Speaker 1: He Live. This is pet Life Radio. Let's Talk Pets.
Speaker 2: Hello outdline friends, Welcome to Cataitude. I'm your show host
Michelle Bourne. Today we have an author who has written
the most amazing book. You're going to want to stick
around for this, so stay tuned. We'll be right back.
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Speaker 4: Let's talk pets on Petlife Radio dot com.
Speaker 2: Welcome back everyone. I'd like to welcome Rebecca van Layer.
She is the author of a Cat Welcome Rebecca.
Speaker 5: Hi, Michelle, thank you so much for having me today.
Speaker 2: I'm very excited to have you and I have to
say in reading your book, it kind of is what
I think a lot of people, especially women, would like
to say to the world. As you know, women that
I have cats, because there's so many taglines and this
that are negative out there, especially for women cat parents.
Speaker 5: Yes, yeah, I definitely wanted to think about the idea
of the crazy cat lady and the kind of pervasive
attitude that the worst thing that could happen to you
is that you end up alone with cats and take
that head on, since having cats has been one of
the greatest sources of joy in my life, and there's
nothing sad about that.
Speaker 2: I agree, and I don't know why it became so negative.
I don't even know why it became so negative. If
women decide they don't want to have kids, if guys
don't have kids, that's okay.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So that's also a big focus of the book.
It's a two year story. I always knew I was
writing a book about my cats, but I actually didn't
know that it was also a book about my decision
not to have kids for like the first year I
was writing it. And it turned out to be both
to be about the pleasure and the value of connection
with beings who we don't make and they're being just
as much in that as a life choice.
Speaker 2: Thank you for writing that. And I know what I
said before I mean, of course, biologically men cannot have kids,
but there are all kinds of households today, and there's
I know plenty of male couples that I know, some
that have kids and some that don't have kids, and
there's no stigma attached. If you're a woman and you
decide you don't want bio kids, then there's a stigma attached.
So that in my mind is screwed up. So again,
thank you, thank you, thank you. Okay, so you have
a PhD in literature, Yes, so I should call you really,
doctor Rebecca van Lair.
Speaker 5: I almost never use that, although I do put it
on my tickets when I book a plane, so then
the flight attendant knows that I'm the doctor you know,
can't help anyone in a crisis. But yes, do you
have a PhD?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 5: So this book is through Bloomsberry's object Lesson series, and
a lot of the people who write for it are
writing much more academic books and just picking up a
book that's called cat people might not know what they're
getting into. So I did want to provide facts and
research and yeah, definitely having that background made that part
of it easier. And then there's also a chapter toward
the end of the book, where I'm talking a little
bit about other writers who've written wars on cats and
try to do a little bit of an analysis of why.
I think some of those books end up having violence
in them, which is often a surprise to cat people,
including about my book. So the analytical component there, I
think that comes from my graduate training. But also sorry
to all of the people who didn't want to read that.
Speaker 2: You know what, I could kind of tell as it
got there. I don't have a PhD, I have an MBA.
I don't feel like I used that all the time
that I should start putting that on. Yeah, when I fly,
why not?
Speaker 5: It takes work, so it like acknowledge it in the
situations when it can be that might just be flights
or the dentist.
Speaker 2: Yes, and we worked hard for those freaking absolutely, I
don't know. Supposedly it made me more analytical, so I
don't know. I think it made me more risk averse
than anything, because a lot more stats classes, which it's
not my best thing. It's like, to quote an old
stats teacher, it's like the haircut like of anyway, let's
get back to your book. When you added Toby and
gusts to your life. Did you ever think you would
write a book where they would be the stars?
Speaker 5: No, it was not on my radar at all. And
at that point in my life, I was in graduate
school and I was working mostly on critical research, but
I was also writing fiction, so knowing, yeah, I had
no idea that I would ever write a memoir, much
less that it would be so focused on those two
precious goal.
Speaker 2: For ball, you know what I have to say, and ctitude.
