Baby Alasdair’s daily rituals
Alasdair was not extremely active or playful in his early days. He mostly liked to sleep in his cat tree. Some people called him “boring”.
When he was awake, he’d follow me around the apartment. He liked sleeping next to me on my pillow and sat on the sofa behind me when I’d be at my desk doing college homework. Every evening, he would sit on a towel next to me while I would take a bath. He was not a lap kitty and hated being picked up and held.
He was a very quiet cat, too. When he’d try to meow, just a faint squeak would come out.
He didn’t really care about food. He would ignore wet food and only causally ate his dry food (“crunchies”) throughout the day.
I sometimes was worried that he was bored and maybe too attached to me. I was in college and also worked a full-time job for most of Alasdair’s early childhood and definitely didn’t get to spend as much time with him and Byron as I would have liked.
Alasdair was also very shy at the time. When I would have visitors over, even if it was my own mom, he would hide under the bed and not come back out until they were gone.
Nonetheless, he was the sweetest boy and I became completely attached to him, too.
Adult Alasdair daily rituals
After we moved to San Francisco, Alasdair’s behavior and attitude overall changed quite a bit. He became more playful. He became VERY vocal. He cared much more about food. When he was 7 (!), he even started sitting in my lap.
This may have been a side effect of living with a very cuddly, attention-loving female cat for the first time. Some of it can likely be attributed to him having survived a urinary blockage which caused us to switch him to an all wet food diet shortly after moving to the US. Or maybe it was because of getting x-rayed at the airport?
The most notable change was that his day suddenly revolved entirely around food. He would start yelling in our face at 7am to ask for food (which we usually served at 8). Gradually, he started asking for food earlier and earlier. The worst schedule we were on was when we would feed him at 2am and 6am because his screaming and pacing around was so absolutely insufferable.
He was on Royal Canin Urinary SO for most of his life, but we’d feed him “junk food” like Friskies for some meals just to make feedings a little easier on us. He aggressively tried to steal Snejli’s food during every single meal.
After he was done eating, he demanded that we fill his food bowl with water. We called this dish “meat water”. We assumed he liked that food scraps were flavoring the water a wee bit. Until shortly before he died, we would serve his meat water in the sink.
He also tried to steal all of our food. Salami, cheese, pie… nothing on anyone’s plate was safe!
Alasdair with an assortment of “meat waters”
Senior Alasdair daily rituals
Alasdair’s appetite stayed strong until just a few days before he passed away. Once Orla moved in, he made it his daily goal to steal a few crunchies from her during every meal. He was very sneaky and often succeeded. For example, he would pretend to be walking towards the cat tree, then hide behind the curtains and sneak up on her food bowl. If we took our eyes off of him even just for a tenth of a second, he would make a run for it and grab a few crunchies.
Besides food, Alasdair had a a whole set of daily routines that he strictly followed. His day typically looked like this:
2am: start asking for his 3am breakfast
5am: start asking for his 6am breakfast; play with Orla
Take a nap in his hammock
7am: flop down next to his mommy to get his face rubbed after she gets out of bed. Follow her to the kitchen, ask for more pets. Wait on the rug near the door until his mommy leaves for work.
Take a nap in his hammock
11am: start asking for his 12pm lunch
Take a nap in his hammock or play with Orla for a bit
4:30pm: start asking for his 6pm dinner by pounding and scratching on his daddy’s office door and verbally complaining about his dinner being late (it was never late)
6:10pm: greet his mommy at the door after she comes home from work
Take a short nap on the hallway rug
7pm: try to steal his mommy and daddy’s dinner
Take a nap in his hammock
8:30pm: flop around on the living room rug, playing with kitty hooch or his kick toy, ask for pets. This was usually the only time I could pick him up and hold him because he was still sleepy from his post-dinner nap.
9pm: start asking for his 10pm dinner, often by sitting in the middle of the dining table, occasionally knocking over expensive mezcal.
10:15pm: sit with us after dinner until we all go to sleep
Take a long nap in his hammock
On my work-from-home days, Alasdair liked to sit in my lap while I was in Zoom meetings. He would also say bye and greet me after coming back from our afternoon walk.
One of our cat sitters once said, “Alasdair is all business”. He definitely was. His meal times mattered a ton to him. But he also very much cared about his humans and feline companions and always made us feel loved.
Favorite activities
Eating
Drinking “meat water”
Sticking out his tongue
Getting his face rubbed
“Friendly” playing with Orla (which sometimes didn’t look so friendly)
Pacing around asking for food, especially on the kitchen counter
Sitting in laps while his humans are reading, watching TV, or playing video games
Sitting on his mommy’s tummy when she was sleeping in on weekends
Joining Zoom calls
Watching birds from his hammock
Watching F1 races on TV
Playing with his kitty hooch toys
Playing with dental floss
Grooming himself (we were not allowed to brush him for longer than 20 seconds)
Listening to music, especially female pop singers like A Fine Frenzy and Lykke Li
Watching Orla do skateboard tricks
