My Boogins

It's 8:30 PM. The boys have been fed, bathed and are sleeping. Michael and I have eaten, cleaned the kitchen and I was feeling dangerous enough to clean the bathroom. Ahh . . . time to relax. So, I turn on the computer to check my e-mail and see if good old Joe has written anything in his blog as of late. He has.

Now, it's not what Joe wrote about that had me laughing hysterically - It's the picture of the cat (I just clicked back to his page to look at it again and laugh). I don't know what makes this picture so funny to me, but I'm seriously near tears even as I am writing this now.

I'm getting such enjoyment out of this (I'm remembering now that I had to wake up at 4:45 this morning to take one of our actors to a radio station), that I'm feeling inspired to share the most enjoyable characteristics of my favorite feline, Daisy (aka Daisy-the-Baggins-Spencer; aka Boogins; aka Daisy-Face).

• Daisy is a social eater. She could have just eaten a whole bowl of food, but when we're eating at the kitchen table, she immediately heads toward her bowl. Even if she's eaten all of her dinner already, we will give her a couple of bites so she can eat with the family.

• Daisy loves to have her belly rubbed and her armpits scratched. OK dog owners, I know this doesn's sound like a big deal, but most cats will hiss, scratch, bite or run away when you try to touch these parts.

• Daisy has to be in the same room as us. If Michael is upstairs and I am downstairs, she will sit on the middle of the staircase so she can see both of us.

• Daisy always knows when someone is napping. She has this weird cat-sensor that seems to notify her if you have decided to lie down, and she will immediately join you. This is most impressive when she is sleeping under the bed and Michael falls asleep on the couch upstairs.

• Daisy can sit on the bathroom counter all day long, waiting for a drop of water to escape from the tap. Every once in a while, she'll lick the dry tap, just in case something is on its way out. This is most perplexing to us as she has her own special kitty water cooler in the kitchen. Also perplexing is the fact that she only started doing this about a year ago.

• Daisy will let Kyle and Dylan put their head on her belly like a pillow; brush her with the wrong side of her brush; and attempt to feed her treats or pieces of her food, only to pull their hands away when her mouth touches their fingers.

(I just looked back at the cat picture again . . . Seriously, my stomach is hurting from laughing!)

• When I adopted Daisy, the rescue organization had named her "Cuddles," which I immediately changed because a) I think it's very important to give animals "people" names and b) at the time I was very much into naming plants and animals after literary figures - An increasingly difficult feat as some of my favorite literary figures die tragically (oh, poor Phineas the goldfish . . . If you don't understand, read A Separate Peace. Actually, if you haven't read A Separate Peace, you should). Anyway, the rescuers weren't kidding when they named her "Cuddles" because she is a very cuddly cat. P.S. One day I will have a male cat named Gatsby . . . Oh shit! He died tragically too. Man!

OK, I'm thinking sad thoughts now about a future, non-existent cat dying so you know what I have to do? That's right, look at the cat picture again.