It’s a cat’s life

The cats have it made: They enjoy free food with no pressure to catch rodents. They expect us to get up and let them in, out, in, out – you get the idea. The cute little calico loves to nestle around my daughter’s sleeping body at night. The calico thinks she owns this human – when the cat is ready for bed, she looks for my daughter and begins nagging her about proper bedtimes. Big Daddy Cat sleeps by himself – his favorite sleeping spot is the couch in the living room, but he has slept securely on the edge of the roof over the garage or in the crook of the highest branches of a tree.
Asleep or awake, he has a great sense of balance. Over the weekend I watched him maintain his balance on the neighbor’s fence in the face of adverse of circumstances. Big Daddy was perched on the edge of the fence, meditating his next move, ready to leap into the neighbor’s yard – when he was ready.
I know the look. I see it every time the cat whines plaintively at the back door to be let out. I rush across the room to honor his highness’s wish – only to have him step behind me, look around my legs suspiciously and edge, ever so slowly, towards the door. If I have something to do other than wait on a cat to walk out the back door, I give him a little push to hurry him along. But that day as he perched on the fence, nothing hurried him along – not even when a mockingbird with a nest nearby dove at his derriere and gave him a pointed, pecking command to “move along.”
The cat barely twitched his ears as he shifted his position and hunkered down again. The bird flew up in the air, whipped its little body around and aimed for the right rear haunch of Big Daddy’s fur again … and again. When that bird tired of flying attacks on Big Daddy, another mockingbird joined in the campaign.
Squawking and diving they slammed their tiny bodies and sharp beaks against the cat’s haunches, sides and back. The cat shook off their pesky presence and stretched out on top of the pole. He was not moving – not until he was good and ready.
The birds disappeared into the trees. Quiet reigned. The cat did not move off the fence. He wasn’t ready. A few minutes later the birds returned with full force and renewed their attacks on Big Daddy’s heavily furred back side. When the cat finally leaped down, it was with a dignity that said, “I am leaving because I want to go, not because you have been pestering me.”
If nothing bothers Big Daddy the opposite is true of the cute little calico cat which lacks his confidence.
The other day my daughter sank her fingers into Big Daddy’s thick, rich fur and talked playfully with him. He hummed in pure ecstasy, enjoying her attention. The Calico walked into the living room, looked at the my daughter with Big Daddy and walked away – her feline, emotional equilibrium completely off balance.
For the next few days, nothing would get The Calico back on the precarious fence of an interpersonal relationship with my daughter. She refused to have anything to do with my daughter. She turned her face away when forced to go through a door opened by my daughter, did not round her up for bedtime and refused to acknowledge any attention offered. It took a while for the balance of power and attention to level out, but it has and once again, the cats, both of them, have it made.