Every Girl Crazy 'Bout a Sharp-Dressed Man
Imagine this. It's midday. The child is learning. The Consort is off discussing arcane things. The dog has a little gas. I am doing what I do to stave off domestic entropy: Swiffering. Out of nowhere, possibly while cornering a gopher-sized lump of spent fur, a thought explodes in my head: "Where's Squee?"
[Squea used to be Anne of "AnneandDiana," but she is chatty and eventually became known as Squeakers, which shortened to Squee because, really, in this modern, go-go world, who has time for two syllables?]
I look on the giant amoeba couch. Much fur, one Diana in a sun-Jacuzzi (slightly larger than a sunbath), but no Squee. There is no Squee patrolling the back room, praying for spontaneous kitty-star combustion. There is no Squee behind the curtain in the living room, under the dresser or in the kitchen sink. I bite my lower lip. There is one last potential nest...
Those are Consort's polo-shirts. That is Squee. There is a shelf just above with Polarfleece sweatshirts and jackets, which my ignorant mind would assume to be far more comfortable than polo-shirts and which would have the added benefit of not showing claw marks. The shelf just below holds jeans, which I would find perfectly comfortable were I of the feline persuasion; and which also would not show claw marks. In sum, I see no earthly reason why, three times a week, Squeakers somehow opens the closet and embeds herself in Consort's shirts the way you tuck sage leaves under a turkey's skin.
And yet, she does. When I remove her, carefully extracting her nails from the shirts, she cries and carries on, her paws stretching back towards her homeland, the Auld Sod, the Land of the Free, the Home of the Placket. I put her outside. I remind her how fun it is to stand in the kitchen sink. Finally, I do a load of wash, heavy on the polo-shirts. Diana, the fluffier one, walks past me. I look down at her and think, "You and your sister are both delightful but you, in all candor, are my easier, dumber child. Thank you for being my easier, dumber child." I then watch Diana stroll across the laundry room, leap deftly into the basket of clean clothes and proceed to give herself a variation of a sitz bath.
I know when I'm beat. I hereby declare the fashion colors for 2011/12 to be orange and tortoiseshell, and the hottest look on the runway this season to be mohair polo-shirts.
[Squea used to be Anne of "AnneandDiana," but she is chatty and eventually became known as Squeakers, which shortened to Squee because, really, in this modern, go-go world, who has time for two syllables?]
I look on the giant amoeba couch. Much fur, one Diana in a sun-Jacuzzi (slightly larger than a sunbath), but no Squee. There is no Squee patrolling the back room, praying for spontaneous kitty-star combustion. There is no Squee behind the curtain in the living room, under the dresser or in the kitchen sink. I bite my lower lip. There is one last potential nest...
Those are Consort's polo-shirts. That is Squee. There is a shelf just above with Polarfleece sweatshirts and jackets, which my ignorant mind would assume to be far more comfortable than polo-shirts and which would have the added benefit of not showing claw marks. The shelf just below holds jeans, which I would find perfectly comfortable were I of the feline persuasion; and which also would not show claw marks. In sum, I see no earthly reason why, three times a week, Squeakers somehow opens the closet and embeds herself in Consort's shirts the way you tuck sage leaves under a turkey's skin.
And yet, she does. When I remove her, carefully extracting her nails from the shirts, she cries and carries on, her paws stretching back towards her homeland, the Auld Sod, the Land of the Free, the Home of the Placket. I put her outside. I remind her how fun it is to stand in the kitchen sink. Finally, I do a load of wash, heavy on the polo-shirts. Diana, the fluffier one, walks past me. I look down at her and think, "You and your sister are both delightful but you, in all candor, are my easier, dumber child. Thank you for being my easier, dumber child." I then watch Diana stroll across the laundry room, leap deftly into the basket of clean clothes and proceed to give herself a variation of a sitz bath.
I know when I'm beat. I hereby declare the fashion colors for 2011/12 to be orange and tortoiseshell, and the hottest look on the runway this season to be mohair polo-shirts.
posted by Unknown at 7:13 PM
4 Comments:
Lovely blog entry (and very lovely pic as well). I live vicariously through your cat guardianship. They sound so fun, fur shedding and all. ;-)
Love the renaming. Our crazy cat, who is officially named Chloe, is more often than not called Peep or Peeper. (Her full pseudonym is "Peep McFuzz" and she also answers to "Fuzz" as well.)
One thought along the practical lines of saving Consort's shirts from clawprints and yourself from extra laundry (I mean, really, of all the things in the world of which one could have *extra*, laundry should not be one): Try putting tin foil over the polo shelf. Cats are said to abhor the feeling of tin foil under their paws and will avoid it. I first tested this theory back in the "I'd rather not have a layer of cat fur over everything in the baby's crib, thankyouverymuch" days, and more recently have used it successfully to keep Peep McFuzz off the top of the new living room couch, where she not only enjoys shedding at will but also regurgitating the occasional hairball. If I remember to put the strips of foil down before I leave the house, she will avoid the couch entirely in favor of the zillion and twelve *other* places in the house upon which she can shed and gack up hairballs. I just have to remember to remove said strips of foil before, say, the executive committee of the school PTSA comes over for a meeting. Ahem.
Thanks for the chuckle this morning! It was a sympathetic chuckle, but a chuckle nonetheless.
Mohair polo shirts. Genius.
We have a Buhund, which is a smaller, husky-like dog, who also sheds, in this case, lots of light colored ("wheaten") hair, on my husband's shirts. Not when they are in the closet, but when they are on the man, himself. Although not lap dog size, the dog insists. The man is not inclined to deny the dog, so we have taken to buying shirts and sweaters that hide the fact they have attracted dog hair. All it takes is one quick leap towards the lap of a just freshly attired chair sitter to make it look as if a pet groomer who hasn't changed clothes for weeks has entered the house.
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