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As regular readers of this blog might remember, we have three cats, two males and one female, all of them 3-4 years old, none of them entirely sure about our new lives as Camden, Maine innkeepers. When we move from one chore to the other right in front of them, they tell us in no uncertain terms that we either need to stop hustling and bustling, or (if there is really no way to take a break) we need to make cat time a regular item on our list of chores. Maybe instead of complaining, we’ve found ourselves saying, they should take over one day and see how it is. How would it be, if they took turns filling in for us as innkeepers for a few weeks? They’ve let us in on some of their ideas.

 

Mr. Oscar “No Vacancy” Nubble

Oscar can’t tolerate human commotion, and would prefer never to have guests or housekeepers enter the common areas of our property (actually, he would eliminate common areas). Oscar’s plan, if we understood him correctly, is something like the following:

Cancel breakfast in the breakfast room, and deliver scraps of some sort, or some canned breakfast foods, to the rooms instead. Guests have their Keurigs, they don’t need a spread of choices. Why should they eat better than the cat innkeeper? Guests also need to stick to their own room territories instead of invading cat innkeeper territories. Their eyes, if possible, should stay out of these territories too, meaning the garden view windows of rooms 11-14 will be boarded up. The fence of outdoor cat innkeeper territory will disappear, enabling more productive feline exploration. With more such exploration, cat innkeeper mood will improve, and generous breakfasts can be delivered right to guests’ doors: pigeons and seagulls and chickadees, a nicely chewed mouse, or even an insect on days that call for an appetizer. On Sundays, shredded squirrel could top the Specials Menu. Breakfast will be early, as will checkout time, to accommodate cat innkeeper exhaustion after all night breakfast procuring and delivery.

If inn really needs a housekeeper, keep only K, who always keeps a respectful distance. K. has recently lived with kittens, so she knows how to work for a feline boss.

“Inn style” rooms 16 and 17 (which are part of our 1850 house, but with their own entrance) will be closed permanently and become part of cat innkeeper territory. Garage and Room 18 above it will be dismantled and imploded (noiselessly, if possible) to increase cat innkeeper’s outdoor territory.

Once all current guests and guests with reservations have left, put up the No Vacancy sign, and leave it up for good. Get sign fixed, so that no accidental moves from No Vacancy to Vacancy occur. Change voice message tone to Oscar’s signature trill, and the message itself to No Vacancy. Ever.

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Lady Harriet

Harri’s innkeeping would be hands off, live and let live. Within reasonable limits, guests are fine, but they need to remain at a distance. She will be around, but never intrude into breakfast consumption or conversation. Breakfast time would be shortened and postponed till late morning, to accommodate morning bird hunts and cat TV programming; ditto with check-ins, which would otherwise cut into afternoon nap time. Each welcome guest would be greeted with stair scratches in the office. (See photo and blogpost “Cats and Innkeeping,” Dec. 16). Housekeepers G. and L. (who are familiar and friendly, giving treats and belly scratches) would be prioritized, and all kitchen vacuuming would cease for good. G. would have to wash hands in catnip before giving out treats to cat innkeeper; L. would not be allowed to trim nails so belly and chest scratches remain pleasurable. Rooms 16 and 17 will be closed permanently and become part of cat innkeeper territory. Staircase up to these rooms will be carpeted and receive daily scratch treatments.

 

Captain Tibby

With Tibby in charge, Towne Motel would change its focus – from a place that takes care of its guests to a place where guests can come for cat therapy, de-stressing in the process of taking care of cat innkeeper. Assistant cat innkeepers Oscar and Harri would be fired, and replaced by all-human assistant innkeepers. Guests can come in for breakfast, but offerings should either be consumed quickly or fed to cat innkeeper. Once finished, chosen guests will be allowed to hang around, including in living room, to pet, brush, play and lie down with Tibby.

No cat allergies or dog people will be allowed among guests. Guest intercoms will be installed in rooms so cat innkeeper demands can be heard widely and catered to. All housekeepers can stay, but will have to be retrained to focus more fully on Captain T’s needs and desires. Housekeeper A. will likely remain favorite and will be given more hours. Housekeeper L. will not be allowed to declare cat innkeeper spoiled.

Rates will be raised to reflect value of services received, given inncat Tibby’s prestigious Maine Coon heritage. As a result of cat innkeeper heritage, Towne Motel will be featured prominently in Buy Local publications, and therapy sessions might be extended to locals in the off season, on an hourly basis. Guests can ask to be upgraded to a therapy room with overnight Tibby stays, for a nominal fee (fee might be waived at cat innkeeper’s discretion if all nighter is satisfactory). Occasional specials will include Liedowns with Tibby, 30 minutes for $30, purrs extra, tips (in the form of cat treats, cashews,
or feta cheese) expected.

And finally, of course, rooms 16 and 17 will either be closed permanently and become part of cat innkeeper territory, or will be open to Captain Cat’s visits on a 24 hour basis, as needed. If the latter, doors to these rooms will have to remain open at all times.

Ever since we started to think about buying an inn, we wondered how our cats would take to being innkeepers’ pets. What would be in it for them?

