It's a Cat Cat World

It's a Cat Cat World


     I am currently sandwiched between two of my favorite beings on this earth:

     Zelly F. McCloy, the lynx-lookalike, serious ratter,
extraordinarily chatty, endlessly beautiful, deeply intelligent,
supremely subtle, easily annoyed, occasionally wildly loving, one paw
slung across me, her purr just beneath my ear (I got you, babe) most
gorgeous sculpture of my life (Zelly if I could spend every second of
every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every month
of every year of my life with you?  I would).

     The other is Thelonious Monkey Kitty, a Maine Coon such as no world has
ever seen, a tawny, shaggy mountain lion of a slightly ailing cat whom you
will NEVER (and I do mean NEVER) out-stare -- though you will try,
because his eyes are an opaque and deeply mysterious green -- not
Zelly's clear jade pools but the look of a Buddha if the Buddha looked
at us; the look comes from another realm mixed precisely with this one
(the far-sighted and the near-sighted), his sudden attention always a
blessing, his equanimity unequaled.

     He roams the neighborhood with an enviable lope (Monkey, I tell
him all the time, if only I could catwalk like thee!) -- one furred
paw in front of another, he could teach Ru Paul a thing or two or
three or four.  Except his only swagger is the sway of his body; there
is no attitude.  I have seen him perch on a length of fence no longer
than a slim lathe, wherein all four paws are not quite fitted, then
watched him, in the most graceful matter of several moments of
eternity, settle into his balance...close his eyes...and eventually
fall asleep, his chin just touching the wood, the sun
dappling him, his equipoise unrivaled, a nap that might last hours.

     If he's home and you can't find him?  Just look up.
He is likely to be at the highest point, sometimes even at the top of
 the house's A-line roof.  I'm thinking he likes the long view.

     I have seen him strolling in the neighborhood ('oh hey Monk!  What's up?')
-- and if he sees me (hearing going), he might come up for a brief hello, or he
might just shoot me a glance ('s'up') and go on with his mysterious but
purposeful cat business -- and because (or maybe anyway!) he raised a
puppy (Roscoe, whose eyes rival Cleopatra's but who I'm sure would
have been a total tweaker as a person), he is almost dangerously
unafraid of dogs.  I've seen him do his boneless thing on a hot summer
day, looking like a piece of flung off fur on the sidewalk and barely
open his eyes as someone walking their dog restrains them away on a
leash so tight the dog is on his hind legs.  Monkey gives a lazy
blink.  Oh, hey.  And back down to his eleventh nap.

     He was without a doubt my hardest to get.  I think it was a year
before he accepted me as a possible member of the family pack.  Now he
comes to sleep nearby occasionally, a low growl from a sleepy Zelly
enough to constitute whatever fight she has for him (she's just a
jealous/gal)...

     I try to remember every day the pure blessing of animal
companionship, the few simple, but crucial lessons they have to teach
us:  curiosity in the face of sameness; total trust in instinct,
beginning with self-protection; an absolute acceptance of
reality moment by moment; an unthinking ease in their own bodies, and,
of course, that ribbon in the sky:  their capacity for unconditional
love.  (Hmmm...maybe that's just dogs though...God knows Zelly can
hold a grudge!)  But no.  Always always I am forgiven.  Of course
always always I am also  the Can Opener and the Doorman.

     What can I say?
     Glad to be of service.