Molly Douglas & Margot
[gallery ids="2006,2007" type="rectangular"]Margot and I are definitely two peas in a pod - we’re both fairly introverted, gentle, and very independent, but all we really want is love and attention (astrologically, we are both Aries, so that might explain it).Before I got Margot, I don’t think I believed that a cat (at least a cat of mine) could be a really close companion. After I adopted her, I very quickly realized how much of a companion a cat can be. While she’s a pretty independent little one, she loves to be near me most of the time, which is really perfect for the both of us.
Margot and I have a pretty steady routine: every morning when I wake up she hops onto my bed and curls her tail around my arm while I pet her. When I come home from work she’s waiting for me at the door and usually flops over, stretching out her whole body so I’ll rub her belly (she also has this super adorable little chirpy mew-brrrep sound she makes, and the belly rubs are accompanied by her little chatter). Every night she curls up to sleep in this little bed I fashioned out of an Ikea cart and fleece blanket. We also love to carry on conversations where either one of us will talk to the other and we go back and forth like that for a while.Her favorite places in my apartment are definitely her cat tree, and my big bay window. She loves to sit and watch the birds, people, dogs, and squirrels.
Margot is such a fan of folk music, which is great, because I play it all the time. I’ll pull out my guitar and she’ll either curl up between my feet while I play, or sit in her cat tree and fall asleep. Anytime I open up my guitar case she’ll curl up into it, and of course if I’m writing a set-list she’ll decide she urgently needs to lay on it at that very moment.It’s so hard to choose a favorite thing about Margot, but something big that stands out is the fact that she knows exactly when I need a little extra support. For about a year I had pretty intense panic attacks and kept toying with the idea of adopting a pet to help with them, but it just never ended up happening. Toward the end of that spring a friend sent me a link to this cat foster mom on Instagram. The kittens she was fostering at that time were named after various black birds and I love birds – I even have a tattoo of a chickadee on my left shoulder! So, I was pretty much obligated to follow them as they grew up.
Toward the end of June when the kittens were just about to be fixed and taken to the shelter to be adopted out, something came over me and I couldn’t help but write this foster. I told her a bit about myself, and my lifestyle, asking if she felt that any of the “bird kittens” would be a good match for me. I didn’t tell her this at the time, but I had already been looking at one of the kittens in particular (named Starling). She wrote me back and let me know that there was one kitten in particular she thought would be perfect for me... and it just so happened to be Margot (Starling)!When I met Margot that next week (on the 4th of July), I just remember her lying next to me very calm while her siblings all kept their distance. When she laid across my lap and fell asleep, I got teary-eyed, and it was all over – that was the moment I fell in love with that tiny, all-black little kitten.
The first week after I adopted her, I ended up having a panic attack and this little kitten somehow knew, jumped right up in my lap, and snuggled me until I calmed down. This is something she has ended up doing on several occasions, until the panic attacks slowly stopped happening over the course of about 9 months. Nights when my anxiety is fairly high though, she’ll still find me wherever I am in the apartment and give me lots of extra love. I don’t think I realized how much I needed her until I had her in my life. Knowing that this little one is always there makes a huge difference.She’s honestly just the sweetest, gentlest, most perfect, prim and proper, little cat and I cannot imagine my life without her now. Our bond is super special, and I feel like we just kind of get each other. Her foster mom said we were soulmates, and I couldn’t agree more.
Molly Douglas (Molly Kate) is a singer/songwriter who plays music in and around Portland. She’s also an occasional photographer, and Knowledge Management specialist at a large tech startup.