SOMEBODY HIT THE SPOTLIGHTS -- IT'S ALMOST SHOWTIME! CUE THE CATS!


What? You think that headline is a reference to Monday's solar eclipse?
Heck no! We're talkin' show biz and kittycats for this edition of Let Sleeping Dogs Lie & Napping Cats Nap. 


Anybody who's ever done a minute of live theater or sat through a show that's longer than you thought it needed to be knows that all of our existences are subject to the use on a stage -- sometimes you may even get some applause. 
You've probably seen people applauded when they final finish giving their order at a fast foot joint.
You've heard, no doubt, of the giant Broadway hit Cats. Inspired by T.S. Eliot's 1939 book of poetry about cats, "Ol' Possum's Book of Practical Cats -- the source-material for Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1981 Broadway musical hit Cats. [LARRY ASIDE: Some of you will recall that Fort Worth show-biz star Betty Buckley won the 1983 Tony for Best Featured Actress in a Musical  for her work as Grizabella in that original Cats production.]
Back to our topic of the day: Perhaps you've attended a play presented in the "theater in the round" format. Audiences on all sides of the stage. In that opening photograph, you see my Junior Office Cat Stevie Ray Treeboy performing what he calls "Sleeper in the Round." Once the lights come up and Stevie Ray is deep in the role of Slumber Kitty, he's very comfortable with "Slumber in the Round." He's never once asked a director, "Now, what's my motivation?"

You see in the second photo, my Senior Office Cat William Powell -- he's been Stevie Ray's mentor for years, since the day I plucked little Mr. Stevie Ray off a flimsy mimosa branch where he'd parked himself and was yowling at window-shaking levels.
William is one of those guys who appreciates a rockin' experience. So, sometimes, he'll jump up into our ol' rockin' chair and assume a comfortable expression of slumberhood. He's a right rockin' cat though he swears his legs have always been too short to rock with Elvis, "The Hillbilly Cat."
Finally, we have my longtime pal, Rockin' Cat in the Window, snapped as he was warming up his rockin' arms for the show he plans to do from his window stage on Monday during the eclipse. "I like the sun," he told me in an interview. "But I also like the moon. And I'm fond of Earth as well. Generally I am in favor of the entire universe.
"  I get to sit in this window 24 hours a day and watch the world go by -- unless it's sunny, and then I ask my robot music friend to play music appropriate for a cat dance. Yeah, I think I coulda bopped with Elvis. I've got the moves. I am inclined to listen to Jerry Lee Lewis on a stormy day." 
In our interview, Rockin' Cat confided that he's a big fan of Jerry Lee's later hit Middle-Aged Crazy. 
And who can count the number of plays and musicals inspired by the condition "middle-aged crazy." Might only be nosed into second place by Elvis' Suspicious Minds. 
William Powell, by the way, likes to refer to himself as a "hunka hunka purrin' love."
[DEAR READERS: Please send photos and tales of your slumbering dogs, cats, in-laws and other critters to [email protected] and we'll post 'em in our long-running weekend feature, Let Sleeping Dogs Lie & Napping Cats Nap. No such thing as an insomniac cat, is there?]