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Hi,
I’m Emma and this is my brother Winston. We’re cats. (Good ones, of
course. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.) Twins, actually. The only
cats in Deborah’s apartment. We’re here to tell you how we keep ourselves
entertained during our spare time (which is all of our time). We have so much
spare time because Deborah is kind enough to take care of us. She doesn’t
spend enough time with us, though. We like it when she’s home more.
Regardless, we keep busy. Our time alone, for instance, is absolutely full.
We sleep a lot, of course, so we’ll have plenty of energy to stay awake
when Deborah’s around (we’ll tell you about our favorite time to be
awake later—when she’s asleep. We’ll also tell you about our
favorite ways of sleeping. It’s a particular hobby of ours.) And when we’re
not sleeping, we spend a lot of time plotting. What do we plot? New entertainments,
of course. New things to do with Deborah (which definitely keep us amused).
And ways to be amused by visitors to the apartment. And new things to play with
in the apartment. Everyone needs planning time these days—even us. We multi-task
as much as the rest of you.
When we’re not plotting new things to do, we’re practicing. It’s
not easy work, some of the stuff we do. We have to work hard at getting ready
to do some of it. Even sleeping, for instance, is hard to work up to. We try
to be original. That’s not easy. And being cute all the time? Sure, just
because we’re naturals doesn’t mean we allow ourselves slack. We always
work hard at being cuter (mostly so we can get away with more. But that’s
a subject for another time). We demand the highest standards of ourselves.
So our basic point is, of course, that just because all our time is spare time
doesn’t mean that it’s not carefully structured and fully used time.
That’s a myth you people have about cats, you and your Habits of Highly
Effective People. Well, we work hard for those perfect moments in which we carry
out some beautiful plan like licking your elbow at 3 a.m. And we simply don’t
understand why you don’t seem to appreciate it. That, among other superbly
conceived and carried out moments, was a carefully planned maneuver. We work
hard for successes like that.
Now don’t think we have anything against you humans. We’re not trying
to be antagonistic, just trying to clear up some misconceptions about us cats.
Don’t think we’re not friendly—we’re some of the friendliest
cats around. We just want you to know right off the bat that just because we
stay at home and seem to sleep a good majority of our time doesn’t mean
we’re not working. We are working hard. But we can see you might not be
convinced of this quite yet. So I suppose we’ll have to tell you a few
of our entertainment secrets, just to show you how much we put into it.
So stay tuned for more from us in a little column Deborah writes down for us
(we’re way too busy to learn how to write). It’s called “A Cat’s
Eye View of Entertainment.” At any rate, we’ll tell her a few of our
secrets from time to time. But right now, Winston and I are going to take a
nap. Signing off, Emma.
***Will Emma and Winston feel the wrath of a non-morning person when they try
to wake Deborah up in the morning? What new moves do they have up their, er,
fur? What’s waking a human up like from the cats’ point of view anyway? Find
out the answers to these questions and more in next month’s “Cat’s Eye
View of Entertainment.”***
