"I hope Mondale doesn't have any dreams of being a show cat. Yeah, Mondale, you'd never win, because you are not pretty!"
"It's not a beauty contest, it's a scholarship pageant. Mondale, you'd still never win, because you are not bright. Isis, you could be a real contender if you'd slim down a little."
(That was the point at which Isis glared down at me from Mondale's food bowl. Mondale's food is six feet up in the tall cat tree to discourage Isis from eating it. Mondale was still just hanging out completely unaware that sometimes when people make those weird noises, they're trying to communicate with you.)
My boyfriend and I then spent some time helping Mondale remininsce about his former life living in a tiny apartment in the West Valley. (You know, did he miss the six yappy dogs he had to live with and was he ever involved in any gang activity...)
"Maybe that's why he and Isis have to squabble so much. Because Isis was born in a barn and Mondale is a city cat."
"Isis is way smarter than Mondale."
"I didn't say Isis was as stupid as Mondale. I said he's not as urban."
"I was talking about street smarts."
"Okay, yeah, Isis does have all the street smarts."
"Look at him! He's being cute again!"
(looks at the small cat.)
"No, not that one. Isis. The cute one."
Poor little Mondale. He has to wear festive holiday toenails, and he's not the cutest or the smartest or the toughest... He is the smallest and the fastest and the biggest attention whore.
And after his rough start in that tiny studio apartment with all those dogs and rats and sugar gliders where he wasn't even allowed on the bed (and the bed was most of the apartment), he still thinks his life is great.
