The Lizard Brain, Take Cat

The cat lays dormant for long periods on the couch behind us, whimpers intermittently into her neck fur and then in a burst leaps from her seat and zigzags violently across the floor to pounce on something that isn't there, eyes casting about apologetically when she realizes her mistake. Her vocalizations vary widely; her whimpers squeaks and mini-meows being rather less common than her hauntingly realistic human-infant mothers-milk cry. Like God speaking through a baby, that whine is, tuned at the perfect frequency to trip off our lizard-brain parental reflexes. (We turn in unison.)
Beyond that she exhibits typically quirky feline behavior. She makes clearing and digging motions outside the litterbox, she meows for attention after and not before petting sessions, she listens at the walls knowing full well she can't hear what's in them. This last might be symptomatic of her most off-putting trait, her deafness. As an indoor cat, she really suffers no ill effects as a result, yet her disability is so obviously total that it is difficult in the course of normal Kitty-contemplation not to feel that bizarre mix of compassion and revulsion we feel when we encounter a situation we don't fully understand. Her deafness informs her personality as well as her physicality, yet there's no equilibrium about her, no adjusted normalcy--her queerness never really turns off. It's hard not to be upset by her actions, decisions, bearing. The erratic cocks of her head; the obliviousness to the everyday sounds that startle, aggravate or inform normal folks (and cats); the way she puts her ear to the ground and kicks around in a circle, pivoting about her head, to pick up extra snippets of vibrations all fail to endear. Then again, she claims none of the pampered complacency most of her adult housecat cousins enjoy. She can't afford it, even as the only non-human occupant of a friendly household. Such complacency robs perfectly agreeable cats of the very spontaneity and fortitude--and, in Kitty's case, the lack of self-awareness--that should make them attractive pets. Kitty alone will not solve the conundrum she presents, but her existence serves as a reminder that the lizard brain rarely supplies us with all the information necessary to make informed decisions on these domestic (and other) matters.