Our Cat Cookie
Does anyone else have a pet that likes to hang out in your shop?
We have three cats. I’m referring here to the one named Chocolate Cookie Dough Ice Cream. One of my daughters named her at the time we brought her and her sister Wea home from a shelter (more on Wea below). That was my daughter’s favorite flavor of ice cream and she said that Cookie’s coat looked just like a scoop of that flavor. However, we really only ever call her Cookie. The full name just takes way too long to say.
Cookie in the Shop
Cookie doesn’t enjoy being in my shop when I am making noise but she loves to be down here when I am not. There are several bird feeders in a tree in the backyard just a few yards from the back door of the shop. She will spend hours sitting there or on the window sill watching the comings and goings of the wildlife in the yard. There is another thing she enjoys which is rather unfortunate.
Occasionally, she wanders into my shop in one of her “I need to be petted right now” moods. If that coincides with me working at the desk in my shop then she figures she needs to be in my lap. This is most unhelpful. Trying to keep my lap situated in such a way as to make it possible for her to sit there is nearly impossible and is very uncomfortable. She doesn’t like being told no so I often just have to kick her out.
Recently, however, I solved this problem a different way. There is a gray cat/dog bed that is usually located elsewhere in the house. Knowing that it is one of Cookie’s favorite places to sleep, I grabbed it and put it on my workbench near my desk. After placing Cookie on it, she twirled around a couple of times and settled in. Problem solved. Cookie could stay and hang out with me and I could get work done without having to keep her balanced on my lap.
Wea the Sewing Cat
I mentioned above that Cookie has a sister named Wea. That is short for Sakajewea, the native American woman who at the age of 16 assisted Lewis and Clark in their expedition to explore the Louisiana Territory. Wea was a very adventurous kitten.
It turns out that Wea loves sewing even more than Cookie likes to be in my shop. My wife, Sue, sews whenever she can. On weekends, if there isn’t something else going on, you can usually find Sue in our bedroom sewing something. Like projects in my shop, her list of sewing projects grows faster than her ability to complete them.
Any time she starts sewing, Wea shows up to help. She helps by lying on the sewing patterns. In fact, there isn’t really anything else that she will do if Sue is sewing. After a while, Sue finally just accepted that this is what was going to happen and started to make accommodations. She intentionally puts out patterns that she isn’t using for Wea to lie on. Once Wea gets comfortable on those, Sue can take out what she actually needs to work on.
If anyone else has fun stories of how their pet or pets like to “help” them in their shop or around the house, I would love to hear them.