Toto vomited on the bed again today. She does this all the time.

It’s not so bad if we discover the hairball midday, but it’s kind of a pain if we don’t notice it until we’re ready for bed. This time was sort of in between. Kris happened to wander into the bedroom just after dinner, and from her loud cursing, I could tell what had happened.

Sometimes Toto manages to get the outermost layer of bedclothes, which is fine. But often — like tonight — she pukes all over the fitted sheet.

“Can you help me take the covers off?” Kris hollered down to me. I was writing at the kitchen table.

“In a few minutes,” I called back. “I’m in the middle of something.” I had spent all day trying to craft a rare personal-finance article about credit cards. I couldn’t find the right tone. I was frustrated.

I continued to write while Kris watched the Republican National Convention. Half an hour later, she came downstairs.

“Do you need help with the bed?” I asked.

“It’s too late,” she muttered. “I’ve already done it.” Out of the corner of my eye, I could see she was carrying something in her arms. Oops.

Later, when it was time for bed, I went to the laundry room to fetch the sheet. It was dark, but I didn’t bother to turn on the light. The sheet was easy to spot amidst the socks and t-shirts. I also found a pillowcase. “Toto must have vomited on that, too,” I thought.

“Just one sheet and one pillowcase?” I asked Kris just to be certain.

“Yes,” she said. I went upstairs to make the bed.

When I got there, however, I noticed that both of my pillowcases were missing. (I sleep with two pillows, and have done so for most of my life: one for my head and one for my side.) I sighed and walked back to the laundry room to fetch the other one. I couldn’t complain, of course. If I’d helped Kris in the first place, I would have known how many pillowcases were in the dryer.

We made the bed. Kris fed the cats their bedtime treats. (Each cat gets three “greenies”, a sort of organic treat they love. Then they’re kicked out of the bedroom. Except on Cat Night. Cat Night occurs once or twice a week, and is a cause for much feline celebration. On that night, they’re allowed to sleep in the bedroom. Of course, during the summer it’s rare that all four cats are even ever in the house at the same time, even over night. Tonight, for example, Simon is outside and refuses to come when called.)

The bed made and the cats indulged, I went to my office to write.

“Aren’t you coming to bed?” Kris asked.

“I’m not done with tomorrow’s post,” I said. And I’m not. I can’t find the right tone, and I’m not sure if I should list specific credit cards. Hell — I’m not even sure I should cover credit cards at all. I’ve given them a wide berth so far.

“Oh,” Kris said sadly. Then she said, “Where’s my pillowcase?”

“What?” I asked.

“Where’s my pillowcase?” she said.

I got up from my desk and walked to the bedroom to gave her my best look of incredulity. Then I said, “When I asked you if there was just one sheet and one pillowcase, you told me yes.”

“I know,” she said.

“But then I came up here and I put that one pillowcase on my pillow, and I realized that you were wrong. My other pillow needed a pillowcase, too. So I walked back downstairs to fetch it.”

Kris realized what I was getting at. She started to laugh. I continued my lament: “And now you tell me there were actually three pillowcases in the laundry?” I let out a long, dramatic sigh and trudged downstairs.

“See how it is to live with you?” Kris called behind me as she continued to laugh. I confess that I laughed a little, too. Our roles in this sort of situation are usually reversed.

Now if only Kris could see how it is to live with her.

Disclaimer: I love my wife, and would not share these stories if I didn’t think they were fun.

I was awakened last night by a jab in the ribs. “Wake up!” Kris said. “Wake up!”

“Huh?” I said through the hiss of the C-PAP machine. “What’s up?”

“Look,” she said, pointing to her side of the bed. I looked.

“What?” I said.

“Look,” she said. “Look at the cats.” Toto was by her head while both Max and Simon were by her feet. Only Nemo was missing.

“Yeah,” I said. “Three in a row.” I turned over to go back asleep.

“Look again,” she said. I groaned and rolled over to look. “Look at Max and Simon,” she said. I looked more closely, and then I realized what she meant. Max and Simon were huddled close together, and Max was draped over Simon’s haunches. In essence, they were cuddling.

Now I know this is no big deal for many cat owners. Most cats like to cuddle with each other. Not our cats. Our cats may be friendly to one another (with the exception of Toto), but they do not cuddle. It’s just not done. In fact, it has never been done in the fifteen years we’ve had multiple cats. This was the very first time.

