A Very Cozy Moment

After having stayed up last night until well after 4am, it's no exaggeration to say that today finds me t i r e d. So, after claiming the car from Kirk when my morning class was done, I swung by China Garden for some takout Chinese and then headed home for a quiet girlie afternoon with no stress.

One of my secret indulgences is that I occasionally read chick-lit. The first book was way back in 2000 with Good in Bed by Jennifer Weiner, which I promise is not anywhere near as scandalous as it sounds. The second was The Devil Wears Prada, way before it ever became a movie. And the third was In Her Shoes, Jennifer Weiner's second book that also, for fun, loosely incorporates the main character from her first book as a periphery character at a certain point.

Of what did my afternoon consist, then? None other than the chick-lit film adaptation of In Her Shoes, which I further confess that I own. I think Toni Collette, Cameron Diaz, Sean Feuerstein, and Shirley MacLaine make a great ensemble cast for this fun, quirky movie about two sisters who have absolutely nothing in common.

After lunch, then, I headed into the bedroom with my laptop, curled up in the bed with the shades drawn just in case I eventually decided to take a nap, and settled in for this afternoon flick. Pretty soon (read: less than 2 minutes later), Diva wandered in. She stood at the side of the bed, looking up at me with her plaintive eyes like she always does, which is her way of waiting for an invitation to hop up on the bed and join me. One pat to the velour blanket on top of the bed is all the invitation she needs, and she jumped up in a flash. Then, as I was laying with my head propped up on a pillow to watch the screen, she finagled her way into the little crevice between me and the laptop, then moved to block the screen entirely with her body, so that I could do nothing but attend to giving her a snuggle rub on her head and cheeks for a good, long time. (I had to pause the film, of course.)

When I was finally able to scooch Diva away from the screen, she sat herself down on her haunches in the little crevice and just stared at me with her wide blue eyes. She does this often -- sits and stares at me, I mean. I would call it creepy if she weren't so darn cute. I'm especially helpless to her gaze when the blacks of her eyes are contracted so large in a darkened room that they barely evidence the light ring of blue surrounding them. Add to that the soft, downy white of her chest, and I'm a goner.

So here we were, two girls with our girlie flick between us and tons of pats and snuggles. Sometimes I get so caught up in her cuteness and how much I love loving on her that I can't help swooping her close to my chest in a tight squeeze of love with a big kiss smacked on the top of her head. Unfortunately, she hates this. Besides being beautiful, Diva is also skittish. She has been this way, Kirk says, since the day she was rescued from an alleyway behind an opera house when she was just weeks old. Who knows what she saw of the big, mean world before she was rescued and brought, matted and mewling and fearful, into the pet rescue center? (The rescue from behind the opera house is how she got her name, by the way, and not an indication of any snootish personality.) To this day, Diva shrinks from being held too close or feeling too closed in, which is unfortunate for those of us who want to suffocate her with squeezes of love!

I confess that I've succumbed to my need for a Diva-squeeze fix twice today (so far!), but she has thankfully stayed close and allowed me to coax her back to my side for more docile strokes of love. This, I know, is because she trusts me.

I sure do love that girl and our cozy girlie time right now. No boys allowed -- and that means you, Solomon! :)

I'm Stuck at This Here Table

Along about 4:45 this morning, I woke to the unmistakable sound of my cat about to cough up a hairball. This happens every couple weeks and is really disgusting. Paper towels are entirely useless in this operation, no matter how Brawny may boast. My hands inevitably get wet with the acidic goop. Blech. Double blech!

I was particularly attuned to this sound because just yesterday it occurred to us that our kitties, who have taken up an official residence on the new couch and booted us effectively out, might eventually throw up on it. It has happened numerous times on our bedspreads, and when it's coming, it's coming, and there's nothing you can do about it unless you have the foresight (or forehearing, I guess, in this case?) to scooch them gently off the bed before the matter launches out of their mouth. (Unless you've witnessed such a spectacle before, you might not know that you get advance notice in the form of the sound of choking.)

So when I heard that distinctive choking sound, I went wide-awake and tried to determine where the sound was coming from. Thankfully, it wasn't coming from the open door to the right, which leads into the reading nook with the couch. It was coming from the left, and it sounded like it was coming from somewhere within the bedroom. As neither cat was on the bed, I began to breathe a little easier. They would not be staining our bedspread again anytime soon, either.

