As I mentioned in another post, kitties are the worst cliché around. They behave so much like kitties that you could never mistake a cat for, say, a rhinoceros, or a lizard or even a small rodent, although mama’s best friend from the ’60s, whenever that was, sent her a magazine on cats and on the cover was one ugly dude! I don’t think I’ve ever been happier to be me than when mama showed me that thing on the front, a sort of mixture of ET, a rat, and Eva Gabor (well, in the eyes only—I wish the rest had been like her). This cat could have been any one of a breed called donskoy, sphynx (they don’t look that enigmatic, they just look overwhelmed), Ukrainian lefkoys or (I love this one; imagine having to live with that name) a peterbald! These cats look as if someone took a really good electric razor to them and then plugged their tales into a socket. Or like Phyliss Diller without face lifts, if any of you out there remember her.
Their eyes are always bulging and round and staring; and they move around like snakes with very big ears, except for that one with no legs, less like a kitty than a little SharPei on rat feet. No way would I live in the same house with one of those, and I even heard mama say oh they are so cute, so cute, like elves (there is even an elf breed!) but as far as I’m concerned, elves can stay in the woods with the gremlins and trolls and all those other weird creatures. In fact these kitties belong there, too, just anywhere but THIS house.
So that rare breed is not entirely a cliché, but I sort of like being a ‘tuxedo cat’, which is what we black and white-ys are. I like being all stretched out like that famous blond on the calendar and then sort of rolling from one side to the other, all seductive-like, when I want my breakfast, and I LIKE sleeping. Who doesn’t? Papa will go along with me on this one, because in the beginning when mama and papa first met, he got mama to take naps (for reasons we won’t get too intimate about here) and she had come from a mama who thought taking naps (after 10 years old anyway) was equal to stealing a canned ham in plain sight from the supermarket under your big overcoat, which is what my mama’s beloved friend, Nannie, did when they were young and crazy. That was in Berkeley, where they had both landed after having bolted successfully out of Texas and not caught in the jaws of Junior League, country club tennis galas, charity balls and booze at four in the afternoon. But there were some marvelous things too: mama’s mama, who was a miracle of mothers and mama didn’t really see that until later. Now she says she misses her every day. But her mama wasn’t happy that she didn’t have a little speck that turned into a grandchild. So it goes….
I had a little semi-speck in me when they fixed my clock, and frankly, I probably could have been ok with that one little speck but with kitties, you never know how many might come out and I was NOT ready for mammahood, no way, no how.
I’ll comment one day on the reverse prejudice some women have against other women who choose not to have kids.
More on kids later….
