Chilly, Athena and Floof. Floof is a toy I bought for baby Hermes. They've all adopted him now.
So that's my happy thing. I have loved cats since I was a kid, although we didn't have a cat then. I was one of those young girls who understood cat language, which is mostly not a vocal language but a language of behavior.
When I was maybe nine, I went to spend some of the summer with my grandmother. She told us that one of her cats (she had a lot of cats, maybe twenty?) was expecting kittens. When we got there, sure enough, the cat had clearly had teh kittens and she had hidden them carefully so no one could find them. My grandmother asked us to keep an eye out for them. I suppose she was worried a dog would get them.
My younger cousin and I went out looking for them. We followed the mother cat into the field behind my grandparents' house, where maize* was grown. It had all been plowed under at that time of year. The cat flopped down in the dirt and started rolling around. "Do whatever she does," I told my cousin. So we both got down on the ground and rolled around on our backs.
Shortly afterward, the mother cat gave us a look of glee and led us to an empty cotton trailer with a few shreds of cotton still clinging to the wire.
When I was maybe nine, I went to spend some of the summer with my grandmother. She told us that one of her cats (she had a lot of cats, maybe twenty?) was expecting kittens. When we got there, sure enough, the cat had clearly had teh kittens and she had hidden them carefully so no one could find them. My grandmother asked us to keep an eye out for them. I suppose she was worried a dog would get them.
My younger cousin and I went out looking for them. We followed the mother cat into the field behind my grandparents' house, where maize* was grown. It had all been plowed under at that time of year. The cat flopped down in the dirt and started rolling around. "Do whatever she does," I told my cousin. So we both got down on the ground and rolled around on our backs.
Shortly afterward, the mother cat gave us a look of glee and led us to an empty cotton trailer with a few shreds of cotton still clinging to the wire.
Five tiny, mewing kittens were under it, in a little nest. Their mother proudly showed them to us. We gathered them up and took them to my grandmother, their mother following behind us, looking a bit nervous. It was the first time I was sure I did actually understand cats. the mother and kittens were placed with one of my grandmother's neighbors, and elderly man named Calvin. I didn't know it then, but my grandfather who I had always been warned to stay away from, probably wouldn't have tolerated the cats' presence in the house.
*about maize. The field behind my grandparents' house was usually planted with a grain plant that my grandparents called maize. Having tried to figure out what it really was, I've looked at all sorts of maize, which is corn of Indian corn, or some other thing that looks like a pine cone. I now believe this "maize" was sorghum.
*about maize. The field behind my grandparents' house was usually planted with a grain plant that my grandparents called maize. Having tried to figure out what it really was, I've looked at all sorts of maize, which is corn of Indian corn, or some other thing that looks like a pine cone. I now believe this "maize" was sorghum.
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