I wish I had great bed stories that involved women forty or even fifty years (legal in NY) younger than me but this is about cats.

I went to bed safe, sane and sober on Thursday night after my last pee. On my way upstairs I stopped off in the den to hug the teen bride and kiss her lovely silver-blond head that used to be all-blond just several hundred weeks ago.

On my way upstairs I had to pass by the kitchen and the momcat Mister Mitten was sitting at her treat dish. I stopped. She glared. I told her she'd catch a great breakfast and that she had eaten enough. I went upstairs to go to bed and I did.

While dozing off something jumped into my bed and flopped by my feet. I knew it was the tomcat Trouble in the dark because on those rare occasions that he sleeps upstairs that's where he crashes. I grabbed the folded lap blanket next to me and threw it over him. He slapped my right forearm hard with his front right paw and then grabbed my arm with his jaws before he went back into a collapse. I got hit with soft cat foot pads (the razors stayed in) and the nip from the four enormous fangs never punctured my arm. He's a sweet huge beast after good treatment here from the moment he was born. I covered him up and gently rubbed his skull and the back of his neck and shoulders until he purred himself off to sleep. It doesn't take long.

Fast forward to 4:48 a.m. Friday morning (I have a digital clock on a night table). The tom is gone. His mother Mister Mittens is "Sphinx" by my left arm while I'm on my back. She has just shoved her left front into my nose to wake me up for her breakfast. This girl has some wicked retractable razor claws buried in those fronts (like every cat) but all I catch is the noodge from the paw pads. I roll over on my right side. She jumps over me and goes "Sphinx" next to me with her face close to mine.


I feel cat breath on my face and that's not bad. Unlike a dog a healthy cat's breath is warm and odorless. She gives me the old one/two - a gentle head butt into my face and a gentle paw swipe (claws in) across my neck. I roll over to turn on a light while she leaves my bed on a leap with a gallop like she has rockets in her ass.

Cats are patient and understand the humans that mope around their territory. I get down the stairs OK as a 67-year-old man quite well. I flip on the kitchen light on my way to the bathroom and see the mother cat off the street sitting next to her feed dish just as still as can be.

Like I said, cats are patient. The momcat understands that as an old duffer I must pee, fart, sigh, moan, curse the world as an old Marine and scratch my old equipment before I get by first gear.

When I get back to the kitchen Shiloh and her brother Trouble are there and now I have six green cat eyes staring at me. I feed them. They eat well and race off to a warm bed (not upstairs). They leave me in the kitchen yawning and maybe scratching some more.

Yeah, I like cats a little bit.

The Mittens' family scored when the mom cat picked the 1/4 pole residence!