Melanie Jackson's Blog - Posts Tagged "cat"

She is with me always, my little shadow. But instead of being the expected gray of many shadows she is the shade of vanilla ice cream, a blue-eyes ghost that leaves a trail of hairs on my keyboard as she passes through. My little poltergeist has learned to crawl behind my desk and turn off the powerstrip that supplies my monitor. I do not think she knows about electricity-- but being a cat, who can say?-- but she does know that if she walks around enough behind my desk that I will get up, and once on my feet I can be lured out to the garden to admire the finches in the birdbath and the giant moths helping themselves to the flowers on the butterfly bush. My little shadow becomes a lion in the grass, a hunter of the shrubs. Yet when I rise to go back inside, she appears at once, a little vanilla shadow pacing at my side.

Humans have some very strange customs. Miz Melanie has explained the reading resolution to me. It is a concept that no cat would embrace. If we want to do something, then we do it. And if we don't want to do something, then we don't. Miss Melanie says that on the first day of the new month-- and who decided which day should be a new month anyway? Personally I would pick a fine day when the catnip was up in the garden and that would be a new month-- that she will start reading through her enormous tea-be-are (to be read) pile. She says she will also go on a diet.

I don't understand this at all. No cat would ever go on a diet. I don't think a dog would either, though with dogs you can never be entirely sure what they will do. The urge to please humans is ridiculously strong in them.... Miz Melanie asked what my resolution would be and I since I didn't like to disappoint her, I said to nap whenever I felt like it. She gave me an odd look-- we spend a fair amount of time being baffled by one another-- and then said that she hoped I was able to keep my resolution. I thanked her and said that I was pretty sure that I would be able to do my part for the new month and wished her luck too.

And how about all of you? Do you have any resolutions? Any books you want to read?

Snowy

Shoes are not something a cat thinks about-- except how to avoid them, of course. But Miz Melanie is very excited about a new anthology of shoe stories that is coming out in May. It's called These Boots Were Made For Strutting and has a story by my human, Melanie Jackson. As per usual, Miz Melanie has included a cat in her story (And They Danced). He is a magical creature called Ambrose. The story also features a pair of shoes that Miz Melanie says are 'to-die-for'. I doubt she means it literally-- after all, what would be the point of that? Better to give them someone else's life, I said, even if it's for something great like steamed shrimp laced with catnip. If you are human and curious, you can see the shoes at: http://www.melaniejackson.com/hiheelia/ and see if they are something you'd die for.