Only Happy When It Rains

It always rains when I want to run.

Or rather... I always want to run when it rains. HAHA.

I read an article about the differences between outdoor cats and indoor cats. One of the most prominent, the article said, is the lack of interest in chasing strings or shadows for outdoor cats. You put a string - or anything moving - in front of an indoor cat and he'll go berserk trying to grab it between his paws. This can go for hours. but you put the string in front of an outdoor cat and the most he'll give you is only a few minutes' worth of forced enthusiasm.

It's true. My cat, Cik Mek Molek, loses the interest in the string/penyapu lidi/shadows/marbles/ or any moving things you throw at her after just half a minute. She is the quintessential outdoor cat, an an esteemed hunter. There is nothing - short of a dog or anything bigger than her size - that she has not hunted or killed. Nor any tree limbs that she has not climbed and peed on.

If she was a true blue Outdoor Cat, then I am a true blue Outdoor Athlete. I guess what a string is to my cat is what a treadmill is to me. I have been dormant for so long that I thought of hitting the gym tonight and run on the treadmill, or heck, get on the stationary bike and cycle. But I. Could. Not.

Whenever I tried the gym thing, I always ended up running for 2k that feels like a marathon. I hopped on the bicycle and hoped it would give me better luck, but only ended up cycling for 15 minutes before I slipped off the bike from sleeping. I am always mystified: how can I run/cycle for hours outdoors but 15 minutes indoors is such torture?

I thought of my cat giving me a withering stare whenever I force her to play with the white yarn: I know how you feel now.

To my cat, that white, flimsy yarn does not even come close to the feel of a warm, flurry helpless bird trapped between her paws. All the drama and preparation of an outdoor hunt was lost when presented in the form of a string; the time she spent patiently stalking, the sweet tremors before a chase, the slow, slow stealth towards the poor bird victim. It is the same thing I feel in an indoor gym - trapped in a cold room breathing the stench of others and feeling nothing but metal underneath.

All this writing does not change the fact that it still rains outside.