Raining Cats

Overall, Houston has ten months of summer and two of poor tanning: January and February. Proving to be true - it’s raining, raining, raining here. The whole month has been one cloud-bursting day after another.

Since it is raining, the cats have disappeared. It’s a different sort of disappearance than when grand-daughter Maddy comes to visit. Thanks to their sensitive on-board EW sensors, the cats detect her arrival…a sort of hyper-footprint that appears in their “space.” The cats then engage their cloaking devices, far better than a Klingon bird-of-prey. They are effectively hidden from her view for the duration of her stay.

No, on rainy days I believe the cats (particularly the older one, Balaclava) visit the “cativerse.” (Note: this concept is copyrighted by Richard Laurence Baron, 2003.) The cativerse is either an alternate space-time continuum, or a portal to a different, feline world. They report to the Queen of Cats – or her equivalent of the Foreign Office – about the humans under their control.

Those would be Barbara and me. Since nothing especially noticeable or injurious has occurred as a result of these reports, we accept the status quo while maintaining generally cordial relations with our guests, Balaclava and Fredericksburg. I presume that as long as we continue to provide housing, food, water, and entertainment, every creature in the household will be reasonably content.

I accept that the balance of trade is fair: there is no better early afternoon napping aid than Balaclava curled up on my lap. This is obviously another item in the cats’ considerable arsenal: EW suite, cloaking device, sleep generator, trans-universe travel system.

I hope the cats will continue to honor this ongoing state of relations. I shudder to think what havoc an invasion fleet from the cativerse might wreak on an unsuspecting Earth – a true catastrophe.