Life is Better on the Farm

LOONIS TAKES A BOW...

Loonis, the fetch-playing cat and princess of the felines here at the farm, was totally into "feeling her oats" the other day while I attempted to do some work around the side yard. As I pulled weeds, she distracted me by pouncing on every dried blade of grass that wiggled. While I carried off the limbs I pruned, she attacked each pile from some hidden perch along the path to the brush pile. And, more than once, I spotted her feisty grin and swishing tail before she would jump out at me, arch her back, and go hopping sideways across the yard. Her final feat of the day was to climb the grapevine post and swat at my head as I stood there debating where to make the first cut in my pruning endeavors. In short, it was play time for her and time to forget about the pruning for me.

Loonis, named for some famous North Carolinian whose name Eliza and I spotted on a coffee table book , came from the animal pound. The moment I walked in the door at that smelly place, this little gray ball of fur began meowing at the top of her lungs, fixed her eyes directly upon me, and bellowed until I approached her cage. She was quite a persuasive little kitten because she didn't let up until I held her, and when I tried to put her back in the cage, she whimpered so, so pitifully that Eliza and Lori (who had already picked out 2 more kittens!!) insisted that Loonis complete a threesome that we ended up bringing home. (Unfortunately the other two adoptees, Yoda and Bibbis, went to Kitty Heaven not long thereafter--one as a result of illness and the other as a result of an accident.)

That was almost three years ago, and Loonis, the surviving feline from the trip to the shelter, has staked her claim as the only cat who sleeps on my bed (much to Hendrix's chagrin) and the only cat who eats indoors. Currently her favorite pastimes include bringing her felt ball to whomever is at the computer for a game of fetch (and jumping up on the keyboard to dance about until the person there picks up the ball to throw it again...quite annoying when one is preparing an important document like a final exam), attacking the paper as it comes out of the computer printer, swatting at heads from underneath the banister when one walks down the stairs, and randomly zipping through the house while stalking some imaginary bird or rodent.

For me, she's a lesson in getting what she wants and doing so without a second thought. And beyond that, when things get too serious, she's the world's best teacher about the importance of chasing your tail until you flop over, getting up, flashing a big grin, and doin' it again!