New Syndrome Discovered

The Armchair Anthropologist

From my vantage point as armchair anthropologist during this pandemic, I have discovered a new stress syndrome among humans. I'm calling it Covid And, or Covid-And Stress Syndrome to give it its full name. 

Here's how it develops: Humans now have a high background level of stress due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, most of them manage to cope under most circumstances, providing they or their loved ones are not among those that contract the virus. But then something else happens. It could be almost any other stressful thing, even something small like a third straight day of rain. That's the And part. The pandemic fears and isolation stress plus that other stress combine to overwhelm the human. 

Is your human exhibiting signs of extra stress?

The human is likely to be as surprised by their reaction to the combined stress as you are. Humans are not very good at keeping more than one thing in their heads at a time, so they may think they are reacting to just the additional stress (the And). And then they might start blaming themselves for overreacting, which simply serves to increase their stress levels by another considerable amount. This is a common symptom of Covid And.

If your humans seem particularly brittle or fragile just now, they probably have Covid-And Stress Syndrome. If so, a little extra patience will be needed to see both you and them through it. So hang in there! Remember to encourage your humans to stay at home and practice good paw washing technique, so that we can all get back to normality more quickly.

Continue to demonstrate good paw washing technique

Keep Your Humans at Home

Pin them to the couch!

As reports come in about corona virus infecting cats both big and small, it is becoming increasingly important that we do all we can to keep our humans at home. A free-roaming human is at greater risk of disease, which may be a problem not only for them and their family members but also for us, the cats they live with. 

That said, it's still not time to panic, as there's no evidence that the corona virus is serious in us cats. But still, who wants to be coughing and lethargic? And who wants to risk a trip to the vet??

So please, friends, do all you can to keep your humans happy and healthy at home. Pin them down if you have to!

Sleeping in Class

Sleeping to the soothing sound of a lecture

Now that humans are doing more of their activities at home, I've discovered a wonderfully soporific thing that they do. It's called lecture or class. It works like this: a human talks at length in a soothing tone of voice, and you drift right off to sleep. If you make a special effort to stay awake and listen, you might learn things about ecology or psychology or history, but you're not obliged to do so. Sleeping counts as your participation. 

As a result of these lectures, my naps have been especially satisfying lately. It's just one of the many reasons why having our humans at home is good for us cats.

 If you stay awake, you might contract an education.

Hair Styles For the Pandemic

A wash and comb is all that's needed!

One of the latest things humans are worrying about during their stay-at-home isolation is their hair. That's what they call the funny little patch of stiff fur on their heads. They are worried that they cannot cut it, style it, or color it as they would wish. 


It's a bit hard to understand this. For one thing, surely a good washing and combing is all anyone's fur needs, isn't it? 

Styling human hair

For another thing, it's not as though human fur is all that impressive, so it's hard to see why they attach such meaning to it, rather than to a body part for which they really do stand out--like their hands. Even human females, who often have more of this "hair," can't match the glory of any feline coat, never mind the delicate stripes of a tabby or the rich color palette of a calico. (Full disclosure: I am both tabby and calico). It takes a whole family of humans, I have observed, to match the color range of a single calico cat. (I am told that some human families are all the same color. I have never observed this phenomenon--can anyone confirm this for me?)

Reaching out to be of help

Despite the strangeness of this hair fixation, it presents one further way we cats can help our humans in this time of crisis. After all, we have a lot of experience in the art of personal grooming. We can comb and style with the best of them!

Stress reduction

As an armchair anthropologist, I have found it quite illuminating to observe the wider range of activities that humans are now displaying at home. I find I am gaining a fuller perspective on the species.

An armchair anthropologist

Just now I am particularly interested in the range of behaviors that humans engage in in order to reduce stress. They seem to have a huge need for stress reduction while not in fact being all that good at it. 

In recent posts I've mentioned art, nature, and napping. That last one is one we can all relate to. But a new one for me is religion. This is an activity that humans are suddenly doing at home with their screens. It seems to be helpful to some of them, but reports say that this effect is highly variable. 

Observing religion

It continues to be something of a mystery to me why stress reduction is both so complicated and so variable among humans. I'll keep you posted as I learn more.

Art for Humans

If your humans are like mine, they've recently learned that they will be staying home even more strictly and for longer than they had expected. In my case, I am lucky that my house is big enough to let us all share the space relatively peacefully. But even so the humans' spirits seem to need some bolstering. 

Something I've noticed during this pandemic is how very important art is to humans, particularly when they are otherwise stressed or unhappy. I've been trying to understand exactly why this is so, and I have to confess I am still at a loss. What they hear in "music" is beyond me. Visual art is perhaps more accessible--I admit it does have its fascination.

Learning to appreciate visual art

Obviously we should be tolerating and even encouraging our humans' efforts at experiencing and even creating art at this time. The problem is that it's hard to know which things count as art and which don't. Keep in mind, though, that some of it is fed to the humans via their screens, so this is another reason to tolerate certain kinds of screen fixation for now. My guess is that more active forms of art are even more useful than passive forms, but that's just a guess.