November 29th 2009

    I like to think that the Grey Cat sulks when his mistress leaves us.  Otherwise I am left with the impression that he blames me for her absence.  I get the accusing look from him.  The unblinking stare with questions.

    I'll offer explanation but he knows I am lying.  Nowhere in the panoply can he find a reasonable explanation for why I am preparing his breakfast beyond the certain knowledge that I have done away with her.  Left her parts somewhere for consumption at a later time.

    So I leave the kitchen to let him sniff his plate.  Then when he knows I am not looking he might even try eating some, if only so that later he has something to regurgitate on the floor by my chair.

    Of course, when the Grey Cat is alone with me, it is an opportunity for him to return to that place he came from so many generations ago.  Independent, free spirited, prowling the kitchen table, drinking from the kitchen sink.  Awash with hormonal impulse he'll dare me to deprive him of.  And when finally his mistress does return from the dead, she thinks the Grey Cat is ignoring her, because when she returns he suddenly takes an interest in me.

   But I am only a cog in the machinations of the Grey Cat's mind.  Pretty soon there is cooing and other unseemly displays of forgiveness and welcome home.   And while I am often thankful that we are not doggy people, it more often strikes me as peculiar to find myself thoroughly attached to so dreadful a character as the Grey Cat possesses.    

tim candler

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