The Cats in Our House

A group of cat friends live in our house, adding a whole other world inside our walls. 

Lennon is the biggest of these pals--we tease that he's the size of a white-and-taffy-colored pony. He can even do dog tricks which amaze our friends. But sadly, he's also an honest-to-goodness fraidy cat. It's an embarrassing sight to see this huge cat fearfully running down the hall from the much-smaller, Oreo, the relative newcomer.

Oreo is a maniac. He wants to play 18 hours a day and each time I release him from our daughter's room upstairs, he first takes his fishing pole toy into his mouth (the feathery end) and head held high, drags the toy tarump-tarump-tarump down the stairs. Always he reminds me of a toddler who must take his stuffed animal with him by land or sea or air. Just mention the word 'toy' to Oreo and he meows in hope that we will swing his fishing pole around for him to chase. We must encourage him to rest from playing-- he lacks the common sense to do so himself.

At 14, Skittles is our oldest. She's part Siamese and still has a kittenish sort of face, and she's a bonafide example of a lap cat. She naps at the end of my bed while I watch tv and you'd think her back was made of velcro. She must always be touching me, at least a little. Literally hundreds of hours she's sat on Tom's lap in the recliner all down the years. I'll always see her there in my mind, even after she is gone.

McCartney, sad to say, is rather average. Not the fraidy cat her brother, Lennon, is, but close. Fluffy, black and white, her green eyes are huge. She's always the first at the bowl of food and the last to leave. She waddles after our little red laser light with reckless abandon and finally, at age 7, she learned to sit up for her treats. 

Brother Lennon got the brains, Cartney got the fluff.

Two other cats have we, or rather, these two along with the aforementioned Oreo, belong to our daughter who lives upstairs. Ginger and Farrah are grey sisters who are as different as the proverbial night and day. When Farrah looks at anyone, she stands on her toes and squints her eyes-- you would swear she's smiling. She's known as The Princess. 

But Ginger--huh! Ginger is psychotic. I'd never dare try to hold her and if she lets me pat her head, I must always be ready to draw my hand away lest she bite it on a whim. But her redeeming feature is that she watches for Naomi to come home from work each day and runs to the kitchen to greet her. But then, if Naomi picks her up, she yowls menacingly. There is no figuring-out Ginger.

Our three downstairs cats end each day in their own room. Years ago, their nighttime play got too intense and a Victorian bowl and pitcher were smashed, so they've spent their nights since in this bedroom. I call them in a falsetto voice, "Time for bed!" and they come walking in a row into this room where they will spend the night. But on sweltering nights I leave them to roam the house and they look up at me as if to say, "Aren't you going to put us to bed?". Then next morning, they walk with heads held high. "Aren't we hot stuff to have stayed out all night!", they say.

Funny how so much can go on beneath one roof. 

Funny-sad how much we miss when we choose to worry about the strife in the world outside and let it blacken our homelife. I don't want to overlook a single blessing. When I stand before God someday, I want to be able to say I saw, truly saw, each blessing He sent my way. 

Already I'm getting a head start on thanking Him.


*****


Quote of the Day: For myself I am an optimist - it does not seem to be much use being anything else.
Sir Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965),