A CAT SANDWICH

The dog is snuggled up against my side onto of the bed.






She settles down with just the lower half of her body against me.






Then the cat slips in underneath the covers between the two of us.







And happily goes to sleep for as long as she can.

SLEEPING POSITIONS

I may be developing an unhealthy relationship with my animals.


I do have a lap horse - if it were at all possible, he would curl up and sit in my lap... all 1,200 lb. of him.


That's not my fault, that's just the way he is.


And I know cats are attracted to heat, regardless of it's source.


I just don't think of myself as a hot enough person to ALWAYS have the cat asleep right next to me.



But my dog.... that's where it's getting more than a little weird.  She's a cuddler. 




And I'm not.  At least not while sleeping.


But I am becoming very accustomed to having a warm furry body scrunched up right against my back.


With a cat, under the covers, on the other side, asleep behind my knees.

I feel just like the peanut butter in the sandwich.

CAT EYES

Tonight my cat is freaking me out more than a little bit.

She is staring, wide-eyed, over my shoulder at the empty air.

She jumps at the random creaking of the house as the air cools outside.

She starts and begins slinking into the next room as if in hot pursuit of something... or someone.

She comes back, jumps in my lap, and keeps watching over my shoulders.

What is she seeing that I am not?!

THUNDER AND LIGHTNING, VERY VERY FRIGHTENING

I discovered something about my cat at 3:15 a.m. this morning.



She is scared of thunder.




And how does she deal with being scared of thunder?




By burying herself into my side, hiding under my blanket, and spending the night RIGHT by me.

FELINE VS CANINE

We have a new cat, fresh from the animal shelter. Sweet, friendly and NOT afraid of dogs.

But we also have a dog who persists in chasing anything smaller than herself.... which includes this cute new kitty-cat.

This may become an interesting story.

OPENING PANDORA'S BOX

A blog that I follow had a very cute one about her cat, and it made me think about the smallish cougar that lives at my house.

He will acknowledge that he is part of the felina family, but only the section which includes cougar, cheetah, lynx and ocelots.

And since he is the only cat is this section of town (outdoor cats around here are know as 'coyote food'), I have little to compare him to.

So I have become accustomed to a 24 lb. cat who stares down any dog that walks through the door, causes floorboards to squeak when he strolls across the room, and can eat more than both dogs... and often does.

So people have cute little kitty cats - I have the Thor of felines.

Should I think about his own reality show?

CRASH

I'm not completely certain why some people don't like cats.

I do understand that cats only pay attention to you when they want something - but how different is that from humans?

Dogs will consistently do whatever you ask of them, even if it's something stupid like retrieving a stick from a river or gobbling up whatever piece of food you toss their direction.

No, wait a minute, that sounds like just a male kind of thing, right?

Cat purr only when they honestly feel like purring - they sit in your lap only when they want to - and they will claw your ears out if you push their boundaries at all.

But right now I have a cat right next to me, laying flat on his back with his four paws all splayed out in different directions, and purring.

What more could you ask out of life?

FELIS CATUS VS SCOLOPENDRA

I have a unique cat.

Let me rephrase that - a unique cat has me.

Pandora caught my attention this evening by doing two things:

- He stretched out completely on his back - both front and back legs thrown out - and went to SLEEP like that.

- And he tackled an 18 inch centipede - and BEAT it.

Somebody come over and rock me to sleep tonight, okay? I am terrified that this guy has an older brother who is going to show up SEEKING REVENGE.

DESREVER DNEGEL

In the Greek version, Pandora opens a box that releases all the evil in the world, leaving only Hope behind.

My cat, Pandora, is hell-bent on reversing this myth.

Pandora was in a box of tiny kittens outside WalMart that a family were trying to find homes for. And they were all so precious and beautiful, it was impossible to resist.

However, I forgot one extremely important fact - anything you buy at WalMart is impossible to return.

Their 'customer service', if you apply the term loosely, seems to always have a drawn out line of people waiting in despair for the one clerk to refuse their return for an extended list of reasons:

- "It was purchased on a Tuesday; we can't take it"

- "You have to return this directly to the manufacturer in Egypt via registered certified mail that costs $12 per oz."

- "Your last name begins with a 'D', and today we can't accept returns from people whose last name begins with a 'D' "

(Sorry, got a little bit off track there - I've work at customer service at Target, and Target will take back ANYthing if you can show that you paid for it - you don't even have to have a receipt if you put it on a card of any sort - and I just don't like WalMart)

But I allowed my husband to talk me into taking one of kittens home. As we drove, he held this tiny black and white fur-ball literally in the palm of his hand.

My son came up with the name of Pandora, which sounded cute and appropriate at the time for this tiny girl.

Unfortunately, Pandora turned out to be a huge, dangerous BOY cat, the fact which we were blissfully ignorant of until I took her/him to the vet's to be neutered/fixed /spayed/whatever-the -politically-correct-name-is- today.

So I took in a girl kitty, and brought back a 'stale male' - didn't know they could do sex-change operations on cats, did you?

And I didn't realize how large he was until I took him into the vet's last year for something trivial and saw him next to other 'normal' sized cats - Pandora looks liked a medium sized cougar or a very small lion compared to them.

But Pandora has suddenly come up against resistance for the first time in his nine-plus years.

I am not letting him into my bedroom.

Since spending almost a year in San Diego sans cat, I finally realized that I am allergic to cats. So after washing all of my bedding, and keeping the bedroom day firmly shut, I breath much better at night now.

But it also means Pandora is unable to come into my room.

Battle-lines are being drawn.

He has taken to wandering around the area by my bedroom door, casually washing himself or streching out for a nap, looking for a moment when he can slip in unnoticed.

As I mentioned, he is a big cat, so he also tries laying against the door, batting at the doorknob, and when truly desperate, throws himself against it.

And when he does get in, does he go and hide under the bed? Steal into a corner so he won't be noticed?

No. This is Pandora we are taking about.

He curls up in royal splendor right in the middle of my bed so that when I finally find him, I will be able to bow down and worship him appropriately.

So the myth will be told differently from now on - all the evil will be back in the box/room with him, and Hope will be the one on the outside.

P.S. Read that title for this again - that's 'legend reversed'... reversed.