In trying times like these, when everything seems unsettled, it’s a good idea to take a step back and remind yourself that some things don’t change.
A sleeping cat is, by definition, cute.
Yuki needs a pillow to sleep soundly, and Rhubarb needs to be used as a pillow before he can doze off.
Synergy!
So when you’re stressed, when you need a break from the insanity, go pat a cat.
Better yet, take a nap with one. Your psyche will thank you.
Yesterday was a busy day for several of the cats. GT, for example, took a trip down to the vet to find out if he could stop wearing the Cone o’ Shame. Unfortunately, it seems the hole in his cheek where the drain was hasn’t quite healed yet*. So he’ll need to keep it on at least through the weekend. He’s not happy about that, but he’s handling the disappointment with dignity–and plenty of gooshy fud.
* I’ll continue to spare you pictures of his wound.
Meanwhile, Watanuki had a long hard day.
He stayed on the bed from breakfast time until mid-afternoon, at which point he made the arduous trek to the dining room.
Note the cute pink pads on that artfully dangling paw. As you can see, they’re quite worn down after his long walk downstairs.
And then there’s Kokoro.
It took hours to convince her favorite reclining chair (me, in other words) to stop fooling around with that typing nonsense and come fulfill my true purpose in life.
She must really have been exhausted after all that tapping on my office door and asking “Are you done yet?” because as soon as I sat down, she settled in and went straight to sleep.
I didn’t even get a thank-you purr. But then, I suppose I don’t thank my favorite rocking chair very often either.
As I write this, Kaja is snoozing in Maggie’s desk chair. Kokoro is snoring on the bed. Yuki and Rhubarb are dozing on the stairs. And Watanuki is curled up with his magic banana, sleeping on the dining room floor.
Notice a pattern here? Yeah, I’m the only one awake in the house. A minor miracle, given the number of Feline Sleep Rays (FSRs) being generated.
Cats have a near-magical ability to force even the most alert human to pass out within minutes. It’s simple: sit down with a cat in your lap. Pat the cat until he or she relaxes and goes to sleep. Almost instantly, your eyelids will begin to droop; shortly after, your chin will be bouncing off of your chest.
Frighteningly, the cat doesn’t actually need to be in your lap. A cat sleeping on chair across the room is nearly as effective as one in contact with you. My own research suggests that unlike Wi-Fi, the strength of the signal is not attenuated by passing through walls. Even worse, the FSRs are apparently not radiated. Radiated electromagnetic signals weaken as a factor of the square of the distance (double the distance and the strength drops to a quarter). FSRs retain an astonishing 90% of their power across the length of the typical home. That suggests that they are actually focused beams directed as specific targets, rather than general broadcasts. They don’t appear to track moving targets well: you can fight off the effect of an FSR by moving around. As soon as you stop moving, though, the FSR will reacquire its target (you).
Interestingly, there seems to be an inverse relationship between feline size and the ability to generate FSRs: on average, kitten-generated rays are 4.2 times as strong as those produced by fully-grown felines. Current scientific speculation is centered around the well-known fact that kittens purr much more loudly than adults; studies suggest that there may be a sub-sonic audio component to the FSR which is produced through a mechanism similar to purring.
With all of their awesome potency, why don’t more people know about FSRs? Conspiracy theories that the CIA and FBI are hiding information about FSRs to cover up their use in covert operations are clearly nonsense: nobody has ever figured out a way to get a cat to take orders. Can you imagine walking up to a foreign embassy with a kitten in your pocket and then trying to convince it to go to sleep so you can sneak past the guards to plant a bug? My suspicion is that the powerful Ambien® lobby is suppressing the information while they try to figure out how to monetize it. Fortunately, there are significant issues that would have to be overcome to make packaging FSR generators, as the brains behind the bonsai kitten discovered back in 2001.
So now the information is out. If this post fails to show up in Google or vanishes from this site, you’ll know the coverup is factual, and I’m sleeping with the fishes instead of the felines.
Koi Scribblings 