I stepped over the tomcat Trouble this evening again on the way downstairs to pee and maybe snag something to ease my thirst. Once I got by him I reached back to pet him. Once I did that he stretched out and laid out a large left paw upon my forearm with all of his claws out for a stretch but made sure that only his soft pink foot pads made contact with my flesh. Claws out and paw extended the tomcat has six razor-sharp weapons on but one front paw. But he's a gentle fellow.

On a lot of afternoons the Momcat will jump into my lap on the recliner. I'm just wearing my drawers in the heat. I'll be reading or just be watching TV more sober than my mother ever was. And yet when Mister Mittens is snoozing on me with her front paws on my belly and her back legs up aginst my legs in the recliner I feel every tip of her claws. She won't slice me with them but you always know that the claws are there.

Before dawn in bed when Mister Mittens is giving out gentle head butts and soft-paw face swipes and lovely stares with her emerald-green eyes and accepting belly rubs for breakfast you begin to understand she might be a close relative to that young Mexican lady you met in Tiajuana almost a half century ago.

Ah...just think...you'll have (hopefully) 15 years of morning wake-ups.