smudge spends a good percentage of his naptime in our bed, up against my pillows.  (it's not uncommon to walk into the bedroom and find... not a cat, but a depression in the bed the size of a giant salad bowl, evidencing his recent departure.)

jeff subscribes to a community bulletin board service -- he gets a lot of freelance jobs that way.  and he sent me a post from a woman who says she thinks she found someone's small grey and black cat with a collar who has been hanging out by her house.

smudge sleeps with us every night, but it's mainly at the far corner of the bed. oh, sure, occasionally he climb's up onto jeff's chest for attention. but for the most part, he stays down by the feet. i could never get him to snuggle up next to or between us like every other cat i have ever had.

...think really hard: "SQUEAK! get your butt home, pronto!"

"I'm very glad you asked me that, Mrs Rawlinson. The term `holistic' refers to my conviction that what we are concerned with here is the fundamental interconnectedness of all things. . . . I see the solution to each problem as being detectable in the pattern and web of the whole. The connections between causes and effects are often much more subtle and complex than we with our rough and ready understanding of the physical world might naturally suppose, Mrs Rawlinson." (Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency)

i don't know that everything in the universe is interconnected.  i am sure my husband doesn't.  and here is why i am sure:

jeff always keeps a container of sugar free licorice next to the couch.  in addition to being a big fan of licorice, he also likes the fact that the sugar free variety is an effective...um, digestive aid. so he feels like he has a medicinal justification for eating a few pieces every night.  [this is not TMI, jeff. it's a fact of life for all of us. go ask jamie lee curtis.]

10:30pm: jeff gives smudge a large piece of sugar free black licorice.  smudge inhales it.  laughing, jeff marvels at the fact that smudge enjoys sugar free black licorice. he says "here's another smudgie, but that's it." smudge makes that one disappear just as quickly. then he jumps onto jeff's table and lays down next to the container of licorice. jeff laughs some more. (so do i, but i also wonder if sugar free black licorice can really be a good food for a cat.)

11:00pm: jeff goes to the front closet and says "oh no! i think i just stepped in cat shit! i think this is cat shit! this is cat shit!!!!"

and it doesn't immediately occur to him that there is a definite cause and effect in play here.

squeak has always been a very sweet-natured, even-tempered cat.  He may occasionally swat at one of the others, but it usually seems just because someone is messing with him, or his clumsy attempt to initiate play.  He will normally just avoid situations he doesn't want to be in, like when he takes a circuitous route to the door to keep far away from a tom who's been hanging out on the deck.

i had a bad cat-related dream last night. well, it started out fine, oddly enough, with us hanging out at my mother's house, with the whole family plus ben affleck and matt damon (i have no idea), possibly watching tv after thanksgiving dinner. after that, it took a bad turn. bad. bad. really bad.  i won't get graphic, but it involved horrible injury to all three of my mother's feral littermates: dora, minnie and shakes.

just because every time i write that a particular cat has been AWOL, he comes strolling home, i'm putting this message out there:

my mother left last night for a business trip.  i fed the cats at 6, and got them inside for the night.  all except dora, who i hadn't seen since about 3 or 4.  i felt terrible, but when he hadn't come back by 7, i had to go home.

joel came over yesterday. he's one of the few humans willing to set foot in our apartment, and it's only so that jeff will fix his computer.  smudge started out with his usual intimidation tactics, but joel doesn't take shit from a cat.  for the most part, he would ignore smudge, and keep a water bottle nearby just in case.  so over YEARS, smudge has gotten slightly more tolerant of the fact that this human has entered his domain and still draws breath. i think the last time joel was here, smudge gave a few half-hearted chatters, and then stalked off to stare at him from a distance.

and this time...smudge flopped down on joel's feet and rubbed himself all over his sneakers.

of course, the honeymoon was over when joel left, then realized he forgot something and came back in. smudge was a hissing ball of fury, throwing himself at the very same sneakers he had loved earlier in a frenzied attack. a cat has his limits, i guess.

last night, jeff and i re-made the bed, so of course smudge came barreling in to take position under the sheet as it floated down over him. i love how he thinks he's such a freaking invisible ninja under there, attacking through the sheet. so we pulled the sheet back and tucked him in properly.

you know how smudge jumps up on my desk and tries biting me, and i push him away, and he jumps onto jeff's chair and lays on his back, grabs one arm, and frantically rubs his face on the arm?  you know it's just the standard cat-tactic, where he's trying to be aggressively cute so that i am forced to reach out and touch his belleh and he can then sink his fangs into my wrist.  but i realized that after a few minutes of the squirming, he just lays there, totally still, staring off into the middle distance...he's playing dead. i think he's trying to make me think he's dead, and therefore completely harmless, so of course i'll try to touch him and then he can bite me. (you know, it might work a little better if he isn't so excited that his tail keeps thrashing around while he's playing possum, but still, you have to admire his ingenuity.)
can i just point out the fat-belly cleavage above? can you see it there, below the "vest button"?
and to close this post, a little contrast.  i get the crazy "i'll pretend to be roadkill so i can bite BITE BITE her!" smudge, and jeff gets the "i just wuv you so much, daddy" smudge.