Normandy is a snuggly black cat we adopted almost two years ago now and she’s the sweetest cat I have ever known. She’s also the house’s princess, both from how we treat her and how she’s come to expect to be treated.
We knew she was unlike any cat we’d ever had when we saw her eating for the first time. In a very “ladylike” way she would dip her paw into her food bowl, scoop out a paw-full of food, and eat it out of her pad like a dainty lady. I’d never seen a cat do that before, and it was only the first sign of her royalty.
When she curls up in our laps, everything stops. Our house rule is “you are not allowed to move when there is a cat on you” and Normandy has taken advantage of that. As I’m writing this, she’s curled up in my legs and I am unable to move. She will trap us on furniture at her pleasure, knowing that she has us exactly where she wants us for hours on end.
The most recent development in her royal behavior is, once again, regarding how she eats. She and our other cat, the old man Mugsy, have become rather picky about their food. It started when she’d refuse to eat the remainder of her food until we stirred it up with a spoon, gathering the smeared remains off the side of her food bowl. Nothing unusual there. But now she will look at us expectantly until we quite literally spoon-feed her out of her bowl. She is a young cat, mind you, so this is not helping an animal with disabilities or age issues. She’s just a spoiled princess and we let this happen.
Still, I can’t say no to her. She is the great inheritor of our late Scamp’s legacy, and only edges him out as the sweetest cat I’ve ever known for how she treats another cat in her space.
As spoiled as she may be, her true royalty comes from the sweetness she shows Mugsy, and the eagerness with which she wants to be his snuggle-buddy. She’ll check on him when he’s having a sneezing fit or is about to vomit up a hairball, and will cuddle up beside him on cold days. She gives us similar affection, and many are the morning where I’ll wake up to discover her snuggled up next to my legs.
Normandy is our princess in the best and most annoying ways, which is just the way it ought to be for a beloved house cat.