Before giving her food, I use to ask Dolly to shake or beg or give paw, and she’d lift one paw up (always her right one) for me. Now she’s associated the paw-lifting action with being fed, so she skips the step of me saying anything and automatically does it.
She’ll do anything for food really.
Cats are always curious in the snow. As they sniff, the touch of their noses melt the snowflakes, and their tongues come out to lick away the moisture. They cautiously walk into it and inspect their paws, wondering how they suddenly became wet.
As for me, I’m comfortable at home with a warm drink and the glow of my monitors. The week has me burned out nowadays, and the weekends have become the only time for me to relax, the only time I can enjoy the sunlight during the shortened winter days. You can always recognize a winter sky by its paleness, causing particularly bright days and orange nights.
Christmas will be here soon. Vacation and trips home and family and the spirit of the season. Fall has come and gone. How does the time pass so quickly? Did I imagine I’d be here, at this stage in life, a year ago? Not at all.
I never realized how much I missed the winter, until the snow started falling.
Aaron and Karen adopted another cat, and named her Lacey. She’s a tiny thing, with downy white hair and ears like satellite dishes. So far she’s a bit shy, as Chaos follows her around often, but I think she’ll get used to it.
Until Lacey came along, I would have never suspected how much the cats look like their owners, but the resemblance, as difficult as it was to put my finger on at first, is striking. Chaos is the nearly overweight cat who sometimes has a goofy look on his face like he’s saying “WHATSGOINGONOVERHEREGUYS??”, and Lacey is much smaller with big ears and delicate features.
It’s Friday, and Hurricane Katrina, more than 2000 kilometres away, has thrown cold winds and scattered showers over parts of Southern Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick. As I step outside to grill something on the barbeque, the cats quickly run to the screen door. They temporarily forget that they’re enemies, that they normally can’t walk past each other without a swipe or a hiss, and sit side-by-side to carefully smell the damp wind coming through.
People name hurricanes after their former lovers. The headlines are always the same:
After cheating with co-worker, Hurricane Camille leaves 250 dead from Louisiana to Virginia
$400 million dollars in damage and 1145 fatalities as Hurricane Gordon weaves through the Caribbean and takes half my CD collection with him before disappearing in his Camaro.
The cats know that something has happened. They can tell that this weather is coming from somewhere else, and that many have been affected, the way some dogs know that their owners are dating the wrong people and won’t stop defending them with their lips drawn back in a snarl.
But all the cats can do is sit and sniff.
Dolly’s new nickname is Butterball. Kat’s christening. She sure hasn’t lost any weight lately. Dolly, that is, not Kat.