The Cat Is Snoring

Shel:  I'm sitting here in the quiet office, contemplating my freshly polished thumbnail and deciding if I want to do the rest of them or not, the only sound that of Chris's keyboard as he types when I hear something that doesn't fit.  After a few seconds I identify it as the sound of Sinatra the Siamese, who is curled up in the cat bed on top of the kitty condo behind me - snoring.   It sounds like the cat version of the old man who fell asleep in his chair in front of the TV.  When I mentioned it, Buddy, the orange longhair who can't stand to be left out of anything came in to investigate.  And now y'all are hereby introduced to the other two full-time occupants of our home: The Felines.

Chris:  I submit that our office is hardly quiet.  There are 3 servers, a workstation, a desktop, and 2 printers.  Why is this relevant?  Because I'm the one who can't hear worth a damn.  That said, Sinatra can saw a pretty mean log.  Good thing he hates going outside; the whole natural-enemies thing would be really inconvenient for him.

Shel:  And then there's Buddy.  He's the original slacker kitty. If he was human, he'd be an old hippie.  If there's lovin' going on anywhere in his vicinity, he wants right in the big middle of it.  This means our kisses are usually accompanied by cat "mmrrooowwrrs" as Bud nudges us, saying in Cat-Speak "Me too, me too!"

Chris:  It's really cool, they talk.  Not with actual words, but they have a (very limited) vocabulary.  if they both lived another 35 or 40 years they would probably learn a few words of English.  They really do try to get basic points across.  And contrary to what some people will tell you, cats do have at least basic emotions; they just don't analyze the hell out of them.  Or talk about them on Facebook.

Shel:   Don't forget personalities (or should I go all cutesy and say "purrsonalities"?  No, let's not). It is really interesting how different the two are.  Buddy will play like a normal cat, biting too hard (unintentionally) and all.  When you dangle a string for him, he chases it.  Sinatra, on the other hand, will sometimes get carried away enough when playing (if we can even get him to play at all) and barely clamp down with his teeth - and then act like he did something wrong and lick us to apologize. He also won't chase much - if you dangle a string for him he will try to pick it up and negotiate with it. He really acts like he wants opposable thumbs.

Chris:  And yet, who turns out to be the Alpha-cat?  Slacker-boy.