Mostly critters

 

Katinseattle

The tail dropped, the ears flattened . . . and she rushed past Yog-Sothoth and hurled herself into my lap/arms.

My hellterror. Mine.

I’m not tearing up. I’m NOT.

Oh good.  No of course you aren’t.  . . . I was counting on there being at least a few saps in my audience.*

Catlady

Feynman, my youngest cat, is . . . aloof and troublesome and prone to destroy things. . . .  

. . . Richard Feynman, I assume?  Well, you’d expect him to destroy things, wouldn’t you?

Except. He loves it when I sing. Or play the piano. Or sing and play the piano . . . he’ll come, force his way into my lap, and PURR, and snuggle, and do all the cute things that cats do that, in most cases, prevent us from turning them into earmuffs.

I’ve tended to use the threat ‘hearthrug’ to the dog population.  Hazel, the smallest whippet of the previous generation, was going to be a muff.  Pav, with that dense plushy fur, would make a very good muff.**

 The other day, I was standing up and singing, and he couldn’t figure out what to do.

You don’t stand up to sing?  Golly.  I’d still be making tiny squeaking noises*** if I sang sitting at the piano.

He tried twining around my ankles, but that wasn’t good enough. He stood on the coffee table and watched. . . . After a few minutes . . . he launched himself into my arms (cats almost never do that, by the way).

Snork.  What a guest post this would have made . . . ::wistfully:: . . . a video guest post.  What do you sing?  Does he have a preference for Aida or Les Miz?

Anyone else have into-arms-leaping or musical critters?  Chaos tends to stare at me when I sing—the hellhound bed at the mews is right next to the piano and he will get up, gravely take the few steps, sit down, and look at me earnestly—I think it’s a ‘are you feeling quite all right?’ look.  He comes racing back to check on me if I sing out hurtling too.†  Darkness is eh, whatever, and Pav is YOU DON’T PLAY THE PIANO WITH BOTH HANDS WHEN YOU’RE SINGING YOU CAN PLAY TUG OF WAR WITH THAT OTHER HAND, AND IF YOU DON’T I AM GOING TO BASH YOU REPEATEDLY WITH THIS TOY UNTIL YOU FALL IN WITH, OR POSSIBLY ON, MY EXCELLENT PLAN.

I’ve known several cats that did go in for leaping into people’s arms, but they were all Orientals—Siamese and Burmese—which I think cat people consider a Race Apart.††

. . . Oh, bleggh.  I have to go to bed.  I have to get up early and address some . . . ANGUISH.  ANGUISH . . . housework.   I have visitors coming on Thursday and this ‘oh my husband’s had a stroke and my ME is in a bad mood’ will still only take me so far.  D’you suppose I could call the festoons of cobwebs swags?

PS:  THE DISHWASHER REPAIRMAN COMES TOMORROW.  YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY.

* * *

* Just as I was delighted as well as relieved that a number of you got a thrill out of Kes’ last line on Saturday.  This is a digression for another evening, but this is an example of why KES is fun for me too—I wouldn’t ever have dared write a proper book about a fantasy-writing protagonist, let alone a LOTR-obsessed fantasy-writing protagonist, let alone a LOTR-obsessed fantasy-writing protagonist who quotes one of the peak moments in LOTR during a culminant moment of her own.

** Speaking of which, I don’t seem to break out in a rash on contact any more.  Major yaay.  It’s not that hard to keep her off the insides of my arms, which are most at risk, in winter, when I can pull my sleeves down, but it’s a big lousy nuisance in warm weather.  I suppose it may have been puppy fur or some seasonal allergen that we missed this year because of the RAAAAAAAAAIN but I think it’s likelier that, as we roll into our second year together^ I’ve just got used to her.  I have a long history of adjusting—usually respiratorily—to critters I live with, but also, age is good.  The wrinkles and the rheumatism are a big stupid bother^^ but your body is also a whole lot more likely to say, Get all hysterical and overwrought about something?  Nah.  Can’t be arsed.  Whatever.  Get on with it.

^ !!!!!!!!

^^ If I didn’t have rheumatism I could still eat tomatoes and ice cream.+  Erm.  Not together.

+ So, would I rather have weird, mostly of unknown origin rashes most of the time and be able to eat tomatoes and ice cream or wrinkly baggy but rash-free skin?  And yes, I suspect an underlying intolerance of dairy and the nightshade family has been a problem for a very long time.

*** I made a startling discovery Sunday night at the show—I mean the Christian unity service.  There were, as previously observed, lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of people there.  And the hymns, to my horror, weren’t the fine old classics, but more of the ghastly power ballads to God things that we sing at the evening service at St Margaret’s.  Shudder.  Well, I like singing, and if that’s what’s on offer that’s what I’ll sing.  Feh.  But in order to make a noise I may shift down to chest voice and bellow.  My startling discovery is that my head voice is now just as loud as my chest bellow—possibly louder, or at least there’s a cutting edge to the soprano range that makes it more readily noticeable in a mushy crowd roar.

† When I sing in the car I have to be prepared for the cold wet nose in the back of the neck.  Since hellhounds are pretty well trained to lie down in the car in motion this usually only happens at stoplights when sudden convulsive jerks on the part of the driver won’t send us into the opposite lane of traffic.^

^ Also I’m betting that nine out of ten, indeed ninety nine out of a hundred, people seeing my mouth moving in the car assume that I’m talking on a hands-free phone.  I know we’ve had this conversation about random singing in public and some of you insist that I’m not the only one.  Well, I seem to be the only one around here.

†† Although I know people who consider sighthounds a Race Apart.  And other people that bullies are a Race Apart.^

PamAdams

I’m sure that the hellhounds would have examined the deadly grey balloons closely, and given that superior sighthound sneer, and strolled away. 

Well . . . whippets aren’t usually sneerers.  They’re sort of the bullie end of the sighthound spectrum:  cheerful and optimistic and possibly a little frenetic.  And my guys are mostly whippet.  They would certainly do the close examination but then they’d prance past in a ‘you don’t scare us but we’re keeping an eye on you so don’t think you can try anything’ manner.

^ I think bulldozer-headed Labrafrellingdors are a Race Apart.  Just not far enough.