Saturday, January 2, 2010

Free Toys are Best

It's a very cold day today. The high has been 14 with a wind out of the northwest. That makes a windchill in the negative numbers. Clear, brilliantly blue skies however. If you could stay out of the wind, it would probably be comfortable, even with the air temperature.

I'm ever so grateful that I have cats who are scared of the outside. Betsy, Rascal, Half-Pint and Shakespeare would have wanted to go outside in this. They would have stayed by the back door and meowed to go out. "It's sunshine, mom," they seemed to say. "I must be out." You can tell a cat that it's too cold to be outside, and there is the very real danger in extreme cold, of a cat's foot pads freezing. But, the cat will look at you and you know he or she is just laughing, if cats could laugh. Some times, we would let them out knowing that they would go as far as the deck, realize it was cold, and come back in.

It's still quite chilly in other parts of the house, however. I have the small space heater keeping the office reasonably toasty. I should go make muffins which would warm the kitchen. Pilchard is asleep on the rug in here with me. Occasionally, we hear the scuffling of someone having fun. We both look up and Mija is chasing something through the hallway. She's having a grand old time. I think I can safely say they have settled in fully now.

I get up to go see what she's so enamored of and it turns out to be a rubber band that fell onto the floor. She's chasing it up the hallway and back, occasionally getting it stuck behind the food or water dishes. She comes to the office door and sits looking at me when she chases it behind the ottoman or the settee or into the front closet and can reach it. She doesn't meow, she just sits, looking at me.

You know the feeling. Someone is watching you. I turn and it's a cat. How do I know she needs assistance in retrieving her toy? I don't really but she's looking at me and so I get up and she runs over to where the rubber band is and I realize that's what she wants. Once unstuck and dropped on the floor, she happily chases it around again. She did that for about 45 minutes and is now asleep amongst the sheets on my bed.

Yup, when I die, I'm coming back as the cat of a middle-aged lady.

Beverage: China Black tea

Deb

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