What's Up with Cats?

I was mowing the lawn yesterday, which was an oddly enjoyable chore, as it was an absolutely glorious--sunny, but crisp and cool--fall day.  As often happens when I mow, I was deep in thought as I robotically pushed the lawn mower from one end of the backyard to the other and back again.  And for some reason, yesterday my mind was on CATS.  I don't even really like cats very much, so go figure!

This lack of affection I have for cats has been well documented on this blog, on more than one occasion.  My husband feels the same way I do: we both much prefer the idea of a dog as a pet.  (As far as pets go, with us they are mostly ideas anyway.  I doubt we'll ever have a real dog again.)

But cats--they're everywhere!  They pop up constantly in our speech, have you noticed?  You can be a hep cat or a cool cat (or as Sammy Davis Jr. used to put it, you can just be a plain old cat).  If the word cat is attached to your name, then you are the coolest.  This is good news for my hubby, whose college friends always called him "Pearly-cat."

You can be curious like a cat (although I believe monkeys are pretty curious creatures, too; as proof, there's that famous literary character named George).  Or you if you like to gossip, you can be catty.

You can have cat-like reflexes, though it seems to me that the term gazelle-like reflexes makes more sense, because gazelles, I'm pretty sure, are faster than kitty-cats.  (Don't tell me about how cheetahs are cats, and they're even faster than gazelles; I don't want to hear it.)

The cat's in the cradle, and sometimes he's got your tongue.  If you're a model, you sashay down the catwalk and you probably hear a lot of catcalls.

You can be a fraidy-cat or a scaredy-cat.  Or how 'bout a lolcat (or LOL-cat)?  Lolcats make you laugh out loud, partly because they sometimes wear human clothing, but mostly because they don't understand the concept of good grammar.  I think lolcats may not be as popular as they used to be; but at one time, the "Pictures" section on my #4 son's Facebook space was filled with images such as this:

LOL, right?  A lot of my boy's lolcat pictures featured kittens baring their fangs and firing automatic weapons, but this sweet little guy is a little bit more my speed.  He could almost turn me into a cat lover.  Almost.

When I accompanied my airline pilot husband on three of his working trips to Europe in late 2011 and early 2012, there were European cats who were trying their best to change my negative perception of creatures of their ilk.  They seemed to be following us wherever we went--from the inside a small Italian restaurant in Amsterdam

to the top of a high hill overlooking the city of Athens.

They just wouldn't leave us alone!  Cats--they're everywhere!  It doesn't matter if you don't keep them as pets; you can't get away from them, not even when you're a tourist in a foreign land.  That's my experience, anyway.  So I just have to ask: what's up with cats?

Well, that's what I was thinking about yesterday while I mowed the lawn.  I thought that, secretly inside, you wanted to know that.*

*(FYI, in case you don't recognize it, this is a reference to a line from my husband's all-time favorite movie, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.  And that's something else I thought that, secretly inside, you wanted to know.)