This week I’m going to ignore the impending doom that seems to be emanating from leaders around the world and I’m going to ignore the fact that I live in an area that could very well be devastated by the whims of leaders who should not be leaders because they are sociopaths. Instead, I’m going to tell you a story about our cat.

This is Rosetta.

Rosetta is our Chinese cat. We acquired her at an adoption day that took place in an Irish pub in Shanghai around 2010. The day we got Rosetta, we took her home and let her out of the cat carrier, whereupon we did not see her for two days because she was hiding. Nothing much has changed. We believe she was about two years old at the time, so that would make Rosetta almost eighteen-years old today. She shows no signs of her age, aside from the fact that she has kidney problems and is skinny as a rail. But that doesn’t affect her spunk or her daily attitude.

Rosetta has been around the world with us. We got her in Shanghai, then took her to Bangladesh with us. After an event in Bangladesh that prevented us from going back after the summer, she was shipped to Canada for a year, before joining us again in Abu Dhabi, which is where she has been since. I like to say that she is the most expensive cat in the world, but I doubt that is actually true.

Rosetta has a Bangladeshi sister named Mango, but Mango will get her own letter someday. Today is about Rosetta.

In her old age, Rosetta has FINALLY taken to becoming a lap cat. She will crawl up on me at various times. She does not want me to pet her. She only wants to sit there. If she DOES want to be petted, she will maneuver to a position that is incredibly awkward. For instance, she will crawl up behind my left shoulder and demand satisfaction. Or she will set approximately three inches out of reach and then look at you as if you are an asshole for not petting her.

Rosetta also likes to have her back rubbed. Not rubbed like a gentle petting. No, she will lay on the floor and I will rub the muscles around her spine vigorously. She will push her feet into the carpet so that I rub her even harder. I don’t understand why she likes this, but if I am walking around and she is feeling spunky, she will flop down on the floor in front of me until I give her a massage.

Yesterday, she was pissed off at me.

You see, our cats wake up early and they know when the sun is about to come up, because that means that it’s time for them to get fed (wet food). They start meowing around thirty minutes before the sun rises and they will not stop until one of us has roused ourselves from our slumber and fed them. They are smart like that. Mango, for instance, has ways that she uses to get our attention.

At any given time, Mango can jump up on our bed in complete silence; just silently rising, almost in a supernatural way, from the floor to our bed, without making a single sound. But in the morning when she wants to be fed, she seems to have more “trouble” getting onto the bed. I will hear her jump up with lots of claw scratching and fumbling in a way that seems intentionally loud. It’s almost as if she knows that if she’s loud, she will wake us up.

(For a while, I would wake to the sound of her vomiting up the leaves of one of our plants; a hurk and a gurgle in several places in our bedroom from her eating leaves as a punishment to us for not feeding her when she wanted. I have since elevated that particular plant in a pot, which has prevented the morning dry heave ritual).

I do yoga in the morning and for some reason, the cats know not to bother me during that time. They won’t even enter the room when I’m doing it (probably because they don’t understand what I am doing and find it disconcerting). Yesterday morning, though, they were noisy all throughout my yoga routine. This is odd, I thought to myself. I should have known. Mango was rubbing up against me and Rosetta sat in the kitchen, emitting a single, rhythmic “meow” for almost an hour.

In my mind, I thought, What is up with her?, but I was so lazy and clueless that I ignored it. I’m not feeding that damned cat so early! I thought. So, I finished my yoga routine and started doing my morning writing.

That was when Rosetta popped into the office. She went right up on the couch and pissed on my pillow that I had brought in from the bedroom. I yelled into the early-morning household, “DAMMIT!” and ran her out of the room, promptly throwing my favorite pillow in the garbage and cursing the day that we got those stupid cats.

But then I remembered that she was meowing the whole time. Was she trying to tell me something? I thought to myself.

She was.

She was out of dry food.

Her dry food bowl was completely empty and our skinny little cat was hungry. She tried to tell me, but I guess the only way to get my stupid attention was to pee on the pillow. However, punishment is still punishment, and I waited an extra long time to give them their morning meal after that.

It’s my fault, really. I should have checked their food. But I didn’t. And I paid the price.

When I came home that afternoon, I sat on the couch to watch some basketball. And seemingly to make amends, Rosetta hopped up on the couch beside me and flopped over. Her way of making amends is for me to pet her. So after a bit of reluctance, I started giving her a back massage.

She seemed okay after that.