Especially the last few months, I've had a lot of
books come through, and I just noticed I'm at my
two hundred I think it's about two hundred and fiftieth show,
because there was about seventeen or so from their first host,
so they had a lot of books. And I really
like your writing style. I'm not going to critique any
of the ones before, but what I liked was there
was a lot of story to it, but also a
lot of real life with still making it very story.
The voice of the book was fantastic.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much. Yeah, that's that matters so much
to me. And then also just having the cats fully
come across as characters matter so much to me, like
all of us who are cat people, this is like
one of the most important beings in your life, your cat.
But then at the same time, when you try to
describe them to someone else, the first thing you just
want to say, as well, they're perfect. So then making
them a fully fledged character in a book was something
that yeah, I got to take on.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And at one point you said you wanted to
be a cat.
Speaker 5: Yes, yeah, so I think can you relate to that?
Speaker 6: Every day?
Speaker 5: I just look at how relaxed Gus is, you know,
just taking his little nap or stretched out just like
I kind of wish I were you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for the relaxing part, for the no stress part,
because they never look like they're stress. I grew up
with dogs first, so and I've had dogs and cats,
and now I just have cats because both dogs are
in doggy Heaven or wherever they go for special dog creatures.
So I wouldn't say I want to be a dogs.
They seem to work hard.
Speaker 5: Yes, they have a lot of expectations on them. They're
supposed to behave a really particular way, whereas cats have
I think more flexibility.
Speaker 2: And they get away with everything too.
Speaker 5: They do.
Speaker 2: So tell us about the personalities of Gus and Toby.
Speaker 5: So Gus is a friend was doing commissioned paintings of
both of them, and he asked me, is Gus a
cozy boy or a mania? And I thought that was
so funny because Guss is complete cozy boy. He lives
to nap. He's an absolute artist when it comes to napping.
He's always finding both a new place and a new position.
He's a very flucky white cat with one blue eye
and one green eye, so he's got this air of
kind of magic and whimsy about him. And he's also
a very gentle creature and soul. Now he's on thyroid medication,
and he's the sort of cat where like you can
easily just put a cream in his ear and he's
absolutely not going to fight you much less like or
scratch or anything like that. He's just kind of like, okay, Rebecca.
And that's actually the voice that I do for him
that he talks to me in. So soft is Gus's thing.
And Toby, on the other hand, Toby is more of
a tough guy. Toby is originally from Alabama, but I'm
at him in Providence when I'm met my partner Seamen,
and you know, he would start a fight with any
creature that crossed his path. When he was an indoor
outver cat, possome cat, whatever he wanted to be, dock cat.
And even when he came inside and started living with Gus,
when Stephen and I moved in together, he was really
nice to Gus. They got along beautifully. But he's still
like you know, top cat, tough guy. Even when he walks,
you can tell that he's strutting and maniac as well.
Speaker 2: So they're kind of opposite.
Speaker 5: Yes, absolutely, which is nice because you.
Speaker 2: Know, I have a hat. Curb three one is she
was feral till she was fourn and Charlotte I think
is just misunderstood, is how we she's afraid. She looks
like an ard bark, you know. She hisses at me,
my partner. She loves him, but me, no, even if
I give her shrimp or something. No, No, I'm evil.
And so sometimes I think, I know, sometimes I could
be it like that, but not always. Most of the time,
I'm pretty cool, you know, So you know, we all
have our inner bach kind of comes out from me.
And then my diva cat is Mollie, who my significant
other is love with. So that's the other woman. And
that they have Dennis, who's.
Speaker 5: Chillboy because the boy of the household.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he was my first cat, which the universe
picked the right cat because he's part of Maine coon,
so he's a dog of cats. He's not that big,
he used to be bigger. I think he's chinking a
little as he gets which happens. He definitely has nine
lives and he's just chill. He could yeah anything, and
he's very chill boy. But it's interesting how you could
just tell their personalities and cat's personalities I don't think
are as obvious as dogs, but they definitely have different personalities.
Speaker 5: Yeah, when you spend time with them.
Speaker 2: Have you heard that before?
