Excuse me while I howl

Momma Bird has a delightful cat named, of all things, Kitty. I know it's not the most original of names but it works for the two of them, so that's good enough for me.

Kitty is a lovely gray medium haired cat that Momma Bird rescued a few years ago. Kitty has repaid her by being a delightful companion. She spends most of her days sleeping on a pink afgahn on the bed in Momma's guest room/office. In the evening when Momma Bird gets out her knitting, Kitty will hop onto her lap and stay there, while Momma Bird knits. Amazingly enough, she never messes with the knitting, which makes her a truly special cat. The fact that she's the easiest cat to get a pill into makes her even more special. I've wrestled with many cats and pills and I've never seen one so easy to medicate. She's a dream.

Momma Bird neglected to inform me, however, that Kitty likes to play with her knitted stuffed mice in the middle of the night. This wouldn't be a problem except that she howls a lot when she's doing this.

The first time it happened I woke up and couldn't figure out what was going on. In fact, I thought Kitty was upset about something. Was there a brush fire? Was the house on fire? Did someone break in? Was there an earthquake?

I got up to find Kitty and Momma Bird heard me and woke up.

"What's the matter?" she asked me.

"I heard Kitty howling and thought something was wrong," I responded.

"Oh, she's just playing with her mice," Momma Bird tells me. "She does that sometimes at night."

The next morning when I got up there were about four knitted mice toys strewn throughout the house which weren't there the night before. Kitty was obviously very good at "hunting" these mice down.

Lucky Momma Bird. I thought I had it bad because my feline alarm clark, Morgan wakes me up every morning at 5:00 am, regardless of the day of the week or season. This explains why, although I'm on summer break, I'm still waking up at 5:00 am.

But at least mine aren't howling during the night!