Curious cats

[gurdonark]

When I was a teen, my family had a cat which, being truly creative and imaginative people, we named "Kitty Kitty". Kitty Kitty was a feisty, friendly, fun little cat. She played and preened and purred and performed acts of telepathy, as all cats do.

Whenever one flashed a flashlight beam on the ground, Kitty Kitty would attack that flashlight as if it were prey. One could make the light go in circles, which would give Kitty Kitty the notion that the prey was eluding her. Her paws would fly across the tile floor, trying to trap that flashlight beam.

So many things about this journal process are like my cat's reaction to that beam. My post is like a paw, reaching out for that moving light. But the paw hits the tile, because the light I'm trying to journal is elusive, and not reducible to words. When I read another journal, the light is even more diffuse, because I am not even sure who is holding the flashlight.

I noticed that Kitty Kitty never got frustrated that she did not capture the light. She just pawed and thrust and clawed and jumped on for minutes at a time. She was never a captor of the light, but it never quite defeated her, either.

Comments

[taebopper.livejournal.com]

Oh my god!! We have a cat that my dad and I call Kitty Kitty! My mom insists on calling her Whsikers, but we think she likes Kitty Kitty better. ;)

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Cool! I love the coincidence. LJ has taught me the wonder of coincident lives. My brother joined the Navy just after college. When he was assigned to his first ship, he reported back to my mom words to the effect that when he told his fellow officers that his family's cat was Kitty Kitty, he learned for the first time that LOTS of people call their cat Kitty Kitty. He had thought, apparently, we were unique :).

[msajiva.livejournal.com]

Close but no cigar. My Mom calls her cat "Kitty". My dog Rascal and just about every dog I've owned chases flashlight beams and reflections. When there's sunlight in the kitchen I often turn the crystal prisms hanging in the windows and Rascal has fun chasing the lights. Dogs are color blind are cats color blind too?

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

That's cool that your dogs chase beams. Our lhasa won't do it, but lhasas are not really "visual" dogs at all.

[wildgarden.livejournal.com]

I hope you have as much fun pouncing about LJ as Kitty Kitty did chasing the flashlight beam.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Amen!

[jayasankarvs.livejournal.com]

The moral of the story/post being..?

[(Anonymous)]

Oh my gosh!! I used to have a black kitten named Kitty Kitty too! I brought her to school once... I was in third grade, and I had a really mean teacher. There was an unscheduled fire drill and I was forced to leave Kitty Kitty inside. I think that warped me for good.

-Adam