Speaker 5: I don't know if I've heard it put that way before,
but I do think that because dogs are in public,
like people just get to know their friends, and dogs
in this way where they're you know, on the there
at the park, they're coming to the picnic, whereas cats
take more time to open up with people, so outside
of the people who they live with, other people are yeah,
can be slower to get to know who they are.
And then also they I guess like from an evolutionary
biology perspective, do have less expressive faces than dogs, so
there's maybe an air of mystery just in the way
that they look. So yeah, it takes definitely, I think more.
You should be close enough to the cat and you
have to pay enough attention to the cat to get
to know their personality. But when you do those two things,
then you.
Speaker 2: Know, yeah, when you know, you know, all right, we're
going to take a quick break and we'll be right back.
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Speaker 4: Let's talk past, Let's done, pet acoout Life.
Speaker 6: Radio, Hetline Radio, Petlight Radio dot Com.
Speaker 2: Welcome back, everyone, we're talking to Rebecca Van lair. She
has written the book Cacked. So, Rebecca, in the book
your partner says it's okay to quote divest from the
fantasy end quote of having children. So what does this
mean the contests of the book, even though we talked
about that a little little bit in the beginning of
our show.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so I think that you know, before it has happened,
while it's Schrodinger's baby rather than a Schrodinger's cat, you
have no idea what it's going to be like. But
in our culture, there is a fantasy that there's kind
of like nothing better than having a child, that that's
how you establish a legacy in this world, that that's
how you experience unconditional love, that that's how you kind
of like become a full adult. And of course all
of that is really a cultural fantasy. And I think
everyone I know who's a parent would say that when
it comes down to it, it can be some of
those things, but it's also incredibly challenging. It can be
incredibly difficult, and it doesn't always work out the way
that you want it to, whether it's that you never
have that child, or whether your relationship with that child
just isn't what you fantasize would be beforehand. So it
stands for all of these kinds of change and peak experiences,
but at the same time, for me personally, was weighing
that against the other important goals that I've established for myself,
which don't necessarily involve like eighteen years of childcare or
beepless nights or any of that that involved my intellectual life,
my writing, what I might broadly call just like my
relationship to the environment, my cats included, and divesting from
the fantasy meant taking that cultural expectation and the idea
of what it might be and putting all of that
aside and thinking about the things that I actually want
and whether parenthood is compatible with those. And my answer
was no. I think that for a lot of people
it's still yes, but that fantasy just plays such a big,
big role that it can be hard to even see
it clearly.
Speaker 2: I think I think you're right on with that, because
there's even listening to you. I'm not twenty something, but
I'm not ancient either, So to give you an idea
of where I'm coming from, my listeners have see my
picture said they no, I'm not twenty something, but I
will never be old in my head. So having said that,
hearing you, and I'm thinking, you know, people always say,
even if you're not married these days, oh but you
know you're not having kids. Why aren't you having kids?
And it's not selfish to decide No, I want my
life to look like this. This is what it's going
to be, and it's my choice. What's wrong with that?
Speaker 5: Yeah, nothing wrong with that. I mean, you know, it's
really unselfish in a way because you free yourself up
to be a fun ants to all the other kids
in your life, to participate in community care, to give
yourself to people in different ways. So not to say
that it is selfish to have kids at all by
any means, but I don't think there's anything selfish about
choosing not to. It's just a different use of time.
Because again it's like the how is it selfish if
there's nothing here that you're depriving anyone else of only yourself?
Speaker 2: Right, And I don't think it's bad for you. I'm
talking more society.
Speaker 5: Staneah, Yeah, yeah, absolutely, it's.
Speaker 2: So much harder for women, even though, like that's why
I said my age, I'm not you know, what is it,
gen z? But maybe either are say you guys on
somewhere in between. And even with that mindset, well, these days,
and we're recording this and almost fall of twenty twenty five,
these days, without getting too much into politics, things have
gone a little backwards. I think my personal opinion with
as far as women's rights, but that's all I'll go
for with that, because this is not a political show.
