Monday, July 12, 2004
Cat Nap
Dogs may be creatures of habit, but cats are habits in living form. They eat habitual food at habitual times in habitual ways; they habitually like certain things, habitually demonstrate certain responses. Even their fabled curiousity is a habit - “ooh look, haven’t seen that before - ah well, guess I’d better check the manual… hm, ‘thing, new:’ - oh yes, now I remember: time to puncture it with my razor-sharp teeth - and, failing that, I’ll just knock it over....”
Our cat Rufus (a girl cat, despite the name) is much beloved, by me in particular. I feed her and pet her, jab her twice-daily with insulin-laden syringes; I brush her out, sanitize her litterbox and trim her nails and occasionally I even bathe her. She’s always been a sweet little sugarlump, nobody’s enemy and a friend to anything upholstered and stationary. Keep that in mind, please, as I also mention that she’s a simple-minded, clumsy and not very clean animal. And that’s okay - we didn’t take her home from the SPCA so she could vacuum and mop for us or repair our motherboard or any of that. We just wanted a warm fuzzball to purr when petted. (I mean, other than myself.) And since that’s pretty much all that Rufus does, it’s been a harmonious relationship lo these 14 years.
Except for this one habit Rufus has: she likes to join me for my last little bit of sleep of an early morning. She does this pretty much exactly the same way just before every dawn, and I can honestly say it’s driving me up a frigging tree. I’m ready to put her in masking tape restraints with the way she cozies up to me in the wee hours.
As a general rule, Rufus’ communication skills are weak to nil, and I usually have no clue what, if anything, is going through her fervid little mind. (By comparison, I can read the dog like a book (The Pokey Little Puppy, perhaps, or one of the Clifford sagas)). But in the murk of predawn rousings, I acquire, for just a few moments at a time, feline fluency. I can hear the message in the cat’s every thick footfall and raspy whining yowl. Rufus is, in these matutinal moments, every bit as eloquent as I am desirous of sleep. These qualities being mutually exclusive, the interaction is as follows:
R: (stomps around in her litterbox for 10 minutes, ie: The world is endlessly vast and fascinating (repeated for 10 minutes at different speeds and intensities))
D: ARRUP! (ie: Hey, Roof, dude, could you lay off the clay? I’m catching some shuteye, okay?)
R: (pad pad pad pad pad: she’s trotting her portly way over to the bedside, which is to say: Actually, you raise an excellent point and I think we ought to discuss it now now now now now now (this last bit is a series of raspy little yelps)
D: ‘ukin cat! Sharrup! (ie: Can’t we pick this up in a few? I’m still got this being asleep thing I’m working on.)
R: Yap yap yap yap (pad pad pad) yap mrap yap (pad pad pad pad) (ie: Actually I’m not sure this’ll keep, it’s kind of time sensitive and seeing as how you’re supine and barely conscious, I’m thinking the time is now now now now now)
After barely five minutes of this incisive debate, I hear her padding out to the door. But no - even in my braindead state I know that she’s just breaching my Maginot line - an end-run through my Belgium, or in this case, onto the chair next to the night table next to the bed which is just too high atop which for her spindly legs to propel her rotund body all at once. So she tappypads over next to the chair and winds up, occasionally yapping with griding anticipation: Damn but this is a high chair, I’m not so sure about this; if it was anyone but you, Dan, or if you weren’t asleep, and it wasn’t 4:30 in the morning, I might not even try - this is going to be brutal… okay… okay.... here goes - okay - eeep - “
And with that she launches and I hear her heavy feet fall flatly on the padded seat of the chair. She’ll take a moment here to catch her breath, refocus her chi, and dig her claws into the fabric seatcover a few dozen times. “Whew, whoa, this is cool up here, quite a perspective, very exciting.... but somehow I sense - something is missing… something is incomplete....” She hops up onto the nightstand easily, perches at its edge next to the clock (knocking my glasses to the floor, but that’s no nevermind), and stares at my head. “Meep,” she says.
“Meep.” But I understand: “Dan, I’d like to join you there - I really would, don’t get me wrong - but I’m a little uncomfortable about the condition of the bed. I’m going to have to leap over a seven-inch chasm onto a soft padded surface, so it had better be tidy and accomodating. This means you are going to have to move away from the side of the bed. I just need a little more room there next to your head, and over by your shoulder, and maybe you could pull in your elbows a bit - I do need a safe landing zone if you want me to attempt such a patently risky maneuver… yes, your lazy ass too, please shift your lazy ass four inches to the left, so I can safely hop over there next to you...." I tell you, that meep is eloquent. O’Neill could not pack in more pathos; neither Pope nor Poe were so poetic. There is no argument worth making in response, so I hunch myself away from the edge of the bed.
“Mreep.” That is, “Sheets.” I need to smooth them out, establishing a clear, receptive zone at which for her to aim. I do so, knowing sleep will only return to me after Rufus is satisfied. With the care of a well-rolled bocce ball she hurtles herself over the yawning gap to my side, offers a “peep” - fine job, young man; I left you a nice tip in the litterbox - and she lies down beside me, rolls onto her side, presses against me. I drape an arm around her fuzzy little softly purring body. “Good girl,” I tell her, and she grunts a purr in agreement as we both fall asleep for our last few minutes of rest, the morning rapidly approaching, our bodies warming each other for as long as possible.
So, Rufus, you’re annoying the hell out of me - but you’re just too damn cute for me to do anything about it. Goddamn evolutionary traits. Next time I’m gonna wake up Darwin and complain about it. Think he was a cat person?