Well, for one, they’d have us home and around to cater to their every need (or so we imagined). And instead of rushing out in the morning and leaving them in 8-10 hours of silence, we’d have more stimulation and activity for them during the day. We used to come home after work, traffic, gym and errands ready to collapse, only to be reminded, first by our welcome mat, then by the now rested and restless cats, that “it’s about TIME we got home.” But they had to move quickly to get our full attention:  it didn’t take long (just un- and repacking, showering, microwaving various things – heat pads, hot toddies, tea, coffee, dinner) before we dissolved into hours of quiet again, dozing or grading or sleeping, the only signs of life coming from the Real Housewives of Bravo and whatever violent Showtime movie Siobhan fell asleep to. They had to squeeze in all their demands – to be let in and out, played with, petted and brushed, chased and fed and treated with Party Mix – into the few hours a day we weren’t prone or out of the house, doing whatever it was we did to put Fancy Feast into their bowls. They didn’t care what that was; they just concluded we can’t be very good hunters if it takes us ten hours a day to bring home one bag of Petsmart stuff a week.

 

Well, they still don’t care what we do to get food into their bowls. But they do care that they have to be a part of it now. What possesses us suddenly to be home all day (if home is the word for it), yet neither pay them sufficient attention nor let them sleep in peace? Why are strange people milling about our dining room in the morning? Why do other strange (if gradually more familiar) people come into the kitchen and drop off towels or talk about dirty rooms, guests, tips, and even their personal lives? Why do they vacuum and swiffer the kitchen? What’s up with all the unbearable door bells and phone calls? And worst of all, why do we walk past them and say things like, “hold on, I’ll be right with you,” or “Not now, Tibby, but I’ll lie down with you just as soon as I… turn on the lights in room 8 / take the banana bread out of the oven / call the plumber about room 2.”

 

It’s not that our owners quarters aren’t big enough – they’re not squeezed into a basement or two sunless rooms at the back of the inn, nor are they divvied up into odd portions that no cat, much less a human, could figure out how to live in. (And believe us, we’ve seen versions of all three during our inn search). And we didn’t have to rent or buy a separate house, either  – although the cats will probably soon want us to. Or maybe just a separate yard, a bigger and grassier one, with lots of birds and mice and bugs to kill, and a wooden deck to roll on.

 

The problem is that our house is semi public for part of the day (the breakfast rooms are behind the office, right between the kitchen and the living room), meaning it took a while for our two less anxious cats to make this dire situation work for them. (The third, very anxious cat, is still figuring it out). At first they were all stuck upstairs, hiding in closet corners, behind the long unpacked boxes, or under the bed – or sitting in window sills plotting escape. Eventually they realized that between 7 pm and 7 am, the coast was generally clear: as long as they made it back upstairs before the first breakfasters invaded, they could get in some outdoor birdwatching in the morning; and after 7 or 8 in the evening, the downstairs has gradually felt safer and become theirs. That’s the time for phantom mice hunts, closet  explorations, rug gymnastics, and the many other things cats do at night that we simply have no clue about.

 

But what about the 12 hours between the beginning of breakfast and the No Vacancy sign?

 

Well, we have three cats, and they all spend the day differently:

– anxious, IBS cat who would rather live his life outside, although not in this new, cold, not big enough yard, and who runs and hides at the sound of anything louder than a plastic bag or the sight of anything larger than his own body carried or picked up anywhere close to him

– high maintenance lover cat who has no patience for uninterrupted hours of human multitasking, and who holds grudges bigger than his twenty pounds of fur, especially when phones are answered during a cuddle session

– and quiet, sweet, well adjusted cat, whose one stress reliever is to claw carpeted staircases and litter box liners. (We don’t yet have any such staircases, but she did discover the one carpeted stair in the office, which, if left to her devices, would probably be bare by now).

 

Anxious cat still spends most of the day upstairs, arming himself only occasionally with extra layers of caution if boredom becomes too extreme and he has to venture into the kitchen or yard (other downstairs areas are too scary before evening). Attempts to pet him during such ventures are futile – trust is in short supply during the day, his little head still full of moving/ driving / being stuffed into a carrier trauma months ago.

 

Big lover cat has adopted a “whatever”attitude towards all these new people, and even occasionally hits them up for admiration and support (the more listening ears for complaints, the better). When lack of attention becomes too excessive, he sits demonstratively in the middle of a room or close to his filled food bowls, either looking up expectantly (if he is still willing to forgive), or with his back to you (if serious resentment has set in). He’s willing to accept new dry food in either case, but might eat with an air of “see what you made me do – turn to food when I really wanted love.”

 

Carpet clawing cat made a decision weeks ago to live her life around commotion and make it work for her, Buddha style (or similar). She just does her own thing, chasing birds in the yard or chattering at them from the warm cat tree inside. In the absence of carpeting on our main staircase, carpet cat is now limiting upstairs ventures to litter box trips. She is also wondering why she can’t, like she used to, have at least one litter box in the kitchen. In the meantime, she’s working on dismantling office carpeting and moving it into owners quarters, piece by piece if necessary.

 

In the off season, innkeepers tend to repairs, updates, and other investments.  New innkeepers with pets, or at least with picky pets like ours, probably have to make pet and guest projects equal priorities. Our first project got done quickly: a larger fenced outdoor  area, and a cat fence on top of the regular fence. Our next one will get done next week (knock on (literal) wood): carpeting the staircase and the upstairs landing. Yup, only 50% of this project is not cat related (noise,warmth, and nostalgia for some carpeting), but that’s ok – it’s about time they felt more like home. And further down the road, we envision some kind of spiral staircase from the bedroom window down to the backyard, so that at least anxious cat can avoid the breakfast crowds altogether and descend directly into the outdoors. But as far as grudging lover cat goes, material investments won’t do. As long as we fail to drop everything for a half hour brushing when demanded, he will sit reproachfully on the old rug in the kitchen, with the same look on his face as the cat on the mat…..telling us that even when we’re home, it might still be high TIME for us to get there.