Lessons Learned From a Sassy Female ............ 11/20/14

       I have a new girlfriend.  She's been mentioned here, at the inn.  She's sassy, but quiet.  My type of gal.  She's immodest, doesn't like wearing clothes.  But she loves me dearly----I'm sticking with her.  Her name is Precious, a Himalayan cat.

Precious

      I thought I was training her.  I have.  But, she is
training me, too.  Some of the lessons she's teaching me:

1.  I need patience, if I don't want to be frustrated.  If I wait patiently, I am rewarded.  She has her own time schedule.  I'll call her.  When she is good and ready she draws near to me.

So it is with Precious

2.  She reminds me that relationships require time. Not just patience in the moment, but patience over time, days----going slowly with her.  For two years she lived alone.  Over the past few weeks, I have been picking her up.   Initially, her claws dug into my chest, and arm as she pushed away, wanting the floor.

      Now, I can hold her a full minute and five seconds.  She nods her head while I rub her belly.  Then she gently---with no claws---pushes against me, letting me know she's had enough.

3.  Unpredictability comes with the territory. Acceptance of this fact is necessary if we are to be friends.

    If I lay on the coach, reading, she draws near, wanting affection.  At other times, when I am in the kitchen, if I move my hands suddenly, she turns and runs, all I see are the petticoats of unbrushed hair on her back legs.
4.  I am a sucker when she bats her eyes at me, during the day.  They are a gorgeous blue.  Not the same story at night.  Then, I avoid them. They are a demonic glowing red dots that follow me, when I make a trip to the kitchen or bathroom.
5.  I have to take the good with the bad.  She snorts.  All the time.  She slurps.  All the time.  She is matted, all the time, even though I brush her every day and use scissors to remove the Rastafarian aspects of her appearance.

    Because I accept the minuses of her, along with the pluses, she follows me wherever I go.  She lays beside me, as I study, prep for clients or write. Her fluffy tail brushes my legs as she walks back and forth, beneath them.  Silently, I find her standing next to my chair, facing me, wanting my hands to run through her hair and rub her belly.

6.  Sometimes our friends are less than attractive.  Love them anyway.  Don't say a word about how inwardly grossed out you are.  Precious has sneezing fits.  Twenty, thirty sneezes at a time.  Along with these efforts are buggers that then hang from her nose.  They are gone within seconds. She licks them away.  Being a gentleman, during those times I either look away or focus only on her baby blues.

     And no, I don't let her kiss me.

7.  Expect surprises.  Periodically, green banana slugs appear in the living room or underneath the dining table.  G-R-E-E-N.   Four inches long (10.16 cm.) Using a napkin, I pick them up and put them in the organic waste bag.   Actually they are hair balls that my feline girlfriend coughed out sometime while I slept.

     Even though my other friends are not covered with fur, they wear clothing and do not have routine sneezing fits, I find what I have learned from Precious serves me well when relating  with them, too.