Each morning daybreak tiptoes through my bedroom window, nudging me on the shoulder. And each morning, I pretend to ignore it, turning my face to the darkest corner of the room where night still clings. But the wee hours of dawn have accomplices in my bedroom. I’m yanked from the arms of slumber by 16 pounds of house cat flopping across my chest with a resounding “whump”, followed by the slap of fur as a tail methodically pummels my face. Attempting to escape this feline flogging, I turn my attention to the soft trilling chirp now emanating from my left hip. I can feel the rhythmic squeezing of kitten fingers on my knee, but all I see is a flat-panel truckload of silver tabby tummy waiting to be stroked. Draping her chin across my leg, Momma’s Little Princess gazes up lovingly and reminds me that “bellies are for petting”. On sitting up to reach kitty’s tum-tum for some early morning scratching, I dislodge the cat loaf from my chest who now rolls into my lap, spilling toes and whiskers in every direction. This ruckus awakens the dog, of course. All 70 pounds of him proceeds to stretch, stiffening his legs and firmly entrenching the claw hammers at the ends of his toes into my ribs. He drapes his head across my neck and sticks out his tongue at the wad of cat still wallowing in my lap, who promptly spits at the dog and jumps off the bed. Stopping at the bedroom door to toss a challenging glance over his shoulder, the living Halloween cat cut-out then leaps into the air and charges down the hall, with kitten and dog in hot pursuit. The trio races across the wood floors, drifting through every turn with speed that would make a Formula One driver envious. I lie in bed for a few seconds more and almost drift back to sleep, when I hear the shatter of something I’m sure is important crashing to the floor in the living room - or my home office. I know when I reach the site of the disaster, I’ll be greeted by three innocent “It was like that when we got here” faces, but I clamber out of bed and greet the day anyway. Time to rise and shine.
Following the rupture of a tumor on her hind leg and subsequent surgery to remove it last month, the biopsy results are back.
