“Jazz Paws, Everyone!”

Really, I should be pleased.

The kitties have discovered a way to halt their incessant yammering over the need to share the window overlooking the bird feeder, their non-stop clock-watching lest they miss “48 Hours: Hard Evidence” or their seemingly unending nitpicking over who has the more regal bearing.

That’s right. The kitties have discovered free-style dance.

You’ve met my kitties – or shall I say “kittehs”—haven’t you? There’s Liza “Bean” Bitey (of the Minneapolis Biteys) and Dolly Gee Squeakers (formerly of the Humane Society Squeakers). The sordid details of their lives – particularly Liza Bean’s involvement with an international jewelry cartel – can be found over there on the right, all the way down, under the innocuous heading of “The Cat Has a Secret Life”.

Having written it and, yes, even read it, I can recommend it for anyone with time to kill and a penchant for the kittehs.

Where was I?

Oh, yes. The kittehs and the odd “Fosse”-like vibe the house has taken on.

It’s like the auditions for “Chorus Line” around here the way they wander about in their tiny leotards, throwing a back leg up on the barre we’ve attached to the wall in the living room. Their need to rehearse the same steps over and over again, the water bottles (just a touch of lemon, please) for their continual quest for proper “hydration” – well, I was fine until last night.

I came home last night to a sewing machine set up in the kitchen, Dolly weeping large tears into her fuzzy little paws. The bobbin was out of the machine and tangled thread lie everywhere.

Look. Everyone knows that damn cat can’t sew – did you see the tree skirt she made last year? Could it get any more simple than a tree skirt? No. No, it cannot. And yet there she was, behind the sewing machine again, fussing over perhaps the longest silk scarf I’d ever seen.

Next she’ll want a convertible and a long, onyx cigarette holder.

Liza Bean, meanwhile, has taken to practicing, with the shoes on, tap steps against the wall in the bathroom while she makes phone calls from the bath tub. What is she talking about? Who is she talking to? Who knows? Worse yet, the lousy cat seems to know when I’ve pressed my ear against the wall – she turns the water on every single time I do it.

She knows how I hate that!

Well, I suppose I should count myself lucky. So many kittehs are into worse these days – weren’t there articles in the paper just the other day about the catnip problem in the schools?

A little dance won’t hurt anyone.


On another note, please slide on over to Underdogs Unite, where I am guest blogging today. To be perfectly honest, it's a re-post of something I wrote over a year ago but am hoping that it's new to, say, 95% of you. Hope you enjoy it!