Living with Cats as a Non Cat Person

I am currently the renter of two lovely cats. Let me set this up: My sister is the cat person. She had one named Carmel that she'd carry in a backpack and would play fetch with her. I am allergic to cats (along with everything that has a pulse or pollen) and am more of a big ugly dog kinda gal. But these cats are nice. They belong to a colleague of mine and his wife who are away in the field for the next year. They had been prepared to bring the cats with them for part of the trip to leave them with a family member- preparations including installing chicken wire in the back of their car for a UFC style cage. It was amazing. So I offered and was happy to have them.

What I have learned in my first days as a temporary cat owner...

1) the girl cat and I cannot sleep in the same room. The status of this decision will be reassessed at a later date once she has settled in and become more acquainted with the new environment. Right now, she doesn't recognized that my face is different from the mattress and tends to stand on it at inopportune times, such as 3 AM when I am trying to sleep.

2) the boy cat is Houdini reincarnated. He can open cabinets without opposable thumbs, and compress his body to fit through 3 inch spaces. This is quite a feat, because he is quite a substantial cat. I discovered this last night after I tore my house apart looking for him. I opened the back door to find him, much to my horror, sitting expectantly on the other side of it. Windows are now opened exclusively from the top. Actually, my roommate and I had held a powwow over the bathroom window a few days before, in the bathroom, which is about on par with a 2 by 3 janitorial closet. We figured it was too high and too thin a space for him to get through. WRONG.

3) both cats appreciate singing.

4) both cats are apparently tone deaf, because I know I sure am, but they seem to enjoy it all the same.

I decided to send the cat owners weekly status reports. This first report included essentially what I have written above. Hopefully, my office does not discover that I might be eccentric as a result.

Cheers!