Flat Cats

No, not the Heinlein flat cats from The Rolling Stones. Just our problem child Squeak.

So, many mornings Squeak comes onto the bed and demands that I roll onto my back and let her either perch or lie on my chest. Which, generally, I do. Then I pet her some and sort of fold my hands across her and drift back off to sleep. Despite the fact that in general I try to stay off my back when I sleep – in fact my quality of life improved noticeably about two months ago when I figured out a way to prevent myself rolling on my back, which is a subject for another post – I usually drop right back in and sleep well with Squeaky on me. Maybe it has to do with her purring.

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(I love this stuff. Deal.)

Any event, last night I was up way late despite still being kind of worn out by the previous few days (even a fairly major slam home-repair project which my inestimable and in all ways splendid friend Larry did most of the work on. Again.) Something to do with the fact that after I finished a chapter of Dinosaur Lords and discovered I’d erased some stuff I shouldn’t ought’ve, I discovered the software I was using to sync my thumb drive with my notebook was corrupting the files it stored. Serious bummer. Fortunately I’ve other backup means. Not so fortunately implementing them took a while. Anybody know any decent file-synching software for USB drives? Preferably one with crypto?

As a result of all this merriment and high living I slept pretty well. And lo!, sometime after the sun came up I awakened to discover Squeak had fallen back on Plan B: when she couldn’t rouse me to roll onto my back, she clambered onto my upper shoulder, the right one, and lay down there. So I obligingly rolled over and dozed back off.

Until I was awakened by a curious phenomenon. Usually Squeak will lie down with her little black snub-nosed face near mine, retaining your usual basic cylindrical cat body shape. (Occasionally she just sits there. This is because she’s nuts.) But not this time. This time she had undergone the full-on Feline Voluntary Skeletal Dissolution. Except for the hard little head she was snuggling up under my chin.

It was astonishing. The comparison that kept going through my head was to a tire patch – I think my subconscious was grinding on inner-tube patches. She was, well, flat.

She’d roll on her side.. Flat. Onto her back: still flat. At one point she decided to move and drape herself artfully side by side over my stomach. Where she resembled a discarded black dish towel.

She’s never done any of that before. I kept waking up just because it amuse the hell out of me. Even after she woke up, restored integrity to her internal structure, and jumped onto the dresser to stuff her face, I kept awakening and laughing at her all over.

And now I’ve inflicted the little tale on you. There’s no point to it. Like life.

Facts you may not give a poot about but I’m telling you anyway: Squeak’s real name is Mia Antoinette, Red For Short. “Red” isn’t her nickname; “Red For Short” is part of her actual name. Odds are good you’ll have to suffer through that story too, at some point in the future. Meditate and prepare for your ordeal.

Recommended reading:

Mirabile dictu, Baen is reissuing The Rolling Stones in paperback in March. Convenient, eh? Anyway, if you’ve read it your copy is probably falling apart and you need a replacement; and if you haven’t you’d do yourself a favor by checking it out. It’s one of the famous “Heinlein juveniles,” which means awesome. For adults (chronologically at least) as well as kiddos.

As always, if you choose, no pressure, to (pre)order it using the above link, you’ll be supporting me and this site. So the odds will be greatly reduced I’ll have to turn Squeak out to a life of shame on the streets, and shop Emma around to do contract wet work. Not that she wouldn’t likely enjoy that way too much.

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