Sufficiently appeased that our new couch and bed were safe for the moment, I waited for the hiccups and throw-ups to pass . . . 1 . . . 2 . . . 3. (Our cats always throw up at least three times in a row.) Then I lay there trying to decide if I had the energy to get up right then and clean it up or wait until morning. It didn't take long for me to realize that Kirk would be the fall guy if I didn't get up and do it now, since it had happened on his side of the bed while he was fast asleep. I really didn't want him to find out the hard way what had occurred while he slept if I he happened to get up before me in the morning.

So I got out of bed and snaked around to the other side of it, quietly calling each cat's name to determine the location of the crime. (Hey, I didn't want to step on it in the dark with bare feet, either.) "Diva . . . ? Sollie . . . ?" Neither one came.

I decided not to chance it further in the dark and chose instead to approach it from the other direction. (Our bedroom has two access points -- one from the hallway on my side of the bed, and one stepping down from the kitchen on Kirk's side of the bed.) I went back out the door to the hallway and into the farmroom and turned on the light. No cat and no throw up there. So far so good. I continued around and into the kitchen and turned on the light. No cat and no throw up there, either. Good.

Now it was confirmed the crime had indeed taken place in the bedroom, on Kirk's side of the bed. With the light from the kitchen casting some sheen on the wooden floors in the bedroom, I stepped into the bedroom and bent down to try to locate the messes on the floor against the sheen.

I couldn't see any.

Hmm. Weird. Now it was time to investigate the underside of the bed, as we have a big space under there that the cats sometimes like to inhabit.

It took a while for my eyes to adjust to the dark under the bed, but I thought I finally located three blobs on the ground, the largest of which was actually over by my side of the bed, near my nightstand. I stepped back into the kitchen to grab a handful of paper towels and then headed to my side of the bed to take care of the main event.

At this point, Solomon intercepted my path. I waited as he lumbered under the bed. "Maybe you're the culprit," I whispered, since I still didn't know who had done it.

With the coast finally clear, I swooped down upon the lumpy mass on the floor. I picked it up and looked at it. It moved. I suddenly realized I had picked up a cockroach. I flung the towel, along with the cockroach, back down to the ground with a high-pitched whisper-squeal: "Ew! Ew! Ew!"

I was hoping but also not hoping this would wake Kirk up. So far, nothing.

I stood and stared at the paper towel on the ground. I could only presume the cockroach had fled under the bed, right below where I usually sleep.

"Eeeew!" I high-pitch whispered again, shivering and wriggling up and down with the willies.

At this point, Kirk did stir in the bed and mumble, "You okay?" I told him what had happened, but it didn't register in his sleepiness and I got no more response. Darn!

Now it was dawning on me: I had caught a cockroach and brought it close to my face. Ewwww!!! Not only was that creepy and crawly and disgusting, but it also meant that now I couldn't clean up the rest of the mess under the bed, nor could I reasonably go back to bed. Go back to bed with the chance that the disgusting creature would climb up the wall and into bed with me? No way, man!

So now I'm out in the farmroom. It has slowly occurred to me that I'm stuck out here, since I sure as heck am not going back in the bedroom until Kirk wakes up and can help me bring closure to this fiasco. So, for the time being, I'm checking blogs and e-mail and figure I can start in on my homework next. Pretty soon I'll start the tea brewing and pull out my Bible, too. Maybe I'll read a little in my Mother Teresa book. Because as of right now, I've got a few hours to kill.

I am such a girl.

Solomon and the Lizard

This one's a shout-out to Erin, who promised to comment on my next more trivial post. Well, girl, here it is.

A tiny lizard scooted in the front door of our house this afternoon and had no idea he was marching to his almost-death. He was simply never going to be a match for our hefty boy, Solomon. See?

Sure, that lizard may have been quick as a fish, tucking inside the door faster than Kirk could say "Whoa!" but he vastly underestimated Solomon on two counts:

1. Solomon has nowhere else to be but in this house.

2. Solomon is easily entertained.

Well, maybe not so easily entetained. Mostly, he's just bored, sleepy, and hungry. But lizards? "Where's the fork and napkin?" he cries. "Let's get on the move!"

The lizard snaked into the house, around the table, and under the entertainment center in a flash . . . and then Solomon staked the perimeter.

"Beware," Kirk warned as I walked in a short time later. "We have a little friend in the house -- but don't worry! I think Solomon's got it covered."

And you know what? He did. In fact, we were pretty impressed with our boy. He did not desist from that post next to the entertainment center for one solid one hour. Granted, he lays in fixed spaces for longer periods than that most days, but hey, he doesn't usually stake it out on the concrete floor. Beds are more his style. They remind him of, well, you know: sleep.

