Art from paper Anna wrote (rushed work from school…)
Paper Anna Wrote about Argus for her greek and Roman art history class
Argus My Guardian Cat
Art and Paper By Anna. R. Caccia
I named my cat Argus after a 100 eyed, all seeing and as I recently discovered apparently never sleeping Giant from Greek mythology. Argus is an emotional support animal, well my Argus is anyways. Althoughhe doesn’t know that of course. He doesn’t know why I have him but he knows that I love him. Even when he attacks my feet at 12am, steals my hair ties and asks me to throw them across my dorm room to Play fetch. He will throw his toy balls down the stairs for the family dog, Nova to chew and get her in trouble. When I'm sitting at my desk chair and he desperately hasn’t had attention in 10 whole minutes (or seconds) he will swat at my feet or my thighs and meow as if the word is about to end. He is a very talkative cat, I have phrases I repeat to him when he meows at me with a dramatic tone such as,
“Meow!”
“Oh really?”
‘MOW!”
“My goodness!”
“MooW!”
“Oh no!”
“mmoW!”
“Are you sure?”
“Mooow!”
“Are you a pretty boy?”
“Mow!”
I have several disorders which make modern life more difficult and because of that I live in a medical single dorm room with only Argus as my roommate. I have ADHD, OCD, exotropia eye disorder, and possible autism spectrum disorder as it runs in my family and a lot of the signs point to yes. I forget to do things, have compulsions, hate and love routine, hate going to new places, hate that I hate going to new places, hate change but crave it, play too many video games because im overwhelmed, get overstimulated from sounds, weather, workload, texture, smells, and visible surroundings. I get migraines from the change in the air pressure or my eyes get tired, I could go on and on but that would take up another whole page.
When he was a kitten and I would cry he did not know what to do. He started to sometimes paw at me as if to say “uh… stop…?” Now he will meow at me or rub against my legs purring, or stare in horror and confusion. He does things for me other than just being cute, loving, sometimes quite annoying, and of course extremely fluffy.
Sensory disorder wise he is good to have around because he is so soft and it gives me a chance to verbal stim when he talks to me. Sometimes when I am hungry and hyper-focused on a task he will meow at me until I eat food and then he will also eat his dinner. He doesn’t like to eat alone, and to be honest neither do I. He reminds me to do things, take out my trash because I have to clean his litter box, do my laundry because he threw up on a shirt that was laying on my dorm floor, do my dishes because his bowl gets gross when he doesn’t immediately eat all of his food. Argus (my cat, not the giant) helps me take breaks by bothering me. I am a very dedicated and at the same time a very distratable person, it helps when he snaps me out of that distraction by crying at me to throw one of my hair ties across my room for him to chase and bring back to me. He reminds me to clean my desk so he can jump up on it and stand on laptop or just sit beside it keeping me company. I am not perfect at doing some of these reminders, my desk is a mess and I really do need to do my laundry at the moment. But I think I would be worse off without him honestly. He does so much more for me than I often recognize at those moments.
Why did I name him Argus? Because when I was nineteen I was looking at names that were associated with having an Anchor. An emotional anchor because I unfortunately cannot take him into most public buildings, I probably would if I could. I almost named him Anchor but that would have been too on the nose possibly. I searched up names, and, before google AI was a thing, google told me Argus meant “a watchful guardian.” I wrote a self published poetry book called “ Why do you go before I do?” about the passing of other pet animals and there are poems in it about me trying to figure out what to name him.
I also really love Greek and Roman mythology. I grew up having my parents read me the Percy Jackson series until I was reading them on my own eventually. I watched the Hercules and Xena series with mostly my dad and my sister. My Dad and my Mom also showed me the old Greek Mythology Movies like “The Clash of the Titans, Jason and the Argonauts, or even Mama Mia” if you want to count it because of the end scene of the Gods looking down on them while they dance or the fountain of aphrodite that erupts water on them earlier in the movie at a different dancing scene.
Argus certainly has lived up to the meaning of his name. He is a very curious cat who runs to my dorm door anytime someone loudly walks by, or when I get back later than I should have, according to him anyways. He is also just about over 12 lbs and mostly a mainecoon cat. Mainecoon’s can grow until they are five years old and currently he is almost three, his birthday (and one of my best friends) is April 24th. So I also figured that since Mainecoons get so big naming him after a giant also made sense in that regard.
My cat Argus, unlike Argus the Giant, does not have 100 eyes, he does not have super strength, he sleeps quite a lot. Unlike Io I am not a nymph and I am not Hera’s priestess, she turned into a cow because of Zeus' rampaids. I am a 22 year old senior undergraduate art student with learning disabilities. But when he curls up at the end of my dorm bed at night or sleeps below me on top of a large plastic storage (he’s laying there right now sort of watching me write this) I feel safe and protected by my watchful guardian cat Argus. I love him a lot, obviously.