My cat the world traveler, among other things

We have an awesome cat. Everybody probably thinks the same about their own cat, but I don't care. I'm saying it anyway. She really is the coolest. Her name is Olive. She is 8 years old. Way back in 1998, my friend found her when she was a pitiful, abandoned little kitten on the streets of Lubbock, TX. I adopted her and the rest is history.



Olive has her own passport. No kidding. We had to get it for her so that she could legally travel in Europe. She has traveled from Texas to Spain and back again. Ironically, that is farther than a large number of Americans have traveled. Likewise ironically, after going through all the trouble of getting her a passport, when we traveled with her in Europe all that the authorities would say in the airport was "aww, cute kitty!" No one ever asked to see her papers. She could have been rabid for all they cared.

Olive likes to lay on pieces of paper and in cardboard boxes. Why do cats like paper so much? She loves to play with wadded up pieces of paper more than any toy that I buy her. If she even hears the rustling of paper, she comes running. Another funny thing that she has always done is whenever she hears someone peeing she runs, nay, sprints to the bathroom to keep them company. Does anyone else have a cat that does that?

She likes to lay on our clothes as well. Any time, any place. Dirty, clean, it doesn't matter. Here she is on a pair of my jeans. I had taken them off a mere 30 seconds before.

She also likes to get behind people on the couch and eat their hair. She especially loves Jada's hair. She likes to sit, supporting the rear half of her body on the back of the couch and perching the front half on top of Jada's head like a Sphinx.

During different times in her life she was an indoor/outdoor cat. She even got in a fight with something once and has a torn ear to show for it. All she can do now, though, is go out onto our miniscule balcony and lay in the filth. There is a mockingbird that comes and squawks at her every once in a while. He's really annoying, but she hardly notices. He used to nose dive her, but he quit doing that.

Olive's other hobbies include meowing, walking on the furniture, landing on her feet and shedding.