It's about cats. So I do think though, that women
and men should be able to make those choices and
not feel pressures from society. They if you don't want kids,
don't want kids, want to cats instead, go for it.
Be the best pair, aren't you can? Because I'd say
be the best you know, two lagged parent you could
be too, so and be happy to help with your choice.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's a lot of cats that need parents. For
anyone listening, who needs one? Or do more cats?
Speaker 2: Yes? So many, so many? Okay, So here's something another
question from your book. So another line in the book says,
if dogs are our servants, cats are our shadows. What
do you mean by this?
Speaker 5: So that's a part of the book where I'm thinking
a little bit more about well, I'm not thinking more,
but I'm confronting the literature that calls cats and invasive
species and a driver of basically environmental destruction. So, you know, dogs,
they live a very controlled life, I would say, you know,
especially here in the United States, like their movements are
very much controlled by the people who they live, with,
their routines, everything about their lives. Cats as a species
have a lot more freedom, and they have historically because
they haven't been in service to us. They don't work
for us. Some people say that they actually domesticated themselves,
that they just came closer to us because they could
basically get food from us in human communities, and we
just thought they were cute, so we let them stay
even though we can't make them work. So in that case,
they've followed us around kind of their own volition. But
thinking specifically about the environment, there's obviously a lot that
humans do to you know, raise ecosystems and areas that
were once wild and cats, especially outdoor cats beral cat
colonies historically and now have a lot of freedom to
take advantage of that and kind of hunt the areas
that where maybe we've already taken out the apex predators
or we've created an environment where there's just a maybe
it's even a nature preserve, like cats get into those.
So I think that they do what we do in
a way that we sometimes don't like to confront because
we don't like to confront what we do either, And
maybe that's a little bit why people have historically been
afraid of cats sometimes.
Speaker 2: Maybe maybe because you you definitely have more and I've
done shows on this. There's definitely more negative connotations about cats.
And I've always around Halloween's coming up, so always rund
Halloween talk about the stigma with the black cats, which
is such boloney. So but yeah, there's always that that
there's something evil or mystical or probably because we just
don't understand them as well because they're stoic creatures. But
that's the fun of cats.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, and I think that their mystery is something fun.
But also if you're willing to look at them as
a mirror and think, Okay, they do this thing in
what ways do we do it too? Like to identify
with them more can be interesting.
Speaker 2: Yes, it can. Okay, let's talked about at one point
you brought a new cat home named Milton, and I'm
not going to go into detail, but that is a
dear relative of mine that's no longer with us, So
it's kind of funny to see the name. So what
I wanted to call attention to is the fact that
you challenge the bet about five feline immuna Let's see
what I say, this feline immuno deficiency virus, and you
were correct and you switched vets. I applaud that actually,
because I think that some cat pet parents, pet parents,
you know, are not comfortable confronting their veterinarian and medical doctors.
But you know, we're talking about veterinarians for this show.
So what would you say to them? I've done this,
and I when I spread this part, I was like, yes, yes,
go ahead, Yes you're right, you know, and mine was
over here on the clothing a little bit. But what
would you say to people that are just kind of
have a little fear of, you know, confront in the
event and saying no, I don't want to do this,
or this is not right, or you said something and
I have, you know, different information to show you that
what I'm telling you is is correct.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, you know, I think that for most
of us, if we heard something from a medical doctor
either about ourselves or a close family member that didn't
sit right or seems wrong, we might go out and
get a second opinion. And with veterinarians, I think that
it's just as valid, Like, yes, they're experts in their fields,
but at the same time, they might not be really
keeping up to date with like really recent research. Their
training might be a little bit outdated, and they also
might just not know your creature as well as you do.
So if you're in a situation where something is just
like rubbing you the wrong way, then I don't think
that you have anything to lose by questioning it and
also doing your own research. That means search, like looking
in a cat community Facebook group where there might be
experts or even people who've had cats with similar issues.