“That’s cute,” I said, adjusting the C-PAP mask. I pulled the covers over my head and fell asleep.

In the morning, Max and Simon were still on the bed, but they were no longer cuddling. I’ll probably have to wait another fifteen years to see that happen again.

Last fall at Animal Intelligence, I shared a two-minute video of a cat who was raised by a crow. A reader recently pointed me to a longer video with a more complete story on this unlikely friendship:

There is nothing I like more than stories of interspecies friendship. I love the idea that different kinds of animals can communicate and empathize with one another. Now if only our cats would be nice to the blue jays…

I’ve just returned home from my morning workout, and am sitting at the computer writing a piece for Get Fit Slowly. I can hear Maxwell thumping around, but I’m not really paying attention. Soon, however, the thumps turn into squawks, and then to growls.

Max and Nemo wrestle a lot, so I’m not too concerned. They take turns being the aggressor. Sometimes Max pummels Nemo. Sometimes Nemo pummels Max. They both love it.

As I’m typing, the growls and cries become more distressed, so I go to the bedroom to see what is the matter. Max is on top of Nemo, chomping him. Nemo is trying to thumper his way out, but is having no success. The fur is flying. Literally. Chomp chomp, thumper, growl.

Being a good father, I don’t break up the fight. Instead, I stand and watch as they roll around on the bed. Toto is sleeping on a chair in my office. Simon is sleeping on the kitchen table, in a box of my clothes. He’s been there for the past twelve hours. Or had been there. Here he comes now.

Simon comes clump clump clumping up the stairs in a fat cat run. He’s heard the squawking and yowling, and wants to see what’s the matter. He charges past me, hops onto the bed, and stares at his brothers. They stop wrestling. They look at him. He looks at one and then the other.

I can’t tell if they’re saying something in a secret cat language, but both Max and Nemo fall apart, moving away from each other. Simon continues looking from one to the other. Then he looks back to me as if to say, “Dad, it’s your job to keep them from fighting.”

Max hops down and goes to the guest room for a bite to eat. Nemo slinks downstairs. Simon curls up on the bed and falls back asleep.

Footnote: As I’m writing this, the cats take turns coming into the office. First Max comes charging in, flails around on the floor, then barrels downstairs. A couple minutes later, Nemo strolls in, sits down, gives himself a bath for five minutes, and then leaves. Toto is still asleep on the chair. Maybe she’s dead!

When Toto was younger, she was an agile hunter. She would fly across the lawn and nab unsuspecting birds in mid-air. At the old house, she would sit beneath the rhododendron, and then make a dash and leap to catch birds at the feeder. At night, she would spring gracefully from the ground to the nightstand, not making a sound.

But now she is no longer graceful. She’s almost fourteen years old. Somewhere along the way — about the time we moved from Canby to Oak Grove — her agility evaporated, seemingly overnight. Now it’s a challenge for her to leap from the floor to the couch. She’s clumsy — all claws. It’s sad to see, because I know that deep in her heart she still wants to be a hunter.

This morning we’re sitting in the parlor, writing. Well, I’m writing — Toto is keeping me company. She’s watching the birdfeeder outside. A screechy jay keeps landing on it, declaring his woes to the world. Smaller birds stop in once and a while.

Toto finds this all very interesting, and she’s been practicing that special cat cackle that means, “Birds, I will eat you.” But of course she won’t eat them. She no longer has the agility. I know it’s probably just my imagination, but I think this makes her sad.

Sitting above her, latched to the window frame, is the fake crow that Kris gave me for Christmas. I’m not sure what the crow’s intended purpose is, but I use it to torment the cats. “Oh look! A bird in the house! And it’s coming after you!” Toto, however, isn’t scared of it — indeed, she finds it fascinating.

After cackling at the jay at the feeder for a couple minutes, she’ll look up at the crow. She’ll stand on her hind legs, lean against the frame, and reach for the fake bird. Toto wants it. But she doesn’t put much energy into. I think her bones hurt or something. Maybe she has arthritis. I feel so sad for her.

Yessir, this full-time writing stuff is going to be amazing.

On Sunday, I generated ten blog posts on various topics. (None of them for foldedspace, sadly.) Today, I produced 28 single-spaced pages for an e-book project. The mind boggles. (Of course, much of that material was refurbished from previous bits, but still…there was plenty of new stuff, too.)

