You can’t help it. “Oh Ta,” you ask, “I love your cats as much as the next Topaz & Drusy Groupie – by the way, we’re totally having a Groupie Weekend with matching t-shirts and koi cupcakes because We Heart teh Little Black Catses! – but you’re three for three. What gives?”

Princess Drusy in gray, size 7.

About the little things I may never shut my elegant trap, but about big stuff I’m more circumspect. A few weeks ago, a sports medicine doctor stared at my X-rays and went a little pale. On the one hand, I was wildly relieved that whatever was causing my cross-eyed complaining was visible on film. On the other, I wish my problems had been a little more camera-shy. The stupefying outcome of this appointment: apparently, I haven’t been complaining enough.

I know. I didn’t see that coming.

Side-by-side Drusy-to-Sweetpea size comparison.

Pete and I took stock of our situation and did what anyone would do: we went shopping. We obsessively scoured the intertoobz for stationary bicycles and non-skid footwear for yoga and pilates. Then we went out and sat on a score of stationary bikes and finally we bought one, which turned out to be the cheapest one we saw anywhere. I bought two pair of new sneakers with sturdy treads, and that was good news for little black cats who fit perfectly into boxes the size of two of my shoes.

Exercise has always been the answer. I’m going to need non-skid yoga gloves.

A girl and her trebuchet.

Princess Drusy, she of the fawn-like legs and kissy disposition, loves to share a glass of water with her favorite humans. I oblige her by pouring eight to twelve ounces of her preferred potable into widemouth glasses, taking a sip myself and setting them down where she will find them. She sweetly obliges me by drinking, drinking, drinking and wandering off to be wonderful elsewhere – unless I too am on the move. Then Drusy must know where and why, especially if it might involve the bathroom and another drink from the sink.

The giant kitten wants me all to herself. That should come as no surprise to you since all of the cats want me all to themselves. I’m like a rock star to them.

This is not my cat. I lack the fu of Photoshop that everyone in the whole world seems to have now. Even so, every morning, the giant kitten I call Sweetpea and Pete calls Attila the Adorable Hun decides at an indecent hour that it is time for me to wake up. If the bedroom door has been open all night, this decision is delivered in the form of a 14 pound cat landing on my head which, you’ll be pleased to hear, is irresistably delicious. If the bedroom door has been closed all night, Sweetpea bashes her head against the door in a manner that suggests I might need a bigger boat.

Or maybe I should quit chumming before bedtime, I can’t say. In the old days of tiny Topaz and swift Drusy’s heartwrenchingly adorable and terrifying kitteny morning rampages, I could shut the bedroom door and pout that they might miss me. Now I worry that I might be causing a kitty concussion. I bet the Beatles felt the same way.

Topaz, Queen of the Jungle.

When everything else goes straight to Hell, Pete and I still have Sundays. Pete’s a cyclist and it’s finally warm enough for him to spend an hour this morning on the bike trails along the canal. I skipped an exercise class in favor of rowing upstairs in the attic and discovered the cats love the baker’s rack by a south-facing window and mid-morning sunbeam naps. Rowing makes a racket on the ancient machine but Drusy dozed the whole half hour. I crept downstairs to retrieve the camera but turned around and found her at my heels. Knowing it is totally irresistible to pussycats, I marched all the way back up to the attic and plunked down on the floor, which was like calling the cats through the anchovy phone.

Lovely Drusy days ago discovered the scarf Mom knitted for my birthday. Atop the mantle is Drusy’s favorite perch, where the company of the ancient, carved bear with guitar does not deter our tiny friend from mewing at invisible companions. The scarf, a recent arrival, seems to comfort her. I cannot say why she might be distressed. She has the happiest life of anyone, human or otherwise, I’ve ever known. I have a collection of watches that stopped on my wrist because I’m quite magnetic. Drusy’s favorite toy is an orange plastic watch with a tiny ball bearing game on its face. She steals it and drags it all over the house. Sometimes, we find it on our bed like a present. Sometimes, the watch rattles piteously in a far corner of the house. She is our queen; we are mere servants.

You look at that Mexican blanket and you just know it’s no match for three cats with claws.

Tata: When Drusy goes to the bathroom with you –
Pete: Drusy doesn’t go to the bathroom with me.
Tata: What?
Pete: She bats the pee stream.
Tata: …I can’t breathe!
Pete: I had to clean the bathroom walls of your last apartment once and that was enough.
Tata: So – what happens? The cats run to the bathroom with you and file their nails while they wait respectfully outside?
Pete: I don’t know what they’re doing. I’m inside.
Tata: Okay okay okay then you would not at all know what I was about to ask you if you knew, which is if you’ve seen the other cats feel around under the bathroom door and when Drusy sees that she leaps through the air. I mean, leaps straight up up up and pounces near but not on the upside-down paw. You haven’t seen that?
Pete: Nope.
Tata: It’s your turn to clean the bathroom.

Sorry I’ve been quiet. Bit of a snowstorm beating a path across my brainstem. I considered curling up into a ball on the couch but I didn’t actually feel bad – just stupid, and when I say I felt stupid, I think I actually sat at my desk yesterday and stared into space. I’m not sure precisely because I was, you know, stupid. Perhaps it’s just a coincidence that sometime this week the kitten here, whom we’re now calling by the first common noun that springs to mind despite our settling on Piccolina as a Bugs Bunny-inspired moniker, has taken to waking me up by flopping down on my head, licking my hair and stabbing me with her adorably needle-like kitten claws. This is not the first time a pussycat decided to festively recoif me. You will note the kitten practices what she sees the older cats do, including sharing glasses of water with me. Water is especially delicious if I’ve taken a few sips from the cup. Pete makes faces, but he forgets he’s covered with the spit of adoring kitties. Drink up, girlies!