And we had drastically underrated Solomon's tenacity. Because you know what he did next? He hulked his massive, gotta-be-at-least-twenty-five-pound mass under the entertainment center -- a space just five inches high but two feet deep -- which means he had to spread himself real thin, which must have been a true first for him, in order to go after that jumpy-legged lizard!

Next thing we knew, he had contorted himself alongside that skinny space and then flushed himself back out of it, covered from head to toe in . . . purple lint balls. Gross! I wiped them off and smoothed him down, but you know what? He went right back to it. He dove back under the entertainment center and yo-yo'd himself around for a good five minutes, popping out every once in a while for breath. I am telling you, the boy is tenacious. He sure can be relentless in his pursuit of the heftier dinner meats. Who knew?

Of course, he got the prize. When we found the two of them together a short time later, Solomon was sitting as pretty as can be under the coffee table, his arms folded underneath him and a superior air of satisfaction emanating forth. The mostly-dead lizard was pleading its life beside him. So what did we do? We did what only a humane couple would do: we grabbed some paper towels, scooped the lizard up, and deposited him outside in the world where he belongs. Only right now he's making his way in that outside world without a tail . . . a tail we trust Solomon will likely expel for us sometime in the night on the carpet. Good grief.

All of Creation Groans

Tonight I was sitting alone in my house at our kitchen table -- the kitchen table we've pulled out of the kitchen and placed smack-dab in the middle of the big main room. (We live in a very small space.)

I was sitting there by myself, and Kirk wouldn't be home for an hour. I was worn out, tired, pooped, and yet stirred up inside my spirit. I've had a somewhat discouraging 48 hours of life.

Where else could I go but the source of life? I cracked open the Bible and continued my reading of Matthew. In the way that it has of doing, it moved my spirit beyond exhaustion and confusion unto the point of praise, so I started singing. That's just what I do. I can't help it sometimes.

As I've written in a previous post, my cats get, um, a little stirred up in their affection for one another when I sing by myself in the house, and this time was no exception. Thankfully it didn't get too out of hand this time; though I think they moved toward the inevitable scratch-and-claw two times total by the end, the exertions were brief and at least stirred them out of their all-day lethargy of sleeping themselves into comas on the bed. Maybe Solomon even lost a few calories out of it. (And goodness knows he could stand to lose a few thousand of them!)

Eventually, though, after I had read some more and the cats had settled back on the bed, I decided I didn't want to sing old psalm melodies anymore so I popped in a CD. I started singing along with Jennifer Knapp and Mac Powell the words to a song that goes, "All creatures of our God and King / Lift up your voice and with us sing . . ." It's a great song; very earthy and sultry and raw.

So there I was, singing it out with the J-Knapp and Mac, my eyes closed and arms eventually raised to the ceiling, even, until at one point I wondered how the cats were doing with this one. I opened my eyes and looked over toward the bed. Diva, who had hitherto been laying on the bed in her lethargic state again, was perched with an astounding alertness on the corner of the carpet by the bed and facing me, her paws placed just so in perfect cat-watching stance. She was staring straight at me with her blue, blue eyes, like she was sincerely listening to me sing. Like she actually understood the words behind the song: "All creatures of our God and King / Lift up your voice and with us sing . . ."

Spooky.

But also thrilling.

Could it be that when I sing praises to Jesus, my cats actually respond to Him too? This may be something of a stretch, but I think it's also highly possible, for "all of creation groans to sing His praises; they eagerly await the day of His return" (my paraphrase of Romans 8). Who knows? This may be what their always-predictable friskiness when I sing is ultimately all about.

What Cats Do (Part 3)

(Continued from Part 1 and Part 2.)

They get frisky when you sing.

Especially if you have a mid-range alto voice like mine and like to sing a capella in the mornings.

Here's what happens.

When I get up early enough in the morning to read the Bible (this doesn't occur often), I like to read the psalms. And as I'm reading, I inevitably come across -- or am reminded of -- a number of psalms that were made into old-school songs.

So I start to sing, at will and at random, sitting on my couch in my cotton striped pajamas, the Word of God propped open on my lap.

Next thing I know, Diva has hopped out of her blanket box over by the front door and is warily making her way across the room toward me. Then she's mewing at my feet. Next she's rubbing against my legs. Now she's staring up at me with those beautiful and plaintive sky-blue eyes.

I keep singing, only now my hand is stroking her back as I do it.

Within a few moments, Solomon, too, has lumbered off the foot of the bed and ambles over to where we sit. (He moves very slowly, because he is so large.)

He begins licking Diva around her ears. She, amazingly, lets him. He licks her chin. She licks his ears and nose. They're getting pretty cute and frisky with one another.

