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Thursday, April 7, 2022

The "Sharing Our Home With Our Favorite Guests" Story

 It was an ordinary day.  Sitting on my lounge chair watching TV.  Seems like it has been weeks since I did anything else but watch TV, nap, eat and type stories, since I am restricted to doing nothing for sometime due to my recent spinal cord stimulator surgery.  So, I read the morning newspaper, watch "Leave It To Beaver" and "The Price is Right" and nap.  Oh, yeah...I seem to always have one of my cats on my lap.  It's as if they take shifts keeping watch over me, making sure I don't do anything that will keep me from getting better as quickly as possible.  But, I never tell them to get off my lap, since is so calming to have a cat sit on my lap and purr just loud enough that I can hear them and at times fell the vibrations through my clothing of their purring.  The Gray Lady and Snickerdoodle are part of our family and my wife Carol and I love both of them.  I recently read a few quotes that describe cats and how they take us into their lives as much as we do them.  It was about 8,000 years ago that cats started hanging around farming communities and fed off of mice that were attracted to farm crops.  The farmers realized how lucky they were to have the cats to take care of unwanted rodents and eventually the cats became domesticated...or maybe just semi-domesticated.  Dogs offer an entire range of helpful abilities such as hunting, guarding and herding, but cats...well they tend to do their own thing.  Today cats are the most prevalent furry pet in the world.  They are eccentric and often mysterious creatures, but for many cat owners, that makes them even more lovable.  Over the past few centuries, many famous figures have expressed their love and admiration for their feline companions, just as my wife and I have done.  We wouldn't be without them and vice-versa.  The following are a few quotes that I found telling how some people feel about their cats.  Enjoy reading!

I believe cats to be spirits come to earth. A cat, I am sure, could walk on a cloud without coming through.

— Jules Verne


There are no ordinary cats.

— Colette


The cat is above all things, a dramatist.

— Margaret Benson, author and Egyptologist


What greater gift than the love of a cat?

— Charles Dickens


If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat.

— Mark Twain


I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.

— Jean Cocteau


If you want to be a psychological novelist and write about human beings, the best thing you can do is to keep a pair of cats.

— Aldous Huxley


A cat has absolute emotional honesty. Human beings, for one reason or another, may hide their feelings, but a cat does not.

— Ernest Hemingway


Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat.

— Robert A. Heinlein


The cat does not offer services. The cat offers itself. Of course he wants care and shelter. You don’t buy love for nothing. Like all pure creatures, cats are practical.

— William S. Burroughs


If you’re feeling bad, you just look at the cats, you’ll feel better, because they know that everything is, just as it is. There’s nothing to get excited about. They just know. They’re saviors.

— Charles Bukowski


Cats know exactly where they begin and end. When they walk slowly out the door that you are holding open for them, and pause, leaving their tail just an inch or two inside the door, they know it. They know you have to keep holding the door open.

— Ursula K. Le Guin


In ancient times cats were worshiped as gods. They have not forgotten this.

— Terry Pratchett


I have lived with several Zen masters — all of them cats.

— Eckhart Tolle


I've met many irresponsible people in my life but never an irresponsible cat.

— Rita Mae Brown, author


Way down deep, we’re all motivated by the same urges. Cats have the courage to live by them.

— Jim Davis, creator of "Garfield"


Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are God. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are God.

— Christopher Hitchens


You can train cats to do anything they want to.

— Ricky Gervais


So...hopefully you will get the idea why my wife and I wouldn't part with our two cats that found their way to our back door a few years ago and are now residents of our house just as we are.  And...we love them dearly!  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.

 

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