Welcome to the second of a three-part series known as "The Cats Of OC."
This is Buffy. And like Alice, she has a long list of nicknames: Dearest One, Barfy, The Cat That Knows Stephen Hawking, The Lapcat Singularity, and The Philosopher's Stoned.
She came to me via a long, convoluted game of Six Degrees Of Seperation as my then-girlfriend's mother's friend's daughter's co-worker (Got it? Good. There may be a quiz.), whose parents happen to be highly allergic to cats, had to boomerang back to the empty nest after a particularly nasty divorce. And due to me already living with The Amazing Pretzel Cat (Scroll down if you missed it. For you can't miss her.), it came down a long line of "Hey, do you know anyone who likes cats?" and brought her into my life. For which I am profoundly pleased.
Unlike Alice, however, Buffy did not come from a pet store. She originally was found at the Denver Dumb Friends League (Please, send them some love. They do good work.) by the end of that long SDOS chain and, as is common for cats in residence there, is extremely introspective, often staring at the wall for hours on end and thinking deep thoughts. Probably about advanced-level particle physics or a study in lesser-body gravitational theory, as sometimes I come home and actually find these things on my computer screen. After I had turned the computer off, too. (I don't read anything above the layman level in those fields. I can't understand the math, and that gives me a headache. So you tell me how they get there, hmmm?)
But when Buffy is stationary, particularly while sitting on and/or near a human she cares for, you better not have any plans. She has mastered the ancient feline art of gravity control, and brought it to a whole new level. A Buffy on your lap means that you will not move. Bladder full? Tough. Phone ringing? Inconsequential. Remote out of reach? Bad luck to be you. Hungry? You need to go on a diet anyways. Bed time? Why bother, as she is already asleep.
Yet as wonderful and caring as she is, Buffy has two problems, neither of which are cause for anything other than mild disgust and/or human hilarity. First, she also practices the ancient feline art of bazooka barfing. This is probably a leftover habit from her previous human, as she tends to simply inhale her food rather than sit and chew. With this, we tend to have little piles of Buffy-Barf (tm) scattered around the apartment. And my bed. The monitor. On the PS2. Kitchen sink. On the fridge. Behind the sofa. Under the sofa. In shoes. And on clothes just before a job interview. Truly prolific regurgitation. She's like Bill The Cat, but without underwear. And smarter. And no beer. And doesn't have a penguin for a friend. And... Okay okay okay, so she's not like Bill the Cat. Berkeley Breathed, you can stop threatening to sue now.
Her second problem is that she is really a klutz. This is the only cat I know that can roll out of bed, loosely defined term for cats I realize, while being fast asleep. And as one of her favorite sleeping places is on top of my monitor (I have to have at least a 19" CRT so as to leave Buffy enough room to curl up.), I cannot count the number of times that the sound of a sudden scramble of claws echoes through the apartment. And, of course, in the truest traditions of the Feline-Murphy Treaty of 1793, she will land on my power strip, sending whatever I'm working on down the memory hole. And for which, dear readers, you should thank her. Some of those posts were completely awful.
I wish I could join the Buffy in that picture right now, but I'm almost late for work. Perhaps later. For she is one of the dearest cats I've ever known. Unless she's been in the catnip, that is. Then there's no getting a straight answer out of her...
Oh crap. She's in the catnip again. I'll go put on The Wizard of Oz and The Dark Side Of The Moon for her.
Darned stoner cats.
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