Cat people

I am a "cat person." Brian is not. He describes it best by saying, "if cats can read minds, they look at mine and go 'gonna stay away from him!' When they read yours, they think 'As long as I'm nice to the little pink person that's with her, I'll be rolling in gravy!' "

The Mimi also loves cats. She spends a lot of our Sunday visits with my sister in law chasing her four cats around. Three of them treat her with a good-natured tolerance (and ever-present hope that she'll drop food for them.) But the oldest cat, Shakti, is short-tempered and doubtless the reason that my nephew recites House Rule Number One as "cats are sharp--and fast!"

Our neighbor has been feeding a paranoid gray alley cat for the last couple of years. At this point he's no longer completely feral, but he's understandably still a bit twitchy. As we were out gardening last week, he slinked home after discovering his place in the local feline hierarchy. He moved as though every joint in his body ached and was missing a large section of one ear. Large patches of his fur were newly absent and replaced by healing scabs.

The Mimi looked at him with wide eyes. "Kitty has owie!"

"Yes honey, the kitty has lots of owies."

Comprehension dawned as she put new ideas together. "Shakti!"

But true to Brian's theory, he still let the Mimi pet him!