Me-ow?

I think my cat needs oiling.

Miss Kitty was an adorable little thing when I brought her home from the shelter several years ago, and I've felt very sorry that she has spent about half her life hiding out from Tank, my Soldier Son's rescue dog that appears to be about 60 pounds of Portuguese pointer. Tank is kind of hard to figure out: he may just really want to be buddies with Miss Kitty, or maybe he thinks she'd be a tasty lunch. I certainly don't blame her for facing up to him with a bit of trepidation.


This week was Kitty's annual check up, so I rounded her up, snapped a leash onto her collar, and stuffed her into the car. She isn't as bad as our previous cats whose Siamese yowls always made the trip interesting, but she did manage to sing the unhappy song for much of the trip. She bore up pretty well on the examining table, but she was more than happy to be set free back at the house.

Like all the other lifeforms around here, she's pretty fond of affection when she can get it, but if she has a choice of providers, I'm not usually high on her list. So I was a little surprised the other morning when she levitated onto my lap and started kneading my collarbone—making biscuits, as my brother says it. I was somewhat surprised by that: she normally isn't too eager to visit me anyway, and if she does, she doesn't usually seem particularly content.

So I was doubly surprised when she settled into a rhythm and started to purr.  At least, I think that was a purr. I haven't heard her purr much, so the sound that was coming out was a little hard to explain. It looked like she was purring, and it felt like she was purring, but the sound was more of a squeak, as if I were stepping on her tail.

Maybe she just needs oil.