Scratcher of heads, rubber of bellies
I’ve warned Emma to stay out of the coneflower. Oh how I’ve warned her! Time and again I told of how they’d lure her in, let her drink in their beauty, then attack when she let her guard down. But did she listen to me? No she didn’t. Some lessons you have to learn the hard way.
Sam emerged from playing in the raspberries and froze. He felt her eyes upon him, but from where? Then he saw her, the dark shadow under the rose bushes.
“Does she mean to attack me?”
She does. And she did.
The other morning I woke to the purring not of Siamese cats but Siamese twin cats. As they approached me on the bed, their two heads rubbed against one another and their tails were intertwined. I expected them to be identical twins, but to my surprise the twin on the right was an orange tabby and the twin on the left had black and white fur and golden eyes.
Having reached me they rubbed their heads against my own, my hands rising to scratch their heads and stroke their backs as if responding to some unspoken command. In that moment I was given the gift of healing and the conjoined twins split apart, but their bond proved too strong and they soon rejoined. My eyes played tricks in the pre-dawn light, for it seemed they were now joined on the opposite side as before.
Eventually their desires for affection were satiated and the twins finally separated for good, Sam departing for parts unknown and Scout curling up beside me to sleep.
If you come across a mysterious box in your living room, do not open it. Even if you hear a small voice inside the box urging you to, do not open it! It’s a trap!
We just got through a nasty heat wave here in Portland, some days over 100° Fahrenheit (1000° Celsius). We don’t have air conditioning in our house so I spent most of the weekend hiding out in the basement. It’s generally nice and cool but after so many hot days it was warm even there. Thankfully the heat just broke, the temperature dropped 20° pretty quickly and there’s even a soft rain now.
This picture of Sam was taken a few days before the heat wave, we were running around when I noticed he stuck his tongue out whenever he paused, so I decided it was time for us to take a break so he could catch his breath. The daisies on the right are past their prime but he loves to play in them, so I left one patch standing for his sake.
Emma’s been complaining that I’ve posted too many aggressive pictures of her, baring her teeth or mauling feathered toys or rough-housing with Sam. So here’s a picture of her planting a kiss on Scout.
Alright! Alright! Calm down, I’ll leave it. You could have just said no.
Our dear Emma turns two this month, we don’t know the exact day so we’ll celebrate her birthday with mine later in the month. It’s too bad she’s not more of a lap cat, as she’s very affectionate and will sometimes grab hold of your hand while she sleeps.
The daisies in the flower garden out front were getting too numerous, so a year or two ago I transplanted some of them to the backyard to give us some temporary flowers until we decide on landscaping. I planted two patches and they’ve both done really well. They lean over to get more sun and many of them eventually fall over since I usually forget to tie them up.
Sam likes to play in them, sometimes hiding under the flowers so he can surprise Scout or Emma (and sometimes knocking more down in the process). I let him wreak a little havoc in the daisies since they are so numerous and he enjoys it so, but I do try to keep him out of the coneflowers. Here he was sitting beside some of the daisies, I framed the picture so he was mostly hidden by the white flowers. The cats haven’t been able to go outside much this week either because I’ve been working late or had other stuff to do, so I’ll have to make sure they get some time out there this weekend.
If you’re a bird that happens to find yourself in our house, I suspect you’ll have to evade Emma, but here’s a little advice: fly high. Unlike our other cats, Emma isn’t so enamored with high places and she isn’t much of a jumper. She’s been getting a lot more comfortable in her jumping since we brought her home, though, so I’m not sure how long the advice will hold.
