the edge of the leaf with every ounce of strength she has and hanging on for dear life. Luckily I can still outwit her, and use the old kung fu to push her forward off the leaf, a move she never expects. Once in my hands and with nothing but air to cling to, I zoom her to my chest, where, I've been told, the beating of my heart will calm her. This is a lie. Within a second she begins a low rumbling growl. I join her, growling right along. This probably doesn't help matters, but it feels right. I scratch the parts she loves scratched, her ears and chin. She continues growling. Her claws are in my flesh by now, and every muscle tensed in genetic jungle cat apprehension. I whisper in her ear. She hisses. I hiss back. Perhaps this is not working.

Not wanting to traumatize her or make her hate me and kill me in my sleep, I let her go. At first she'd jump down to the floor in a great leap of freedom and would sit licking herself, shooting me indignant and pissy looks from the kitchen. Now she scrabbles back onto the leaf from which I plucked her, has a full-body shiver and ignores my existence. Once she regains composure she nonchalantly tiptoes around my keyboard with one eye on my every move and goes on about her business.

This is now a nightly ritual. We are moving forward, little by little.