“You’ve ruined a perfectly good cat.” I say this, in all sincerity, to the mumbling
form next to me.
“I have no idea what you’re saying,” he says. It is dark, but I know he is smiling.
“This,” I say, lifting a small, striped animal by the
scruff. “You took a perfectly good cat
and turned her into the pawing, insistent little creature she is today.”
And tonight, like every night, Willie shrugs genially,
gets up and heads toward the kitchen.
The cat squirms from my grasp. Shaking herself, she gives me a stern
look. “I heard that, you know,” she says.
And with that, she leaps from the bed. What follows is the sound of tiny paws
galloping across the hardwood floor, through the sitting room and into the
kitchen, where the fridge door opens, spilling a yellow glow into the hours
between sleep and awakening.
I roll to one side, check the clock next to me. Twelve-thirty.
It wasn’t always like this. At one time, the cat – a smallish, dainty-pawed
animal known to us as Liza Bean Bitey – was content to sleep in the crook of my
knee. How simple life was then! Just a couple of humans, a cat on one end,
another cat on the other. We slept,
then; and outside of a playful bite at my earrings, as my grandmother would say,
ever so often, we led a quiet night-time existence.
Then came the cream.
“Just a touch,” Willie’d say. “The kitties only live for such a short
time. They deserve treats.”
And so began the nightly insistences, and in no time at
all, Liza Bean had penned, usually somewhere between midnight and 1:00, the
words “Demand cream” onto her calendar.
“Calming cream,” Willie’d say, grinning.
“She’s trained you to get up in the middle of the night,”
I’d say. “And when you won’t wake up,
she bites my ears until I have to threaten her with gas-station sushi.”
“But they’re only here for a bit,” he says. “You gotta love the kitties while they’re
here.”
And so there he goes.
12:37 on a Monday night and, like every night, Willie gets up to pour a modicum
of cream on to a thrift store china saucer.
Because you gotta love the kitties while they're here.
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21 comments:
Yeah, you gotta love the kitties, but Willie?
THAT'S another story...
See? Evil. And as you pointed out, they gave a lot to achieve in such a short period of time...
Crikey, no wonder you never get any sleep. And no wonder "the good shrimp" is on the grocery list. A precedent was already set.
Just tell Willie to watch out or the kitties will weigh 19 pounds and need to go on a diet ... ever lived with a kitty on a diet? It's worse than being on one yourself. Or so I've heard.
It's a metaphor, really, and it works so well in many instances. "You gotta love Pearl/Dawn/Willie/everyone while they're here." Almost biblical in its scope.
Wise, wily Willie.
Amen.
He has a point.
Yes you do.
We have one who sits on the chair at the end of the table, gently pats my brother in law's hand from time to time to remind him that when the rest have excused themselves Tom will slip him the goods. "You made him that way," my sister says.
Hari Om
...but do you want to go through the drying out period with her...when cold turkey would replace the cream? His bed. Let him get up from it. YAM xx
Oh, yes. While they are here. But kill them with kindness.
Minette is too young to know about all this in the middle of the night cream stuff.
She is still sleeping in her baby bed ( crate) ..and I heard milk gives puppies/kittens the runs so I will have to forego the night time milk rituals.
I am not letting Jazz n Jewel see this. Their every whim is already catered for - but no-one has given them cream. Yet.
"She's trained you to get up in the middle of the night"
Sadly, I've done a similar thing. Angel has me getting up at 3:37am each morning, insisting on his breakfast, then he won't settle until I'm up and stomping around making coffee. At 3:50am!! He's happy enough to curl up on the couch and go to sleep then. Unless I then go back to bed. As far as he's concerned, that's not allowed.
Oh that wily Liza...she has Willie wrapped around her little paw.
I think the cat must be related to our wonder RV the Cat. We can set the alarm by his schedule. Loved this one...by the way it was my husband that ruined our cat!
Aw Wilie...so sweet. He's right, of course, but couldn't you start moving the presentation of the cream back in 15 minute increments until you get to a more civilized hour, say 9 PM? Doesn't Liza Bean Bitey know that the upper crust of European Felinity consume their cream at the stroke of 9?
Awwwwwww . . .
How I love these cats so unlike the cats I know
A treat turns into a habit, a habit turns into a demand, and so it goes, and so it goes.
We are fostering our son's cat for the summer. All I can say is, this purrer has never had it so good. He will not want to return home. But ahh, they only live for a little while. Willie is right.
Next thing you know they're going to want a bowl of strawberries to go with that cream!
It's so very true -- they don't live nearly long enough!
All the same, getting up in the middle of the night to give Liza Bean cream....I don't know. My kitties get their dollops of whipped cream at 7 in the evening and that's it! And I don't get up a minute before....ummm...5 a.m. to give them breakfast -- and only if they ask nicely!
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