i woke in the middle of the night to discover i was spooning the cat.  he jumps up on the bed and, pretty much like a sack of concrete, settles in for a long night’s nap, mostly because, well, clearly, the other 23 hours he slept in the day were not ample enough sleep.  he snugs in and prevents movement of most sorts:  there will be no blanket adjustments, no leg adjustments, little rolling over.  my hot flashes necessitate much wrestling to find cooler air as he has permanently planted his sweet large body and is down for the count.  and so, you must adjust.  granted, his sleep-apnea-style-snoring would be cause for plucking-and-moving (to another room) but we love him and suffer his sleeping-sovereignty; the benefits outweigh the costs.

sally told me that there is a machine that duplicates the frequency of a cat’s purring vibration.  i did not know that cat purring is healing and restorative – to broken or fractured bones, tendons, joints, muscles, infections.  we would rent out babycat but i am trying to figure out how to make him lay on my broken-and-in-the-ridiculously-slow-process-of-healing wrists.  once again, the benefits outweigh the costs.

i hadn’t ever had a cat before b-cat, but now it’s been almost eleven years.  he is in some ways more of a dog than a cat, having tolerated a parent who knows dogs and was too busy at the time to read ‘kittens for idiots’ all the way through.  so he sits when asked and speaks when asked and does dog-like things.  however, he rides the fence and takes advantage of cat-like things at will, like claws.  and he is fickle as fickle can be.  jen explained that cats will patiently ‘allow’ you to stroke them and pet them and fondle them, all seemingly appreciated, until the doll flips and it suddenly reaches out with both front paws and pulls your hand up to its razor teeth.  ahh, but those moments preceding the bite…the benefits outweigh the costs.

in this time of other-worldliness and alternate-reality these creatures of ours – dogdog and babycat – are companions unlike any other.  they will not argue politics or policy.  they don’t strategize or scheme.  they are not semantics-nuts or particularly immersed in propaganda-hunts.  they will not roll their eyes at our rants nor will they feed them or egg us on.  instead, they comfort when they suspect we need it.  they are quiet when there’s been too much noise.  they are entertaining when we need funny.  they are warm in the cold pandemic plane.

and they curl up with us in solidarity.  benefits always outweighing the costs.

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