Mission Impossible

              I’m on a mission.  Actually, at my directive, my whole family is on a mission.  Our sanity and health depend upon the success of this task.  Our job is to keep The Catling awake during the day.  She has become a Demon of the Night, and we need to suck the energy out of her during the daylight so that she putters to a quiet purr at night.

                These cold winter days are making this nearly impossible.  Being of the heat seeking variety of feline, Lyra the Catling finds a warm spot to occupy and quickly drifts off into a content dream.  Since all the dog beds and sofas are empty I am fooled into thinking she is outside playing or wrestling her brother downstairs.  But, no!  I walk into the living room to find her sprawled out, belly-up in a golden sunspot under the picture window.  When the long shadows of winter fade into evening, our gas stove works like morphine on her small frame.  Once curled up below the flames, the most movement we see is her brief joyful twinkle as she gazes up at the fire with pure love, as if the iron box was her own mother.

                What are the stakes?  Imagine yourself in a deliciously deep slumber, when a furry, purring beast, with un-retractable claws (a birth defect) that are as sharp as a box of needles, climbs onto your face for a love session.  She rubs her face on your face, and can’t help but give love bites to your nose and chin. When she is rested this session goes on and on and on.  You lock her out of the room, only to have her poking her paws through the gap beneath the door, pulling and scratching at the wood.  You give up and let her in.  She is quiet for a moment, but then starts playing hockey with the objects on your desk.  At last she gets bored and decides to play ricochet ball on the wooden steps with her bouncy balls.  The last game is a relief, because at least the sound is distant and happy.

Even Alfie the Turtle can't get her to move

                On a normal mild-weather-play-outside-chase-butterflies kind of day, Lyra’s bed-time love session would end after a couple of minutes as she falls asleep from exhaustion.  But these cold winter days leave her no choice but to sleep all darned day to leave her refreshed for a night of play.  I do my best to disrupt her daytime naps.  I pet her, poke her, move her, play with her, even drag her limp body across the carpet far away from the heat source.  But she persists and drags herself across the carpet to bask in the radiant warmth.

Lyra sniffing catnip and dreaming

 Today I attempted to tease her by hog-tying her tiny legs with my pony-tail-holder while she snored on the dog bed, but she didn’t even notice.  She merely smiled and stretched while the hair-tie sprung away from her toes. This evening I put catnip right under her nose.  She just closed her eyes and inhaled, dozed off and had the best psychedelic dream, ever.

                I will have to admit defeat today.  Tonight will no doubt be long and torturous for the humans in the house.  It’s a lucky thing for Lyra that she is the Catling, a diminutive runt so innocent, dimwitted and adorable, or she might be in big trouble.