boomtown cat

So I bought new food and new litter for her yesterday. I already forget the name of the crystals I bought. We were both dubious about the crystals once I'd filled the litter box, so I decided to go ahead and put a thin layer of the Arm & Hammer stuff on top, to help her adjust. I'm not sure whether that was necessary, but she has been using the litter so I guess it'll be okay. I rather wish I hadn't bothered with the A&H stuff because that means the smell of that litter is still getting all over the house.

As for the food, I ended up buying the Wellness brand that Zannah recommended. I was amused that the company that makes it, Old Mother Hubbard, is based in Lowell Mass - a back-home connection, there. It was the only brand I recognized at Mud Bay Granary, although they gave me a booklet about choosing cat food and it mentions "Feline Vitality" by Wysong, so I guess they have the Wysong, I just didn't recognize it. Here too I deliberately mixed the new with the old, adding some of the Wellness stuff to the Purina that was already in her bowl. She did munch on some of the Wellness right away, so I guess she likes it. I can't really tell from the current state of her bowl whether she's continued eating the Wellness.

Now, I don't know whether these changes had anything to do with her obnoxious behavior last night. I certainly hope not. I watched a DVD late last night, and she mostly chilled out and napped while I was watching it. I made sure to play with her for several minutes before and in between getting ready for bed, and she seemed fine. As soon as I went to bed, she started wandering through the apartment, mewing plaintively.

I let that go on for maybe 15 minutes before I thought, well, maybe there is something wrong, and I turned on the light and got up to check on her. Of course as soon as I did so, she switched over to purring. I pet her for a minute, picked her up and held her, then put her down and got back into bed. She immeditely resumed the plaintive mewing and restless wandering, but got noisier and noisier about it. She crashed through the window blinds a lot, she went into the bathroom (where it echoes) and mewed loudly several times, she'd pace a circuit around me on the bed still mewing as if I weren't even there, and so on.

I let that go on for another half-hour I guess before I started spraying her with the water bottle. That'd stop her temporarily, then she'd start up again, and she kept this up for the entire rest of the night. Every hour or so I'd lose all patience and jump out of bed with the bottle to chase her and spray her. Six in the morning is when I started yelling "NO!" and "STOP!" at the top of my lungs. She did settle down next to me a couple times, as if she were going to be good and let me sleep, but only stayed there for a couple minutes and as soon as it seemed I was going to go to sleep, she'd leave and start up again.

I may have managed to get an hour or so of sleep, finally, very late in the morning (between 8 and 9:30 when my alarm went off), because I seem to recall having some dreams. But aside from that, she very literally and deliberately kept me up all night. I'm angry and stressed and aching - I'm not even that tired because I'm just too wound up. And as far as I can tell, she of course has no idea she's been such a bad kitty - after all, being sprayed with the water bottle all night never got her to give it up - so for all I know she's going to do the same thing tonight. I cannot keep this cat if she keeps up this behavior, and I have no idea how to convince her to behave, if that's even possible.

She's napping under the couch right now, and I'm sorely tempted to poke her awake, and keep her from getting any sleep during the day today.