Pat-Downs

I haven’t yet been subjected to an airport pat-down, though I do not question those who describe the experience as intrusive, invasive, and offensive. Who would enjoy being frisked and groped in a TSA security line, especially by an insensitive stranger?

I’m certainly no stranger to Lucius, who has never seen an airport and rarely leaves home, mostly because of suffering from motion sickness (among other maladies of the heart and the mind). But Lucius is a wise sounding board, and so I asked him if he had an opinion on pat-downs.

According to the Tao of Lucius, felines live for pat-downs, particularly the ones classified as enhanced pat-downs. Lucius doesn’t understand the uproar over the TSA guards and does not condone the outrage over the upgraded, full-body scans. Every stroke matters immensely to Lucius, and there is simply no such thing in his world as my lingering too long over the back of his head or in between his shoulders.

“Palms up,” Lucius seemed to say as I approached him this morning for his post-breakfast massage. “Do you want a pat-down,” I asked him teasingly?

“More, please,” meowed Lucius, without any sign of revolt.

Query of the Day: How many pat-downs do you give each day—to your cats, that is?

The Sexiest Man (ly) Cat Alive

It was hard to miss the hoopla this week surrounding the announcement of People magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive.”

Leading up to the big reveal, I heard People’s editors talking excitedly on the morning news shows about the qualities they admire most in the leading men whose buff bodies grace the pages of the magazine's most sexy issue. Topping the editors’ charts for hunk appeal are good looks, humor, and humility. And that description of the ideal sexy man fits L.B. to a T.

So today I am announcing that L.B. is the sexiest man (ly) cat alive! As I have written before on this blog, L.B. is the manliest of our six feline guys at home. He is handsome and amusing, though I’m not sure that humility is always the correct word to use in terms of his baiting Lucius. But L.B. is humble about his origins as a cat who was first discovered outside of a discount store before being given to one of our neighbors, a college student who ultimately abandoned him for this Cat Lady to rescue.

I couldn’t resist L.B. when I saw him for the first time seven years ago. Just look into his bedroom eyes. Who could say no?

Query of the Day: Do you live with a sexy cat?

Switch-Hitter

To quote the one and only Britney Spears, “Oops, I did it again.” First, there was my brother’s dog Luna in Atlanta, and just this morning I fell in love with another dog.

This true story has a very quick and happy ending. When I left for the office today around 7:45 a.m., I remember thinking that I actually had no need to arrive at work so early. Was there a reason why the cats let me leave Catland prior to my customary 8:15 time slot?

Suddenly, a small dog appeared out of nowhere. I could tell that she was bewildered and lost, and I hastily presumed she was abandoned. I don’t store dog food for the fun of it, and I’ve never brought a dog to our cats’ feline-only veterinarian. While my husband entertained the frisky and friendly dog, I called Dr. O., asking her to please advise an ignorant Cat Lady on how best to help a stray of another persuasion. I made an appointment with a canine veterinarian so that the dog could be examined properly, and I drove like a bat out of hell to Walgreen’s to buy some canned dog food and a package of bone-shaped treats.

Fast-forward to about 9:30 this morning, when Dr. O.’s office manager called. “Have you seen the front-page banner on chron.com,” she asked? I visited the Houston Chronicle’s website immediately, and there was a picture of our brand-new friend. Her name is Mei Ling and she is part-Yorkie, part-Maltese. We e-mailed and Tweeted all of the contacts listed for probably only five minutes before the pet’s full-time caregiver came forward with great relief. Turns out little Mei Ling has her own media platforms, too, which is no surprise given that she lives with an ABC News political reporter in Houston.

Every dog may have his or her day, but Mei Ling made my day unexpectedly, positively “woofy.”

Query of the Day: Can a Cat Lady bark for joy over rescuing a dog?

"Am I a Cat Lady?"

Further to my being in New York last week…

While there on business, I had the opportunity to meet a publisher who loves cats and dogs. In fact, during our conversation, her basset hound listened intently as I presented myself as a Cat Lady who enjoys writing about cats. Several days after I returned to Houston, I was happy to receive a message from the publisher, in which she provided a link to a blog sponsored by PetFoodDirect. She knew that the subject would appeal mightily to me: “Am I a Cat Lady?”

Oh, let me count the ways. I didn’t post to the blog itself for fear of crashing the PetFoodDirect server. After all, I could write pages and pages and pages about what being a Cat Lady means to me, and I know that we all feel the same way and also will count our ways, and blessings, via communicating with each other online.

I could relate to the lead blogger’s story about how a coworker gave her the “Crazy Cat Lady Action Figure,” and how upon further inspection of the toy, she thought, “Wait a minute, she kind of looks like me!" I, too, have brown hair and brown eyes, but the similarity to the plastic figure stops there. I have nothing against sweatpants, but I refuse to dress the disheveled part of the Cat Lady who arrives straight out of central casting.

Yet consider this double standard: In the latest issue of T magazine that accompanied this past Sunday's New York Times , a writer traced the path of a prominent antiques dealer in Zurich. According to the article, the dealer “sets off in a scruffy parka to prowl the famous Zurich flea markets. Nothing about this guy blends in, including the fluorescent high-tops, and vendors spot him coming blocks away.”

So, it’s OK to be an antiques dealer who doesn’t dress too well while on the prowl for objets d’art, but a Cat Lady who doesn’t keep up with fashion while rescuing stray cats is ridiculed?

I think we could help overturn the Cat Lady stereotype by not affixing our badges of honor to bathrobes. We have to start somewhere. Meanwhile, I will continue to write about why I am a Cat Lady. Nobody can stop me now!

Query of the Day: Will you wear your Cat Lady badge for life?

Three Guys

I recently returned from a trip to New York City, where long before Starbucks ruled every street corner, there were neighborhood coffee shops with unbranded names like Viand and Three Guys.

When I worked in New York, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I lived a few blocks away from Three Guys on Madison Avenue on the Upper East Side. The burly guys who manned the front counter every morning would have laughed had I ordered a “tall soy no-water chai” for my wake-up drink of choice. Whaa? My light coffee kept me going then, and cats were nowhere in sight.

Now, my three guys go by the name of Lucius, the “little man”; Linus, the “wrestling man”; and T.J., the “wiggle man.” Let me explain.

When Lucius became our first cat, my husband instructed him to help look after me, to be the little man of the house at all hours. When Linus joined the feline crew, he made his mark as the cat who could not stop wrestling with the others. The harder they pounced, the more he enjoyed the tackles. I need to make a recording of his squeals of delight. Before we moved T.J. inside and into the garage apartment, he loved to recline in the driveway and wiggle his body to get my attention. T.J. has not set his paws outdoors in seven years, but you can’t keep a wiggle man from shaking his booty behind closed doors.

There are three other guys at Catland—Leo, L.B., and Alvar—but I have yet to give them nicknames that incorporate the word “man.” In fact, now that I think about it, Leo might not appreciate being called Sweet Potato, but “orange man” sounds even stranger to this Cat Lady’s ear.

Query of the Day: How many guys live with you at home?