As I type these sentences, it has been hours and hours since I’ve seen my pillow. I know where it is. I just can’t get to it. I'm too busy.
Thus, I am in a proper mental condition to write our long-running weekend feature Let Sleeping Dogs Lie & Napping Cats Nap.
Why am I sleep-deprived? Two dogs, two cats and Mr. Insomnia, Comfort denied! Pardon my whining.
Porche Noel (In a floor nap, left) and her pal Wendy (bed nap, lower right) have been nocturnally restless lately. And, as any good dog fan will tell you, if a dog needs to go out at 2 in the morning, so does one of the slumbering sap humans on the bed.
That is me.
The dogs and I went out into the chilly darkness and to keep from waking the gainfully employed slumberspouse Martha, the critters and I went to the other side of the house from the bedroom and cranked up the big-screen TV in the living room.
Soon, we’d divided up the couch between three ol’ dogs: Porche had curled up on the leftmost cushion, Wendy had sprawled on the center cushion and I had squeezed onto the right cushion and the TV remote —something you don’t really notice until you sit on it.
My security quilt — made decades ago by Martha’s mom — is falling apart because of years of washing and keeping restless me warm from nature in the winter and warm from vigorous air-conditioning in the summer. I also had my unrequited desire to nod off. I am, afer all, a grown-up insoniac -- it's a decades and decades old curse.
The dogs were quickly asleep — curled up comfortably. And I was sitting upright on my corner of the couch. I was watching the first of two reruns of Psych (one of my favorite series) before getting through a rerun and a half of one of my all-time fave TV shows, Monk. Apparently I nodded off before the news at 5 a.m. and awoke at 6 a.m. when Martha came past the living room to go to the kitchen and prep breakfast for the dogs and cats. She didn’t expect me to stir. Ha! I’m an insomniac; my wake-up alarm is constant..
You, perhaps, have noticed some photos of a couple of cats in a recliner. [Click on the artwork to make it grow!] These are my office cats — the gray tabby is William Powell and the black and white youngster is Stevie Ray Treeboy. These photos were taken during the 4 a.m. broadcast of the Monk re-run. I can’t remember which episode.
While two dogs gleefully snored (I'm interpreting what I heard) on the couch with me, I had begun to wonder where the cats were. So I turned slightly to the right and, yep, there, in the glow of the TV, were the Office Cats. William is the Senior Office Cat and Stevie Ray is the Junior Office Cat.
At night, they have the run of the house — and their choice of chairs.
I hired all-grown-up William in the spring of 2018 after we painted a house’s wood trim together. I found Stevie Ray, a tiny, yowling kitten, hanging onto the unstable, flimsy limb of a mimosa tree in our Dallas front yard in early 2019.
William, in our home in Dallas, lived in the central bedroom rather than mingle with the other cats and dogs. Baby Stevie Ray needed a mentor in all things feline and most things canine. We bunked ‘em together and they’ve been pals ever since. They’re adorable and literate. Neither bets on pro football but both will play “Slap the Ball” up and down the hall if a golfball or tennis ball should suddenly appear at 2 or 3 in the morning. They’re 24-hour cats. Those are Stevie Ray's World Cup paws sticking up over the arm of the chair.
That four-face presentation of a cat? I shot those mugshots during the week when my funspouse Martha was sitting in her recliner and her cat Esme decided to join her. That is some stoic face on a free, formerly feral kitten who wandered into our care from the front porch feral colony in 2012. We think she was among the kittens in the final feral litter of our 20-year attempt to spay/neuter/return members of that colony.
May your cats and dogs help you sleep and give you great joy in your lives.
I can tell you this: I’d much rather share a bed with a happy slumberpup than discover that someone has tied a roping horse to the bedpost. I can’t help but think that city girl Martha might object to having to find an electric blanket that’ll fit a rodeo horse. And the cats would hire yet more “Household Environment Protection” legal specialists. As William Powell has said to me now and then, “Be careful, bub. We know people.”
[DEAR READERS: Send us photos of your darling sleepers and nappers and tell us how much you adore them and why. You may be the inspiration someone needs to go to a shelter and save the life of a darned good housepet. Email Let Sleeping Dogs Lie & Napping Cats Nap at [email protected]. Thanks. “Save ‘Em All” and “Git Some Dadgum Sleep.”]
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