This morning while I was trying to get myself organized to start work, Sally came around looking for some attention.  Which of course meant that I had to stop whatever I was trying to start doing and give him some.  I scratched his chin a bit and when he was walking away, I grabbed the end of his tail and shook it.

There was something about the way the morning light was coming in from the windows that lit up all the dust that came flying out of his fluffy tail.  It was like shaking out a feather duster!  Of course, my first thought was bath time!  But I also realized that I hadn’t really thought about how much dust these kitties must pick up as they go through their days waving their fluffy tails around the house.

Mr. Man and I tend to only think about the messes that the cats make – cat hair on everything, cat food all over the floor by their bowls, the little bits of cardboard that they rip out of their cardboard cat scratchers…we never think about what they do to help clean up around here. I decided that today I would give the kitties credit for all the ways they help keep things clean.

Aside from their fluffy, feather duster-like tails, they also have very fluffy tummies that make excellent dry mops as they slide and roll around on the wood floors. You would think that they wouldn’t like chasing their toys around on the wood floors, where it is harder to get a grip. But the slipping and sliding is part of the fun.  Anabel has some moves when she is chasing after her ballerina mouse where she starts to slide, then sprawls out and spins around.  She winds up facing the opposite direction.  Sally prefers the belly-flop slide when he is playing catch with Mr. Man.  He chases after the toy mouse, sliding in to capture it.  Then he picks up his prize and returns it to his playmate.  Mr. Man can get the whole floor dusted just by varying where he throws the mouse!

Anabel and Sally also have that well-documented cat quality of not tolerating cluttered surfaces.  When we leave something laying around where it shouldn’t be, we aren’t surprised when we find it on the floor.  Many times, we find it because we step on it (ouch!). One of these days the cats will finally train us to put things back where they belong in the first place.

And perhaps one of the most under-appreciated ways that they help out with keeping things cleaned up around here is their paper-shredding talents.  Anabel is particularly concerned with potential identity theft and will regularly shred any papers she finds sitting out.  She was quite fanatical about it when she was a kitten; I have the scraps of book covers to prove it.  As she’s matured, she has become more selective about what she feels needs to be shredded, although she continues to have a big hang up about post-it notes.

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There once was a book about a very old man and a very old woman.  It was the oldest, continually published, illustrated book.  Because cats.

“If only we had a cat, then we would be happy,” she said.

But not hundreds of cats,

Or thousands of cats,

Or millions, and billions, and trillions of cats.

That is too many cats.

One cat is quite nice.  Personally though, two cats is purrfect.

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When the kittens first came home, they had little stubby baby kitten tails.  Anabel used to chase her tail and it was so short that she couldn’t turn around far enough to catch it.  She would spin like a dervish until she tumbled herself over, then she would jump up and go again.  It was pretty entertaining.  No, I’m not sure how much time I spent watching Anabel chase her tail, but every minute of it was time well spent.

As they grew, their tails began to lengthen, soon the tail to body ratio was pretty much equal. They started wrapping their tails around themselves when they slept.  They didn’t have the tail muscles to carry them up yet, Sally’s would make a sort-of half arch when he would try but at least they were proportionate.  By September, their tails were getting thicker but were not what I would call fluffy. It is only recently that they have become fabulous.

It is funny because even though from certain angles Anabel and Sally can be hard to tell apart, their tails are so different in shape and texture.  Anabel’s is wide and linear,and the coloring is consistent the ticking on her body.  She tends to walk with her tail straight off her back which adds to the long line.

Sally’s tail is like a beautiful fluffy plume.  He carries it high over his back, especially when he comes running to meet me at the door. It is his beautiful welcome flag. His tail puffs out in the middle and then tapers at the end.  The color variation is more pronounced on his tail as well. 

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