On Second Acts, Visibility, and Validation

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This isn’t a post about cats. But humor me while I start there.

If you’ve ever owned a cat, well, first, you’ve probably heard the joke “the cat owns you,” but second, you’ve likely experienced the frustration of endlessly buying colorful, textural toys, only for them to spend more time chasing the drawstring in your sweatpants instead.

It is a nice drawstring.

I brought a space blanket home from a race a few weeks ago, suspecting that the lightweight, crinkly plastic might entertain my cat Lucas for a minute or two.

And it did! I’d fold the blanket in half or quarters, lay it out like a mat, and Lucas would pounce on the air pockets, chasing imaginary prey. I upped the ante with actual (plastic) prey, running one of our many wand toys underneath. It may not surprise you that the most popular wand toy for this game was not a wand at all, but the long, ripped-off top of an Amazon shipping envelope.

We’ve been playing with this contraption for weeks now, the longest anything has ever held his interest. To extend this rare and newfound attention span, I purchased a commercialized version of our homemade toy: a green, crinkly mat with a motorized mouse that runs without me having to sit there and manage it.

And oh, was he enthralled. For five whole minutes he chased that mouse. And then he looked at me, walked over to our space blanket, and waited for me to play with him.

He didn’t want an automated mouse. He wanted to interact with his human.

And that’s where this story turns out to be about me.