i L i n d . n e t

I don’t feel much like taking the world too seriously this morning, so I’ll fall back on cat tales and food.

First, the cats. I enjoyed receiving this note from former Honolulu reporter Ilene Aleshire, now business editor at the Register-Guard in Eugene, Oregon, and also a cat person.

I’m surprised the cats let you sleep past their breakfast time. Mornings at my house are canned food time, and Fuzzy dearly loves canned food. Step 1, if he feels I’m oversleeping is to crouch over me, nose to nose, with his whiskers in my face. (The first few times he did this, I would instantly wake up, convinced I was about to be murdered in my bed by some hairy thug. Now, I can shove him off my pillow and swear at him without even opening my eyes or, in some cases, even waking up.)

Step two, if step one fails, is to start pulling everything off the nightstands onto the floor. Step three, if I’m still not getting the message, is to raise his claws to the wooden blanket chest. There’s nothing like the sound of cat claws hitting antique wood to get you out of bed in one bound.

Our first cat, adopted in 1969, was the champion of the “wake up and feed me” routine. She went through many of the same behaviors Ilene describes. If we shut her out of the bedroom, she would sit outside in the hall and leap up to grab the door handle with her front paws, then slide down with claws on all four paws fully extended, making an excruciating sound and taking a layer of wood off the door with each jump. By the time we had to move out of that apartment, she had worn a deep gouge down the door.

Our next move was to lock her in the bathroom, where we hoped we couldn’t hear her fussing. We asssumed that she would then accept our human authority and give in. No way. She quickly learned to pull down all the towels and pee on them, effectively putting a stop to our attemts at a lock down.

I finally had to accept my job, which was to awaken at some point in the depths of night, walk her to the kitchen, and open up a packet of Tender Vittles. I did that for the rest of her life, and she lived nearly 20 years.

So it goes in the cat kingdom.

And now to the food. We got home Friday night without any dinner plan. After assessing the situation, I took a few chicken thighs, removed the skin, browned in a pan, added some white wine, anchovies, and hot peppers and left to cook through. Meda fired up a pot to steam an artichoke. I started water heating to cook some whole wheat pasta. Once the pasta went into the boiling water, I made last minute additions to the chicken, including a large green pepper, cut into bite-size chunks, and a handful of fresh basil. When the pasta was done, I tossed it with a little olive oil and more fresh basil, then topped it with the chicken/pepper mixture. Served in a Red Wing bowl and matching Tampico dinner plates. A nice Oregon Pinot Gris. And, as you can see, Ms. Kili was there as well.

Not bad for a little pick-up meal.