Feb 13th, 2022 Sunday Sunny
Lyn has found a new sink, which has quickly become her favorite spot in the house.
At first, it did not bother me at all, except for her leaving wet paw prints everywhere in the kitchen, in the dining room, and on my lap. Recently however, I spotted her dipping her paw into a pot in the sink and licking the water from it – we usually add some dish soap to the pots in the sink for soaking, so this is not good. In addition, while Lyn could make her way to the sink most of the times, I happened to witness a failure – she attempted to jump across the “gorge” from the dining room table to the top of the counter, and her front paws made it but not the back ones, and “bliang” as she fell onto the floor. It happened too quickly for me to catch her in the air. Luckily, even though she is a seventeen-year-old grandma kitty, her feline instinct and physiques still saved her from getting any injury. Other than looking a little confused, she seemed perfectly fine.
Nevertheless, these incidents changed my mind about letting her explore the kitchen sink. Adorable as it is, I feel like it is a dangerous adventure that could someday hurt her badly. I decide to start discouraging this behavior.
Well, I tried. Pretty hard.
Yesterday I was doing meal prep in the kitchen. Lyn came to get some kitchen tap water as usual. “I need to send a clear and strong message to her.” thought I. As soon as she got to the edge of the sink but before she could enjoy the sweet taste of the kitchen tap water, I scooped her up and gently put her on the kitchen floor. I thought after a few of these foiled efforts, she would get the message and call it a quit.
I did it six times, and she came back every single time.
Lyn is actually a very smart and sensitive kitty. I do not need to teach her any house rules more than a couple of times before she understands them and follows them. It did not seem to work this time – the only explanation is, she knows that she is not supposed to be in the kitchen sink, BUT she really wants to, so she is going to do it anyway.
Change of strategy is necessary. Since I cannot make her stop on her own, I have to make it harder for her. I realize her route usually starts from a dining room chair, on to the dining room table. I tucked all the chairs tightly under the table so the tabletop is almost directly above the chairs. The spatial configuration would make it impossible for the best human rock climber to go up, unless they have a climbing rope with hook. I made a face to Lyn, “see, I got you!”
She jumped onto a dining room chair but seemed to have trouble going up from there. I was satisfied and went to focus on chopping the vegetables for a while.
It was not long before I heard a slight “tap” sound and turned to find Lyn looking at me with a triumph at the top of the kitchen counter. Amazed and annoyed at the same time, I put her down onto the floor again. Within fifteen seconds, she was back.
The next time, I watched how she could do it (so I can better block her). It turned out, the physical flexibility and the mental determination of a cat should never be underestimated. Once she was on a chair, she could use her front paws and front claws (!!!!) as an anchor to pull her rear half up, like a pull-up on a bar. It seemed extremely challenging, but with practice she was able to succeed faster every time. With a sigh, I came to my last resort – moving all the dining room chairs as far away as possible from the table. And I stuck my tongue out at Lyn, who was now sitting on one of the chairs and looking desperately at the seemingly unreachable table, with frustration in her eyes.
Finally I was able to finish my meal prep. As I put away all the chopped vegetables in the refrigerator, I heard a “clank”, the sound of a metal chair leg moving on the wooden floor. You guessed it – despite the distance (three feet or so with elevation, since the chair is lower than the tabletop), Lyn managed to jump onto the table from the chair again, and she was quickly approaching the kitchen sink with longing eyes.
Where there is a will, there is a way.
I gave up. You won, my little determined troublemaker. You can have some kitchen tap water as a reward for all the intense physical exercises.
I cannot help but thinking, if I could be like her, undeterred by any obstacles and failures when I am pursuing my goal, is there anything I cannot achieve?
Maybe for people who have been doing relatively well in school, the adult life seems unreasonably difficult. In school, it seems that as long as we try with the right methods, we get the good results that we want. It might take a lot of time and effort, but the path to success is clear and linear. It may not be like that in real life though, since most of the challenges we face outside of school have no clear solution, and many things that affect the outcome are out of our control, just like the “demonic” mommy that would put Lyn back to square zero every time she was so close to her goal.
Lyn never knows when she would finally succeed – maybe she cannot think that far. It is said that cats cannot foresee the future or plan for the future, because they do not have a developed frontal lobe. All Lyn knows is to keep trying. And trying again. And again. If she gets too tired (physically) from trying more today, I am sure she would come back tomorrow. By tomorrow, she would have forgotten all the failures she experienced today, and the thought “kitchen sink = sweet (?) kitchen tap water” is the only north star for her.
After all, maybe life is not meant to be easy. Sometimes all the efforts that we put in may seem futile. As long as we are still trying to reach our goals, we are living every day in earnest and in full.