CATS OVER COFFEE/ANTICS AND ATTITUDES

 "Sweetheart, we sure have had some unique cats."

SECOND CUP OF COFFEE

This is another way of saying that we live or have lived with some really exceptional cats! If you have had no training or experience in psychology, especially erratic and unpredictable behavior, this is a great way to get it.

All cats exhibit their own unique brand of independence and habits. You get your first clue to this when they are kittens and will shoot high in the air for apparently no reason, run through the house at break neck speed after nothing or everything, and act as hyper-active as the worst kid you have ever known.

Somehow, very early on, cats take on their own peculiar traits, or what might be described in more psychological language as almost compulsive disorders or even fetishes.

A couple of examples came to our mind right away. Bella, from the age of a kitten, has always been a "slammer." In the middle of the night you will hear a thud up next to the bed. This is Bella slamming herself against the bedroom wall as she gets comfortable. Or, when you go to pet her in the morning, she will go limp and do a full body slam upside down on the living room floor. Bella is perfectly fine. It is just "her thing" so to speak.

Sonny, named after my wife's favorite character from The Godfather is a boxer and ardent pugilist. He will attack any shoelace that is loose on your foot and considers it the ringing of a bell that the fight is on. He will tug and pull it out as far as possible and seems to be intent on a take down. No matter that you are moving around. After all, he seems to say, this is how they do it in the ring. The really good ones move around! You know, "dance like a butterfly!"

Holly, who is frankly overweight(in spite of feeding her weight control formula) is a trekker who likes to make innumerable treks up onto our bed at night, sleep for awhile and get petted, and then get up, head our somewhere into the open house, and make intermittent trips back into the bed and out again. This is her nightly ritual.

And then there is Smokey. She is the hard love queen. By that I mean she will come in bed at night, prance around between my wife and I, and then beeline to my wife and give a little kiss, and if she can get away with it, a kiss and a little bite. Not that she draws blood. Like toying with a mouse, she has the love game down. Smokey seems to be saying, "Just lay back on your pillow like you and doing and enjoy it!"

Like with us the ways and means of behavior are established early on. Habit becomes a kind of fetish. You can even bring in the most highly trained behavioral psychologists to help "cure" whatever it is, and after having them declared "normal" go back to the same rituals the next day.

But in spite of all the peculiar behavior and surprise happenings it all comes down to daily fun and love all around.

As Leonard Cohen so poetically declared, "THERE AIN'T NO CURE FOR LOVE!"