On cats

Lately, Mab the Allston house cat has taken to playing a one-person (one-cat?) game of hide-and-seek. (Lots of hyphens in that sentence!) Trouble is, she always picks an ingenious hiding spot, like under the Persian carpet in our room, and ends up not being able to find herself. She's been looking for days. And isn't that what life is all about?

Cats are really great, amusing things that are surprisingly alive, and they seemingly have wills of their own.

I was talking to Dad yesterday about important things, and he said, "Yeah your cat down here is becoming more and more like a little dog. I tried to get her to attack a little frog yesterday, but she wouldn't do it."

"Oh, yeah, sorry about that." I mean, I wouldn't want Elsie to start attacking little baby frogs, what the hell? At any rate, she should make that decision on her own.

"Your Mom gave me a report about your Boston cat." To my Dad, every conversation is a "report" to be taken into consideration when making plans for the future. "She told me that your cat is very Rocky-like." Not Rocky like Sylvester-Stallone-Rocky, but Rocky like the old bastard cat that lived with us for ten years. Mab will want to take care - Rocky was once the king of the hill in Norwood, but he got old and impotent (though he was spayed when he was two) and got the shit kicked out of him by crows. Elsie, who in human years could have been Rocky's great-granddaughter, terrorized him from high places, launching at him from behind chairs and landing squarely on his back. Never have I witnessed so much hissing and indignation.

Anyway, Rocky ended up wandering into the woods one summer day, never to return. To this day no one knows if he's alive or dead, but I for one sleep soundly knowing I'm free of his kamikaze attacks for good. I don't think Mab has reached his level of asshole-ness, but she is a little diva who sits with her paws crossed one over the other and steals all my stuff. But this is acceptable behavior for a cat, it seems.

Cats, man. Can't live with 'em, and I guess we could live without them. But who would want to? I just finished The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, which was soooo good. And Renee, the frumpy concierge, had a great tidbit about cats:

"The ridiculous, superfluous cats who wander through our lives with all the placidity and indifference of an imbecile are in fact the guardians of life's good and joyful moments, and of its happy web, even beneath the canopy of misfortune."

Spoken by a true cat lady, whose well-placed affections I will do my best to emulate.