Last night the spousal unit was affectionately petting Enid to the point where she was a purring mass of kitty jelly when he crinkled his nose.

Enid, uh, toots when you pet her into a frenzy of happiness. Every time.

Because I am 52 going on 8 I find this unspeakably hilarious, especially when she gases him. It seems only fair that this should happen since he seems to have stolen the affections of this cat that *I* picked at the shelter.

Meanwhile, the tabby Norma--the cat he picked--seems to have decided that I am her human. This would be wonderful and touching if Norma was capable of sustained affection as Enid is. Instead, Norma will let you pet her four or five times and then stalk off because her affection needs have been met. Talk about your pettus interruptus.

The good news is that Norma has decided that she will sleep with me at night, just as my late lamented cat Zoe did for the 17 years or so we had her. The bad news is that we have a queen size bed which is now divided into 20" for the spousal unit who is 6'2" tall; 20" inches for me, a woman who's 5'10" tall; and 20 inches for the cat who is oh, say, 16" from nose to butt.

Actually 20" is probably a generous estimate of our personal allotments because the cat has taken to sleeping on her side, with her back pressed into mine, and she tends to crowd me into the spousal unit.

She also refuses to share the bed with anyone else of the feline persuasion. This means that the spousal unit and I are awakened from a deep sleep at least one night a week while Norma locks paws with either Zubby or Enid, who quite rightly want to share in the beddy goodness. There's nothing like being jolted awake by a live performance of the kitty version of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Yep, I've got to say, Norma put on an Academy Award level performance at the shelter when she conned us into believing she was a demur little tabby who played well with others.

Oh, and as an added bonus, a side effect of Norma pushing me into the spousal unit is that he is learning The Joy of the Night Sweats.

One of the many, many joys of menopause is that women get night sweats and hot flashes--our thermostats get kind of wonky. Norma pushing me into the blast furnace that is the spousal unit tends to trigger one in me. Somehow, without waking up, I manage to fling all the covers off myself and throw them all on him.

So there he is, squeezed into a tiny corner of the bed by the pressure of a cranky, hideously territorial cat, with the added bonus of a very sweaty woman plastered to his back. Without warning, a heavy comforter and flannelette sheet are doubled up on top of him, raising his body temperature to undreamed of heights. Thus (and I think we can all agree that the word "thus" is sadly, sadly underused today) he gets the whole hot flash/night sweat experience without actually being menopausal himself.

Oddly enough, he is not grateful for this in depth insight in how it is to be a menopausal woman.

I've begun negotiations with Norma to adjust the border of her sleeping kingdom. I'm trying to cut her back to about a foot of bed which is really all a creature her size needs. However, she is not responding well to the Roadmap to Nocturnal Peace.

Hrm. Can a king size bed be far off?

--Marn

Mileage on the Marnometer: 450.98 miles (716.6 kilometers)

Goal for 2003: 500 miles - 804.5 kilometers