“Although it remains the lifelong need of these cats not to accommodate me, neither can they bear for me to long forget their existence. They are always with me. Wherever I am, they are. If I am working, one or the other plops herself down on the desk between me and the computer. If I lie down to read, they are both soon sprawled or curled on the bed beside me. Then again, if I’m watching television, there they are: curled on the couch or sprawled on a nearby chair. Of course, they do not remain stationary during the many hours we are together. Sooner or later, one or the other runs into the kitchen for a quick bite of dry food, or circles the room as though on the prowl, or sniffs insistently at her sister’s rear end; whereupon the attention is either accepted or rebuffed and both cats instantly fall to licking and purring or hissing and spitting. I don’t think I’ve ever in my life wondered as much about the mercurial motivation of a living creature’s behavior as I have watching the cats. It runs constantly through my mind: Why do we do what we do when we do it? Why does Cat One lick Cat Two madly for a few seconds, then sink her teeth into her sister’s neck, then raise her head looking wildly suspicious, and flounce away as though she’s been attacked? Why indeed. It’s just like sex, I sometimes think. How many times has a man said to me, ‘Why now, why not an hour ago?’ A question for which I have had as good an answer as the cats would have, should it be asked of them.
I still envy the people I know whose cats drowse in their laps and sleep in their beds, but (to quote the famous alley cat, Mehitabel) what the hell.”
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How my heart sings 