Who was it that said “How can you feel stressed while petting a purring cat?” I think I read that in Pamela Wallin’s The Comfort of Cats. We three humans share our home with six cats. You could say we are outnumbered with two cats per human being. Our son calls us crazy cat people. But honestly we aren’t! They just came to us. Anyway, I’ve heard that our pets choose us. Each of these cats came to us as a refugee. We had them neutered and we keep them indoors. It’s our way of not contributing to the ever-growing issue of stray cats resulting from unwanted litters and people moving away, leaving their ‘pets’ behind. But I digress…
At any given time, I share my office/writing space with one or more felines as they languish on the daybed or sprawl across my desk while I work and write. The greatest challenge is when Guini–short for yes, the pasta, Linguini–a feisty little female, decides to chase the cursor as it moves across my screen. Talk about a game of cat and mouse! Sometimes one of our cats will come dip a paw in my water glass–ewwww! Linguini also likes grapes–to roll them around or to chew them until the sweet juice is extracted. If I have a bowl on my desk as I work, I end up with a sticky mess while trying to wrestle lost grapes from the floor around my feet. Our newer cat, 8 month old Boo, steals writing implements off my desk. I find pencils with chewed erasers littering the house. Then there is the problem of cat hair in my keyboard!
But I’m not complaining. No. Because as I sit here writing, preparing lessons, or working on something that has me stymied as to my next line or layout, my hand reaches out to pet a purring cat. I am so fortunate to have a work life that involves the cadence of those soft, low purrs emanating from a contented cat sprawled across my desk!
* Above, Kiwi lying in the sun and below, Linguini, chasing the cursor on the computer screen.