To Be A Cat: Feeling Feline

On Being A Cat: Feeling Feline

It’s a new year. Time for celebration, families, and parties. Also, time for job performance evaluations and reviews. As I sit here, poring over my evaluation form, which is due to my boss tomorrow. Inexplicably, my attention is diverted to the sleeping cat across the room. Sleeping in front of the heater, on the floor and curled up in a ball with nary a care in the world, Lucky, our 13-year-old cat has ignored the squirrels who have taken to running up and down the deck, making a daily appearance in front of the sliding glass doors, in what sometimes seems like a conga line.

My mind drifts away from my achievements of the past year and thoughts of this year’s goals are lost in a swirl of questions about Lucky. No wonder he is so calm and peaceful, with his live-and-let-live philosophy towards the squirrels and all the other woodland creatures of the forest who inhabit our yard (and almost the house) on a regular basis--who is grading him on HIS job performance? No one, I tell you, no one, and ain’t it a shame??

My mind is conjuring up what a performance review form would look like for Lucky, and for Poker (while we’re at it), our 8-year-old cat whose appearance, wide awake and downstairs, is always met with exclamations of surprise by my family and me. Here is what I think a performance review form for Lucky and Poker would look like:

1. Do you consistently exhibit cat-like qualities in your every-day life situations?

2. In a flight-or-fight situation, do you tend more towards the fight or more towards the flight?

3. Do you do ANYTHING to reciprocate for the food, shelter and love you receive?

4. Talk briefly about your cat-like skills that you have developed this past year.

I chuckled to myself as I considered that completing Lucky's form would be EVER so much easier (and a LOT more fun!) than doing my own, despite the looming deadline for turning mine in.
His would be done in a matter of minutes, with answers like "NO" "Flight, DEFINITELY Flight" "NONE".