The Red Retro Chair

Posted on March 25, 2007 in Cats

The red retro chair is a contested zone in this house. I have a sign on the wall over my computer that says “If you want the best seat in this house, move the cat.” The red retro chair, blocky and slick, is the best seat and Fiona is the cat you must move.

She’s there now, all twenty pounds of her. A neighbor of ours had her baby out the other day. I mentioned that I had seen her husband carrying the little one. He was panting. “How much does she weigh now?” I asked. “Sixteen pounds.” Still lighter than our cat.

I sometimes say when a cat is kneeling on all fours that it is contemplating the Mystery of the Seventh Claw. Don’t ask what that’s all about because it is a Mystery and that’s why you don’t know what it is all about. Fiona is not contemplating. She’s curled up, sacked out, squeezed out of wakefulness. If I were to want the red retro chair for reading A Maggot (we are short on furniture), she would whimper and be slow, very slow on moving her body to the floor. I might have to push her, tip her off the edge.

We have this ongoing battle, she and I. It happens at dinner time when I want to sit in the red retro chair and consume the evening repast. I move her, begin to eat. In the course of the meal, I rise to have seconds — a trip of maybe 30 seconds — and when I come back, she is back on the cushion, licking her bum and whining because she knows that I want the seat back.

Now she sleeps in the red retro chair and I won’t be disturbing her. Instead, I am reading my book at the computer:

For an amorous encounter with the Quaker Maid, Reader, thou had’st best count thy Gold first. This is no silver Queen, despite her modest Appellation, nor no modest One, neither, despite her first appearance. Thous must know nothing pleases your true Debauchee better than to be obliged to force and such is this cunning Nymph’s Device — to blush, to flee, to cry for Shame, until at last she’s brought to Bay.*

This is what I read in Fowles. If I read this aloud while Fiona slept in the red retro chair, of what might she dream?

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Presenting the Chevron

Posted on March 23, 2007 in Cats

I open the bedroom door and the second of the twisted sisters, Boadicea, is outside, pacing back and forth in the hall, mewing. There’s no explanation for it, so I call her over to the bed and give her a good rubdown. She follows me all over the condo. Whenever I stop she rolls on her back and presents the tabby colored chevron on her chest for scratching. The other cats are nowhere to be seen.

[tags]Cats[/tags]

Fat Cat?

Posted on March 22, 2007 in Cats

Fiona, my once diminuitive Fiona, has grown huge. Imagine the proportions of a [[Maine Coon Cat]] but on spindly legs and with short-hair encapsulating her body. Comparing her with [[Boadicea]] you would not think them sisters. The cat I chose heaves herself into my lap and presses herself against my stomach until I am about to retch from the weight.

I cannot say, for certain, if this is muscle or blubber. She gets around easily enough. When we serve catfood or spread catnip on the scratching box, she arrives in good time for her share. To what end does she grow and will I see her pass before her time? The answer is murmured softly and I cannot make out the consonants for the [[assonance]] of the vowels.

[tags]Cats[/tags]

Catnip

Posted on June 3, 2006 in Cats

I gave Boadicea some catnip which she hogged to herself

Catnip Palm Tree

Posted on May 4, 2006 in Cats

I slid it out of the package and discovered that I had a Catnip Palm Tree in my hand.

A Most Holy Object

Posted on May 2, 2006 in Cats

As sincere devotees of the great cat goddess Bast, Boadicea and Fiona find it essential to perform certain rituals.

Love Bites

Posted on November 19, 2005 in Cats

Why did you do that? I’m expressing affection for you.