A cat in the lap is worth…

I am about as blissfully comfortable as I can get. I have my flannel pj pants on, with fuzzy, thick socks, and my Chelsea, Michigan tee with one of Derek’s old, soft sweatshirts over it. I’m sitting in my fav chair (thanks again Kirk for swapping me for it) with my afghan that my mother-in-law, Helen, crocheted for me. And the piece de resistance? My kitty, Bucky is curled up in my lap.

R. Buckminster Fuller as Jim so eloquently named him is an eight year old, carmel colored, short-haired tabby. Jim named him for the inventor of the first geodesic dome. (for a complete history, I refer you to Jim…lol). Bucky weighs about 12 pounds and is the biggest baby you have ever seen.

When I first started blogging, I wrote about Emmie, our now seventeen year old cat. She doesn’t like “the boy” as I love to call him. He is young, energetic, friendly, socialable…all the things she despises in a fellow cat. To this day, eight years after rescuing him and bringing him home, Emmie still hisses when he gets near her.

As I am typing this, Bucky is laying on my lap, which is usually where my laptop computer is while I am typing. But he jumped onto my lap and pushed it far enough away from me that he fit. His head is on my right hand as I type and I can feel him breathing on my fingers. His front paws are on the computer and I know if I let him, he would lay completely on my keyboard, so as not to have any competition for my attention.

Bucky has been my boy since day one. I found Bucky along side of Hwy 57, right in front of the airport. A tiny kitten, only four weeks old, he was standing near the shoulder, and you could see his mouth open as he called for someone to save him. I had to drive past him, circle through the airport lot and back around to get to him. I was so scared that he would be hit before I got back. But when I pulled over, he ran, not toward the traffic as I feared, but into the grass, and laid down. There I discovered two other kittens, that were dead. Someone had dumped them…how cruel!

So I brought him home. Jim’s one condition to me keeping this little beauty was that he got to name him. And so Bucky had a new home.

Bucky loved playing with Derek and Craig . He thought he was one of them and tried to jump in the middle of them when they wrestled on the floor. He would hop sideways, looking for a chance to join in the fun. Finally, he would jump in wherever he could.

As a kitten, he had very fox-like features. He had a long, pointy face and a long tail, that he would bush out when scared. His favorite place to be was on me, front paws wrapped around my neck and with his face laid on my cheek. This hasn’t changed a bit.

At night, when Jim and I go to bed, Emmie comes with us. She gets in bed first and waits impatiently until Jim has settled in. Any little movement causes her to fuss at us. But Bucky has a different agenda before coming to bed.

The first thing he does is chase Emmie as she runs to the bed. She hisses, I yell, Jim laughs…its all part of the nightly routine. Then he wanders off into the dark house. Sometimes he calls from another room, in an almost question-like tone. “Rohwww?” I call to him and he will run to me. Up on the bed he jumps and believe me, everyone knows when he lands. He walks up to my pillow and waits as I lift the covers for him. He then backs himself under the covers and lays, as he did as a kitten, with his front paws around my neck.

Before he lays his head down, he takes an opportunity to glare at Jim. “Not the momma!” I imagine him saying. (reference the baby dinosaur from the 1990’s show Dinosaurs) Then he snuggles as close as he can get, lays his head on my cheek and goes to sleep. Every night its the same thing. Most nights, especially in the summer, he stays this way a short time and then goes to the end of the bed to sleep or to Jim’s recliner. The colder it gets, the longer he stays wrapped up with me. Even if I’m having a bad night and am up on the couch, Bucky will come and do the same routine there.

As I said with Emmie, Bucky is such a blessing in my life. I remember watching the cartoon, Garfield’s Christmas, long ago. John, Garfield and Odie had gone to John’s parents for Christmas. John’s grandfather was deceased and his grandmother was feeling very lonely, when Garfield jumped into her lap. Her response was, “How did you know I needed a kitty on my lap?”

Bucky always seems to know.