Resizing the Cats

Posted on December 29, 2003 in Cats

They’ve grown large — it’s hard to hold them as we once did, in our cupped hands. Virginia Mew, once again, is the smallest cat in the house, though she’s not as timid as she was while Tracy and Ambrose were alive. She comes on the bed, shoves the youngsters aside, and takes her pettings.

Fiona does not yet realize that she is larger than she was when she came into the house. She tried to climb the leg of a neighbor who paid us a visit a couple of weeks ago.

Toys turn up in our bed nearly every morning. The favorite and most frequent of the inanimate visitors is the black striped yellow-orange carrot that we call “Tiger Tail”. Fiona and Boadicea also love soft foam balls and a life-sized mechanical rat that Lynn’s mother sent them for Christmas. They carry that into the bathroom and rake it with their back paws, pull at the tail, and try to bite the life out of its hard plastic neck.

Boadicea likes to rest her head on my shoulder while I play games on the laptop. Tonight, Fiona joined her, laying her head on Bowie’s midriff. I imagined a chain of furry croissants, linking all the way back to the first, ancestral Cat who is Bast.