The Cat and The Keyboard

Today I stayed home from work - yesterday night I started feeling crummy and woke this morning to the same sick-to-my-stomach feeling and (my personal favorite) the 'good morning' headache. Way to greet the day, huh?

I slept in a tiny bit (7:50am!) and got up to make some oatmeal - something plain but also nourishing - which I thought would feel OK in my tummy. It worked out fine thankfully. I pulled on some 'real' pants (apparently my long bermuda sleeping shorts don't really exist?) to keep from having that sleep-all-day feeling which sometimes makes you feel even worse when you are already not feeling your best.

Checked work e-mails and personal e-mails and facebook (ugh the addiction; knowing how completely unimportant and fleeting it is makes the guilt that much worse and yet I still am a facebooker) ... apparently my cat Smiley - confused by the fact that I was at home on a Monday mid-morning (yes, he is aware of all those details) kept coming into my room (a guest room/office) and swirling around my left ankle, looking up at me longingly then flopping emphatically on the floor in front of the closet, glancing at me and then blinking at the windows over the bed. Then getting up, going to the living room, and coming back just to repeat the entire cycle another time. I realize he is 'telling me' that he is out of food and I get up to refill their two bowls (one for each of them is the idea, but Carmen thinks 'her' bowl is whichever one Smiley is eating out of at that very moment and likes to push his face out of the bowl with her puffy cheeks). They both take a few bites and, content simply knowing there is still food there if and when they are hungry again, sit down and lick their paws.

Back in the office Smiley, still baffled and a little star struck having me at home with him (he is a mama's boy through and through) decides that nothing I have open on my computer is even close to important compared to him. The only way he knows to distract me - his previous efforts (swirling around my ankles, meowing, and leaping in quick succession on and then off my lap) had not been entirely successful - is to step from lap to desktop and then flop himself partially onto my laptop keyboard (after having successfully opened a new browser tab for me with his left elbow).

Here, he is being playful to try and disarm me ... the computer is chirping at us; he keeps holding down the space key, I think.

He keeps a watch out for Carmen - shared attention is simply not an option.

He's caught a sniff of something ... maybe a touch of perfume that's worn off over time; or maybe that shiny Windows XP sticker.

Those big, serene eyes ... I can't argue with them. ;) Look how nonchalant with his little arm draping over the desk.

Yep, he's definitely more important than facebook.