However, neither of them have the freedom to do anything about their urges, Mother Nature (a.k.a. The Doctor) having taken away their right when they were kittens, so all this exploration is for naught. They, however, never seem to remember this.

At some point, Solomon gets so excited that he throws his big right paw around Diva's neck in order to kiss her closer. However, Diva decides she has had enough. She swats him on the top of his flat black head.

Then begins the stand-off.

They stare at each other, her blue eyes locking with his copper ones in defiance. She's daring him to do anything about it, and he's not sure if he's gonna. After a few seconds' pause, she hauls off and swats him again, the pink pads of her dainty and snow-white paws smacking hard against his head with precision. He reels back and stares at her, incredulous.

"This 7-pound ringer's testing me?" I can hear him thinking, but slowly. "I weigh 3 times her size and could crush her -- or, even better, force her into submission!" This realization is all it takes for him to make an offensive move.

He lunges. She scrams. He warbles. She shrieks.

And my morning of meditative worship has come to an end.

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What Cats Do (Part 2)

Cats get finicky.

For instance, our cat Diva has recently retracted her agreement to take all the affection I offer in deference to her own self-sufficiency. I suppose this is a good thing -- a sign of her blossoming self-image over the past eight months in my house -- so why do I feel like an unwanted mother in the house of a newly independent teenager?

When we first met, Diva carried herself with a fragile uncertainty that required an obsequious amount of affirmation. For months after moving in with me, she'd follow me around the house, looking up at me with her plaintive blue eyes and emitting pathetically feminine "mews" every few moments, just to make sure I knew how sad and needy she was. And I'd comply exactly as she hoped: with a quick scratch behind the ears, a thorough rub on the back, or a swift lift into my arms for a celebratory parade around my 450-square-foot home. This hit parade included, invariably, a pit stop in the bathroom so we could stare at what she took to be the puzzling image of ourselves in the mirror.

Diva also demonstrated her need through the Art of the Paw-Paw. Have you heard of it? Given any textured substance -- and quilts and blankets are her favorite -- Diva fixates for long stretches of time on paw-pawing, or kneading, that substance to a pulp. You can even create a Time of the Paw-Paw by flicking the edge of a blanket on the couch within her direct line of sight. One glance at that flickering blanket and she'll get that old Paw-Paw Glint in her eyes. Then she'll make ready to pounce. Having mastered the jump, nothing else matters but that she fixate on a focal point directly in front of her and begin to push the tiny pink pads of her small front paws into the blanket as though kneading a bowl of dough. Over and over. As though digesting her internal woes on the journal of that blanket, one paw-paw at a time.

Sigh.

It used to be that Diva enjoyed the Art of the Paw-Paw with me. She had her own form of the 5 a.m. wake-up call that included a morning round of paw-pawing my stomach. Just after Solomon had nearly knocked the wind out of me by jumping off of it.

Ah, yes. With Solomon chirping for his fresh lamb-and-rice by the bedside and Diva kneading my stomach to death, they made for quite the early morning team. I sure miss those good old days.

What Cats Do (Part 1)

First, cats who weigh over 20 pounds eat a lot . . . and often.

Take our illustrious King Solomon, for instance. He knows when it's feeding time. Right on schedule, every morning at 5, he lumbers from his sleeping perch atop the loveseat and makes his way up my bed with stealth. It's dark and he's heavy, so he stumbles over my legs and knees until he finds his footing on my stomach (oof!). Bound and ever determined, he creeps and crawls his way forward . . . until he reaches the nesting place on which he rests his bouldering frame: my chest.

Quite satisfied with this gymnastic feat across my sea of blankets, he settles his soft front paws at my chin and then shoves his whiskered face into my mouth and nose. Then he begins to breathe. Very loudly. Like a motor that can't stop running. Like an engine that needs some work. You know, the kind that gurgles and heaves while it idles nervously through the interminable moments at the stop light.

At this point, we play a little game. I give him what I wish he came for -- some undivided affection from me -- and he tolerates this for about 3 minutes. He pushes his furry cheek into the palm of my hand, for instance, when I move from massaging his flat head to rubbing the side of his cheek, and then he stretches his stubby neck heavenward when I scratch the underside of his chin.

But eventually comes the moment of reckoning -- the moment when he leaps from my chest, pushing all 20 pounds of himself into my fragile and flattened sternum, and ambles over to the food dish. Only to discover it is empty. Only to return to my bedside and sit on his haunches and let out an impatient huff.

And then he begins to chirp. That's right, chirp. The regal, self-contained, and very masculine King Solomon chirps for his bowl of porridge in the morning. And won't stop until I give it to him.