Take It From My Cat: Fall Is a Great Time to Hide Inside

As the weather turns, some of us choose to mourn the end of summery warmth instead of celebrating the advent of glorious, blustery autumn and winter — and the perfect excuse to, say, curl up at home. Enter Steve “If I Fits, I Sits” Nash, our container-obsessed cat, in a series of inspirational photos that demonstrate how pleasurable it can be to stay in — like, really in.

Bags like this one are known as ‘weekenders’ because a kitten can spend an entire weekend in one. Outdoor leaf-peeping? SO last year. (I’m not suggesting you actually spend the next several months in a duffel bag as he does, but if you’re limber and that’s your thing, consider this a judgment-free zone.)

Steve’s Yayoi Kusama phase.

Yeah, yeah, your sandals are now at the back of the closet for another year. But it’s boot season, guys. Get excited.

Zippers really do make it easier to get into these.

And flu season, of course. Wash those hands.

Steve’s favorite Nirvana album: In Utero.

Steve’s been eyeing the approach of this year’s bowl games, predictably.

I’d planned to make a salad, but it’s cool.

Not that kind of bowl, you say?

Hygiene’s a big deal at our place, as you probably gathered from the sink photo.

You tell him.

Tiger prawn.

Let’s give soup weather a shout-out, also. Have you ever made Giada De Laurentiis’s Winter Minestrone with vegan Italian sausage swapped in for the pancetta? It is delectable.

I promise I wash these.

Much as I love fancy end-of-the-year parties, my heart hurt when Steve grew up and we had to switch him to a punch bowl — but the seasons, they go round and round. Verily, we’re captive on a carousel of time.

You can do amazing things with novelty ice these days.

You know what, though? There’s always a bigger duffel bag.

Duffels have ridges.

Happy autumn, fellow cat people; I hope this time of year brings you as much joy as our stuff brings Steve, and as Steve in our stuff brings us. Staying in ain’t half bad.

Read more by Lauren Oster.

About the author: Lauren Oster is a freelance writer and editor in New York City. She and her husband share an apartment on the Lower East Side with Steve and Matty, two Siamese-ish cats. She doesn’t leave home without a book or two, a handful of plastic animals, Icelandic licorice mints, and her camera. Follow her on Twitter or Instagram.