I want to talk about snuggling and hugging and sleeping with humans, one of the sweetest pastimes one can have, as a kitty. I have adopted the lifestyle of my mama and papa and it works for me. Before, I was a wild thing, jumping around and meowing whenever I pleased, for no reason other than that I wanted something and by god, I was going to have it and, as it turns out, I was a little bit preggies in that the first ‘fix’ I had wasn’t done well and I had a few hormones left in me that caused a bit of an upheaval every now and then but when those were gone, I was in fat city.
Literally, because now they have me on this diet so that I’ll stick around longer than those kitties who get like blimps (mama talks about a silly-named kitty called Piewacket after the cat in some movie and Piewacket was literally unable to roll over from being on her back so if you wanted her to stop bothering you, you just put her on her back—not an easy task, I’ll bet) and so they want me around a long time plus mama found out on the internet (does her computer ever crash, maybe, so I can escape all this knowledge she soaks up about what to do with me and when and where and how?) that I do not fit the silhouette of a normal kitty in that you cannot discern (that means see) just where my waist is and I didn’t even know that kitties had waists until mama said to me, Loulou you have no waist and I can’t feel your little ribs through that layer of fat on your little round cute tummy, and I said to myself ribs? fat? layer? Who’s she talking about, for heaven’s sake? Surely not this little svelte kitty, no way. I am the epitome (pronounced ey-pit-oh-me, not epitome as rhymes with ‘home’) of a lean and mean kitty-cat. Well, maybe not so lean, and mean, not very often, but still….I’m getting skinny now so all of this is moot. That means ‘useless’…haha.
I’m on the diet whether I like it or not but this morning I was so hungry I really could have torn someone’s throat out and instead I just walked across mama’s tummy really heavy-like from a flying leap off the floor and then I pulled her hair more forcefully, say, than other mornings when it’s gentle and oh, so cute.
This morning I could have eaten a sewer rat, skin and all, but did she get up, mama, that is? No, she just burrowed herself down in the comforter and said, no, no Loulou, not yet, go play and come back later and what’s that supposed to mean? Go play. With WHOM. With WHAT? They don’t believe in buying me one of those contraptions that kitties play in that look like a Rube Goldberg variation and frankly, I wouldn’t be caught dead scampering in one of those things—well, maybe if it had something to chase attached to it like my lovely piece of curtain cord that has become a kind of security string to me. When we travel they put it in my Feliway-sprayed carrier and I’m ready to roll, which is what we do sometimes when I have to chaperon my mama and papa on their many trips to Rome to see those no-good grandkids who chase me all over the apartment wanting to play dolls with me or something worse.
Actually they are quite sweet with me after a few dos and don’ts from mama and their own mama, who is a wonderful mamma (two ‘ms’ in Italian so when I talk about her I’ll use the right word) and also from their nonna, who happens to be papa’s ex-wife but they are good friends and have great affection for one another and mama loves her a lot, too. We’ll get around to that story one day. Boy meets girl, boy marries girl, boy and girl split after boy meets other girl, and first girl meets cute younger boy and marries and boy marries second girl and all four get to be friends until younger man dies, a very sad affair for all, and now boy and girl and second girl are friends, for life, I hope, because mama and papa are having trouble being friends with papa’s daughter and her children…maybe they’ll read this and things will work out one day. Families are folles–that means crazy.
But so much works out better when two divorced people can get along, especially with another wife or husband, but that’s not always the case. In this particular case, Gabriella is a brilliant nonna to the two little devils that want to pet and cuddle me, not to mention to the four other grandkids from papa’s daughter. Much more on that one later (see above)…
There’s no accountin’ for folks, my mama says, slipping into her Texas drawl, and you just have to learn to live and let live ’cause you can’t change anyone, especially in families. Families are all nuts, she says, and that includes her own except they are nuts in a kind of southern, crazy, fun way most of the time, which cannot be said for all families. Mama has this aunt Bittie, for example, which I prefer to call auntie because auntie sounds like Auntie Mame and this aunt is pretty much like her—beautiful, wild, crazy, fun, smart, plus she likes her glass of wine at sundown and I’m partial to a glass of wine myself, just to sniff, mind you, liquor will never pass my delicate muzzle ’cause it’s not good for kitties, but I love the aroma, that subtle hint of mouldering oak leaves and hunky kitties’ bicycle seats touched with the delicate perfume of cricket bat wood…ah, we kitties have such noses. Pity we can’t turn out our own Robert Parker or Hachette tomes on vino.
Well, I think families need to be more like Auntie Bittie. She hasn’t met me yet, but one day…they’ll put me in my traveling case and fly me to the USA…I can’t wait!
