Colder weather only drives them indoors a little earlier in the day. There’s nothing, however, like the first snow to bring our furrier family members completely back into the fold.
It was the damp and not the cold that ushered all of them in at once this morning. The dog’s demeanor was that of one who is happy to be at theme after a morning constitutional. The cats, on the other hand, are company; every action calculated to communicate their hegemony over the rest of the household. And, for some reason I still can’t discern, this bestial ballet always inspires questions about the existences we might have known before.
Watching the cats saunter lazily to the kitchen, staring down the dog at her own food dish, I often think how glad I am that I’m bigger than they. I know there are many homeless cats with piteously short and hungry lives. But as I kneel down to clean up the magazines unceremoniously shoved off the console by one of our now-lounging felines, I wonder what act of heroism a human would have had to perform to achieve the rank of “house cat” in their next existence.