It might be like me actually like going and reading
peer reviewed research because I can't help myself. But you know,
if you bring that information to your vet and they
can't tell you why you're wrong, if they're just kind
of like, I don't know, or that's how it is,
like that wouldn't be a good enough explanation for any
other family member. If you question something, they should have
a really solid explanation for you. And if they don't
you know, get a second opinion or if you need
to a new veterinarian.
Speaker 2: Yes, I like what you said, and I would say
though you said some good points about reaching out to
a cat community. There's a lot of social media these days.
Don't necessarily rely on, as they say, doctor Google or
doctor Ai because that nation is not always correct. It's
a sweet and some of it can be very outdated
because some things are listed without dates, so don't look
at that as the end all. There's also a lot
of people that are in social media that are technicians
that do a wonderful job of communicating different things to
the public. So there's a lot of good information there.
But yeah, do your homework. Don't do the AI doctor
Google business and think that's enough exactly.
Speaker 8: Yeah, now that our kitties are getting a little bit older,
there's a little kidney stuff and I don't know if
you've ever talked about Tanya's Guide to CKD, but it's
like a website that looks like it was made in
the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 5: And there's also, you know, a Facebook group of kidney cats,
but it's more up to date than what you would
get by looking at TRAGYPT. It's a labor of love
by people who real people who really research this and
know what they're doing. And so that's the kind of
information that you're looking for, information from other real cat
people with names like Tanya.
Speaker 2: No, but I will check into that. I hadn't heard
that before.
Speaker 5: If you end up having kidney stuff, the go to resource.
Speaker 2: Thank you for that. So, if Toby or Gus could
have given you one piece of advice, what do you
think it would have been?
Speaker 5: Oh? I think they would be with they're very different personalities,
it would be very different advice.
Speaker 2: Okay, So what would Toby say?
Speaker 5: I think Toby would say try harder, like you know,
and he always did.
Speaker 2: Nope, I'm wrong. It is you'r a feisty cat.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, he's a icy one, yes Toby.
Speaker 2: I okay.
Speaker 5: Toby would say try harder to keep going yeah, and
Gus Gus would say it's going to be.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay. Thanks. So lastly, i'd like to ask what
do you hope readers take away from reading your book.
Speaker 5: I think that I want readers to read my book
and embrace just like the well range of emotional experience
that you can have with a cat, like they're not
just there to be cute for us that. I think
that almost anything you can experience in a friendship, you
can experience with one with a cat. And I hope
that people open themselves up to that by reading the
book or revisit the relationships they've had with their cats,
and also just take that out with them with cats
but also with other creatures.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you Rebecca so much. What kidies do you
have now in your house?
Speaker 5: Guts and Milton, that's what I thought.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you didn't talk about Milton alat but what's his personality?
Speaker 5: Milton is an absolute clown. I've never known another cat
who is just so profoundly silly. Every single time I
look at him, I start laughing and then also say,
don't look at me like that. And how he's looking
at me, it's with a combination of goofing off and
trying to get my attention and judging me a little,
and just all that he's a funny guy.
Speaker 2: Oh that's funny. So tell us where can people buy
your book?
Speaker 5: Pat is available wherever books are sold, That includes Bloomsberry,
the Publisher, Bookshop dot Org, Amazon, or best of all,
place in order at your local indie bookstore.
Speaker 2: Okay again, thank you so much for coming on Patitude.
Speaker 5: Thank you, Michel.
Speaker 2: This was so fun. I hope everyone enjoyed this show.
This is a really good book. It's called Cat by
Rebecca ben Blair, and I just thought it was a
wonderful book. I want to thank Rebecca for coming on Platitude.
Thank you my loyal listeners of Platitude. I appreciate you
so much. Thanks to my cat crew, Dennis, Charlotte and Molly,
all different personalities, and you know, they've taught me a lot,
not just about cats, but about life. So if you're
listening and just thinking maybe I should get a cat,
you know what, get two. They should be not sold,
they should be adopted in pairs because too are better
than one. And of course, thank you to my amazing producer,
Mark Winter for all you do. Thank you so much. Mark,
and hey, Lisa Attitude, have Alatitude.
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