Cat germs and sgrowls

I have never been particularly fond of animal drool.
I shower before going to bed; Calico Cat licks – my hands, face or feet with her sandpaper tongue before she tucks herself in for a nap on my lap.
I’m can handle the lap nap, as long as CC understands that at any time I might decide that I have had enough with sitting around and being a human electric blanket for a fur ball. In time, I will rise up and declare myself a living, breathing, moving creature once again.
CC hates it when I do that. She sgrowls at me. No I didn’t misspell that word. CC’s sgrowl combines the ominous lifting of an old lady’s eyebrows with the indignant protest of a comfortable cat after I joggle and dump it from my padded, warm lap to the hard, cold concrete floor. That sgrowl means I get no credit for the carpet between it and the concrete.
I am not worried. Calico Cat either forgives me for my rudeness … or she considers me a kitten in training and will persist in trying to teach me to sit still while she washes my face before she uses me for a bed.
I wonder if CC simply considers all the humans in the house to be her oversized kittens. When my daughter was in high school CC’s maternal instinct combined with her need for a warm sleeping spot. Every night without fail, CC would walk through the house, find her girl and begin corralling her to the bedroom. I only found out about the furry night-time supervisor when in a fit of teenage rebellion, one daughter picked up one cat and tossed her out of her bedroom, muttering something about not wanting that cat to lick her clean and pester her until she went to bed.
When my daughter disappeared to college, CC beat me to the punch at discovering the empty nest. With her kitten grown up and gone off to caterwaul on her own, CC jumped up on our bed and headed straight for my face to lick it – the only part of me showing above the blanket. We had a little understanding that night. CC ended up sleeping on the carpet outside of our room.
It was an understanding that worked just fine until my daughter made one of her sporadic visits recently and stayed a couple nights. She fussed over that cat, picked it up and petted it just like she used to pet it. She rubbed CC’s little nose and dragged her feline blankey off to bed with her. CC was in seventh heaven. She curled up beside the best cat owner in the world and purred them both to sleep.
Hey! For the whole 48 hours that my daughter stayed around, CC had it made in the shade.
And then the nest emptied again. Emptied and left me with a cat that wanted it all, the nose rubbing, the up close and personal pre-nap bonding wash and the human radiator under her when she got sleepy.
As I lay on the couch reading a book, CC hopped up on me, shoved her nose under my book and swiped her wet, sandpaper tongue over my chin. I pushed Calico Cat away a bit and petted her head. She took a gentle, sandpaper swipe of my hand. I tucked the hand away; CC looked straight at my face and stuck out her tongue. I picked her up and repositioned her.
It took a while, but eventually CC quit trying to give me a cat bath, settled down on my stomach and let me read my book, and peace reigned. I was a clean enough for that cat. I had a good book to read and she had a warm, soft bed for her nap. Not one sgrowl was heard from either of us for the rest of the morning.
(Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times.)