Cat In A Topaz Tango

A playful tango featuring a guy in gangster suit and fedora plays at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E4mBoGX6Dw&feature/.

The Topaz Tango chapter couldn’t have been written without the cooperation of two of my adopted cats, Midnight Louie, Jr., and the young and beautiful calico feral, Audrey.

I “met” what would become my first black cat at Lubbock, Texas, Animal Services during the first Midnight Louie Adopt-a-Cat book-signing tour sponsored by my publisher in 1996. My husband, Sam, and I drove more than six hundred miles to fetch the petite, year-old black cat that had “picked” me during a flying tour of Texas.

We took “Midnight Louise’s” shaved stomach as a sign of spaying. Once home, we were soon shown the truth. “Louise” was a neutered male. There is only one Midnight Louie, so he became “Junior.” At eight, Midnight Louie, Jr., began going blind from retinal degeneration. I’d never had a cat lose a faculty before and was in despair, but he adapted beautifully and goes everywhere, jumping up wherever he desires.

He was thirteen when we brought a trapped feral calico female we’d been feeding for months into the house. Audrey was named after the carnivorous plant that pleads “Feed me,” in that cult black-and-white Roger Corman black-comedy film, The Little Shop of Horrors, which we loved even before it became a color remake and an off-Broadway and then Broadway musical.

Audrey would come six times a day to eat a full can of wet cat food when she had a litter to nurse. Although we had Audrey fixed at once, we didn’t realize her raging hormones would take time to dissipate. She fixated on the only male cat in the house: neutered, blind Midnight Louie, Jr. For the first time we witnessed the feline courting dance. She entices him. Poor Audrey used all her considerable wiles, but Louie, although a handsome glossy jet-black lad, is not interested in that way. Alas, it’s a doomed dance of love, but now I know that cats do dance and so should we all.

The writer’s brain needs to “dance” too, trying left-brain recreational pursuits that involve hand-eye coordination. That can be dancing, playing the piano, or doing crossword puzzles. Some writers play computer solitaire when needing a recess. Even with a mouse, you are moving cards and making logical decisions.

And then there’s the most pleasurable hand-eye coordination of all: petting a beautiful cat (and they all are) and watching it curl up and purr with satisfaction.