For one thing, every other cat I ever had ate out of plastic ex-margarine containers. Today? Tin bowls set fancily in wrought-iron stands that refuse to be tumped over! (Hooray! I was getting pissed off with the intentional daily knock-overs of both food and water.)
In the past, any cat I had slept wherever, floor or bed or couch. Today? Why, a mighty Cat Castle!
Once upon a time, they played with beer-bottle caps or bits of paper, or whatever they could find... Today? They have a tunnel and bouncy-house (once known as "throw pillows for my couch"). And a bag o' toys that I try to dole out sparingly, like jingly balls, plus some big ol' fish that they're still kinda scared of...
I know that one reason I've been buying so much stuff for these cats is that I feel guilty about forcing them to stay indoors. I've never had a purely "indoor cat." Pre-New York City, while in Austin, I had cats that I let outside in the morning when I went to work, then let back in when I came home. (Though when I moved to NYC in 2007, once-indoor/outdoor Gracie was forced to become a completely indoor cat.) Thus, I never felt responsible for keeping the cats entertained (or keeping their litter box cleaned out twice a day, since they usually pooped outside).
Also, when I lived in Austin pre-2007, I was always in a neighborhood-type-of-place where it was fairly safe to let cats out to roam freely. Today, I'm in an apartment complex next to a very busy street, with an aggressive colony of feral cats (from whence Hennessy -- my Mama Cat -- came) hanging around. And I'm still feeding, albeit only outdoors, Papa Penny, another original feral. But I don't want my new Cat Fam back out in all of that. (Henny might like a taste of her old freedom. Her being in heat constantly while trapped inside is annoying as hell. Once I get her fixed and get her shots, I plan on allowing her back outside just to see. But the kittens, no.)
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