a cat’s life

When a cat is comfortable that’s all that matters. Over the holidays we stayed in the home of a woman with a giant of a black cat. He did not touch the antique country pitcher on top of a small cabinet as he leapt up beside it and sprang over it to the top of the adjacent entertainment center. He stayed there watching us from his imperious perch.
At our house, our black calico cat pads through the house every night at 10 looking for my daughter. The cat rubs her knobby head against teenage jeans and socks, follow my daughter until she passes her bedroom. The cat looks at her hopefully, hops on the bed and waits restlessly for my daughter to come to bed with her.
My daughter finds it amusing. She better. When she brought the cat home as a kitten, she took that cat to bed with her every night, snuggling the kitten as if it were a security blanket or Teddy bear. It was all very fine and well – until the cat had kittens.
Momma cat and kittens had their own special corner of the house. But mamma cat did not want to spend the night there. She carried the tiny kittens one by one to my daughter’s bed, arranged them neatly and flopped down for the night. My daughter looked at hr full bed, scooped by a handful of kittens and returned them to their nest. Momma cat watched anxiously a my daughter laid the kittens back in their next. She walked around the edge of the kitten nursery, licked each kitten reassuringly, paced back and forth, grabbed the closest kitten by the nap of its neck and carried it back to the bedroom.
For the next couple of days momma cat played musical beds with the kittens until she admitted defeat and left the kittens in their nest. However, every so often momma cat left her kittens snuggled together and sought the comfort of my daughter’s bed.
We kept on of the kittens: a white kitten with mismatched eyes (one blue and one yellow) and a few black hairs slashing a line across his forehead. My children named him Gorbachev. Gorby is not a gentleman.
At night when I am asleep that cat comes into our bedroom, walks up my sleeping body, shoves his face into mine and meows loudly to be let out, fed or scratched before settling down to snore away on a corner of our bed. Sometimes he simply wants me to walk across the hall and turn on the bathroom light so he can see his food while he eats.
When I read the morning paper, he leaps onto the bed, walks onto any sections I have laid to the side, stretches out on top of them and closes his eyes to start his morning nap. He stays there unless I shove him off so I can read the newspaper.
I can share my morning newspaper, but I do not like sharing my black slacks with a white-haired cat. However, I frequently find him sleeping on top of a pile of clean clothes. When I insist he needs to get off my clothes, Gorby snores on without looking up. He’s quite comfortable and he isn’t moving for anyone.