When I’m able to work without interruption, I get a lot done.

Unfortunately, we have four cats. This may not seem like an issue on the surface, but it is. At any one time, there’s at least one (and sometimes two or three) cats who want my attention. They drove me nuts this afternoon!

Eventually I had to banish the beasts outside. For three hours they pawed at the window and gave me their most forlorn looks. I ignored them. I got stuff done. Then I let them in and they were up on the table, begging for attention. Poor things.

Cats? We have cats? For those of you who have been craving a cat update, here’s a video I took last month. It features are three boys and their insane desire to be OUTSIDE:

Have I mentioned that I love my digital camera? It’s small, it has wide-angle capability, and it takes video. I actually use it more for videos than for photos. It’s more fun that way…

Kris and I have owned cats for fifteen years now. (Or maybe I should say that cats have owned us.) For fifteen years, we’ve struggled to get a good night’s sleep.

Tintin wasn’t so bad. He wasn’t much of a bed sleeper. But when he did sleep on the bed, he was a nuisance. He had “pokey paws”. When he stood on you, it was as if he were channeling all of his mass into four very sharp points.

When Toto came along, she was an immediate nuisance. We slept on a futon at the time, and that little black kitten would crawl on us at night, cuddling up under our chins to suckle on the fringe of one of our blankets. When I couldn’t take her sucking, purring, and kneading anymore, I’d hurl her to the foot of the bed. But she’d march right back up to suck on the fringe some more.

As she grew older, the fringe sucking stopped. But she developed other bad habits. She began to paw paw paw Kris’ hair in the middle of the night. While this sounds cute, it has always kept Kris awake. And Kris, in her infinite wisdom, sees fit to then wake me to tell me that she can’t sleep. Ugh.

Toto has always loved the bed, but this has become even more pronounced since we moved to the new house. She sleeps there all day. She sleeps there all night. It’s her throne. She’s the Queen of the Night.

Lately, our three boys have become bed monsters, too.

Simon isn’t so bad. He sleeps at Kris’ feet and is relatively still. He’s just a dead weight.

Nemo, however, is a nuisance. He has some of the same pokey paws that Tintin used to have, but more of a problem is that he picks some inconvenient spot at about waist level and plants himself there. He’s immovable. Immovable, that is, until Toto realizes he’s there and begins hissing and growling at him. Then he skitters away with a squeak.

Max, on the other hand, sleeps at my feet. Or with my feet. Or something. Basically, he waits for me to move my toes, and then he chomps. It’s not too painful — just annoying.

The real problem, though, is that when all four cats are on the bed at once, there isn’t any room for the humans. This makes the humans cranky!

In fact, Kris has been so cranky about the cats lately that she’s banned them from the bedroom. Oh, Toto can still have the bed during the day (Queen of the Light!), but when bedtime comes, she’s moved to the futon in the TV room. She wasn’t happy at first (nor were her brothers), but she’s learned to accept this, I think. I’m glad. Now, for the first time in fifteen years, we’re starting to get sound nights of sleep.

I was pleased this afternoon to come home and remember that I was supposed to do prep work for dinner. I took out the chicken breasts, cleaned them, and cut them into chunks. Kris had asked me to put the chicken pieces into a bowl, and so I did.

I was nearly finished with my task when I was distracted by the zhoop of a chat window opening in the other room. It was my “imaginary colleague” Leo from Zen Habits. We chatted for a few minutes, discussing possible guest posts.

When we’d finished, I came back to the kitchen to finish my work. What did I find? My three hairy sons on the counter, clustered around the bowl of chicken. “A feast!” they sang. “Dad left us a feast!” They saw me come in. “Thanks, Dad! We always did like you better than Mom.”

Their praise was short-lived. I clapped my hands and shouted, sending the two younger boys in various directions. Simon, however, took this as an invitation to choose the choicest piece.

When I tried to take his prize from him (after snapping this photo, of course), Simon growled his low, nasty growl. “I hate you, Dad,” he said. “I always did like Mom better.”

I guess our chicken dinner will have tooth marks. We’ll give those pieces to Tiffany.

Meanwhile, as I’ve sat here in the kitchen typing this story, all three boys have returned to the counter, eagerly searching for the delicious treasure that was there only moments before. (They glare at me from time-to-time — they know I’m responsible for spoiling their fun.)

Anyone want to come over for dinner tonight?

[via Amanda]