This week’s Let Sleeping Dogs Lie & Napping Cats Nap subject is a personal privilege feline, i.e., I’m using personal privilege to write about her and other sleeping companions.
You may have, at some point, been called away from your home and left your critter/critters behind. About halfway through the disruption in routine, you realize something is missing and, as you open your suitcase, you say, “Dang, I wish I’d packed the cat.” Or, as I did a night or two ago, you drop a cracker on the floor and realize, “Oh, no. I’ve got to bend over and pick it up. I wish I’d brought the dog.”
This cat is a collection of stripes and good moods. That is Deputy Chief Kittie Leigh Johnson, a wander-up kitten who is named in honor of the main character in the TV series The Closer, Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson. Kittie Leigh is an inquisitive cat with a big purr, accented by a tough demeanor when another cat or dog intrudes on her reverie.
She’s almost human.
FYI: I’m writing this on a laptop at the kitchen table in my mom’s house in Texarkana. She’s a few
blocks away at the Big Hospital Downtown and recovering nicely from surgery to repair a broken hip – she fell while taking out the trash. I’m not kidding. Ninety-one years old and stubbornly does chores. She has a crowd of neighbors relatives and church people who monitor her – and flock to her side when she’s in a bit of difficulty. It’s a community of loved ones.
In the meantime, Northeast Texas has more loud bugs and nocturnally performing song birds than any other place in the world. I’m convinced. The bugs are humming and screeching and screaming all night long. The birds seem to work in shifts. There was a Mockingbird atop a telephone pole next to the house last night and, I swear, the relentless, feathered SOB (Son of Bird) was wearing a clip-on microphone hooked up to a digital amplification system. Maybe it was just a megaphone. Piercing delivery. Mother Nature is loud.
And you should hear the Northeast Texas bears that roam the neighborhood. I’m kidding. That was just me snoring. I learned it from that dog, Porche Noel, who was photographed as she rested after an exciting game of "Pick Up The Crackers."
[SEND PHOTOS of your slumbering dogs, cats and other critters to [email protected]. Remember, we publish these photos of sleeping animals as a service to insomniacs to suggest that they, too, can curl up and nod off if they’ll just wear the right striped cat’s pajamas.]
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