It Was the CAT!*

We have this cat, Bubba (not his real name).** He's 21-and-a-half-years-old and I've had him since he was a day shy of eight weeks old. (Much longer, actually, than I've had my husband.) Although perhaps not as cute to strangers as this or this, he is the light of my life. He's also been in a state of compensated renal function for the last three years so I guess you could say that he's...uh...a little spoiled.

So, when Bubba wants to sleep with us, we let him. Even though he takes up more than his fair share of the bed.

He's not a big cat. In his heyday he might have weighed 11 pounds, but now he's down to about 7.4 (hey, that .4 is important! We're pretty proud of holding him to the same average weight for over three years). And yet, he manages to end up with half the freakin' bed to himself! And we don't move him. Oh, no, he's too fragile for that. Fragile, and stubborn. And talented. Even asleep, he does a damn good imitation of an immovable lump.

Last night he slept just slightly on JT's side of the bed, about knee-level, so that JT had nowhere to put his long legs. Except on my side of the bed. He's a foot taller than me, and so has a tendency to sleep on a bit of a diagonal anyway, but last night, by the time he got his legs situated on the Hannah side of Bubba, I kid you not, I was sleeping on the freakin' edge of the bed! And every time JT moved, I woke up. Every time. He would sigh, and groan, and move his legs incrediby sloooowly. I was just waiting for him to tell me he didn't have any room, and then I was going to point out, self-righteously, who really didn't have any room. Because usually? I'm as much to blame as the cat for crowding JT.

The only one who got any sleep last night? Was the cat. Which is really unfair, as he sleeps all day anyway. In fact, he's asleep right now.

*flashback to a production of Stuart Little in the children's theatre, where the audience tends to talk back to the actors. When Mrs. Little said, "Why, how did Stuart's jacket get over here by the mouse hole?" a little girl said, loudly enough to be heard backstage, "It was the cat!"

**psudeonyms all around. The last time we were at the veterinary acupuncture clinic, the vet's wife/receptionist/world's friendliest woman called him Bubba. (Yes, she knows his real name. She should. We've been spending many dollars there on a monthly basis for 3 1/2 years now. ) It was a nickname. An endearment. Trust me, it was cute.