Cat in a hot pink Pursuit

you hungry? Was bad mommy away too long? Bad, bad mommy.”
    Well, I loathe the “mommy” stuff, which my Miss Temple has never resorted to before, but I cannot complain about the tins of sardines, shrimp, and oysters she piles over the ugly green, dry foundation of Free-to-be-Feline in my bowi.
    I settle on my haunches to dispense with it bite by delicious bite.
    Thank goodness things are back to normal around here and I can lie back, digest everything, and relax for a while.



Midnight Louie , Paterfamilias

    People! They are forever fixating on fatherhood. I suppose that is because of capitalistic materialism. They not only have territory to defend but property to inherit along with genetic traits.
    Me, I find fatherhood incontinent, irrelevant, and immaterial.
    1 am like that Greek goddess who gave Zeus such a headache that she was born from his brain. She never had a mother and therefore gave Orestes his walking papers when he was up for Murder One for offing his mother. Mother offing is a big no-no even in the natural world but this Athena chick did not see it as any big deal, as she never had a mother, only a very powerful father with a headache.
    Anyway, we street cats only know our mothers and they are pretty darn good to us until the hormones wear off and we are on our own. So fathers are no big deal. Even if we did run into one we would probably have to fight him anyway.
    So I am mystified by all this brouhaha about Mr. Matt finding his father and little Miss Mariah’s father finding out he is one. Miss Midnight Louise appears to have been infected by this human obsession also. She should understand that the way of our kind is serial fatherhood. It is not that lady cats are what humans would call promiscuous. They are just designed to enter the sublime state of heat, unable to say no. Naturally, there are all sorts of dudes out there with the same problem. So a single litter may have four different fathers. And who knows which kit is due to which father?
    So why sweat it? In my case, Ma Barker made It clear to me that Three O’clock Louie was my sire. And that is fine with both of us. We do not need to tread on each other’s toenails but neither do we need to hang out and sing sentimental songs together once upon a midnight clear, or drear.
    Humans are also ridiculous about the mating game. Here they have the option to have all the fun and pretty much ensure that no unforeseen consequences come along later causing them to look up innocent dudes as if they were criminals. Yet they keep subjecting their most basic instincts to intense negotiation, not to mention recrimination. Why bother!
    I muse on these matters because it is clear to me that my Miss Temple is contemplating wandering in the congenial feline direction when it comes to matters of the heart and other organs.
    I cannot say I am surprised. Mr. Matt was bound to outgrow his artificially extended adolescence one of these days and become a young tom with a lot of wasted time to make up for.
    I cannot agree with those who do not much like Mr. Max Kinsella. He is one cool cat in the street or between the sheets, from my observation, with obligations to protect the world at large that few can understand. Rather like myself. But he has other territory to guard at the moment and when the cat’s away... the mice will play. And someone will pay. This is Las Vegas. Bet on it.
    Very best fishes,

    Midnight Louie, Esq.

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Carole Nelson Douglas
    Makes Room for Daddy

    You’re a fine one to philosophize about fatherhood, Louie.
    You’ve only just now barely acknowledged the delightful Midnight Louise as your daughter.
    But you’re right that the feline kingdom is a matriarchy when it comes to family life. A lot of human households are becoming more like that, since some human fathers are also likely to slip away from the confines of a domestic life.
    Still, humans are hooked on relationships. They have a sense of history about where their forebears have been and where they and the whole human family might be going.
    So when blood relations are missing, they find unrelated people to fill in for the absent father, or