It’s such a lovely sound. It’s very high-pitched, yet not piercing. It conveys exactly the right tone of miserable unhappiness-because-you-are-ignoring-me combined with the cheerful apprehension-that-you-will-soon-notice-me. Once emitted it slowly works its way into the yawning crevasses of your still-sleepy brain and you finally open your eyes in order to gauge where this sound came from and what it does portend for your immediate future.
“Mew”.
It’s been emitted by a pink snout, set into a lovely little white-&-black furred face, attached to a small yet lithe feline body that radiates delicate beauty and exquisite grace, and all of this comprises of the most timid yet lovable creature that is wont to dwell in the House of Chaos: Frankette the she-kitty. In her own absolutely cute way she is trying to force her will upon you, or rather the following complex message has been put into that 3-letter sound: “It’s 6 AM in the morning, the food bowls are empty, Bean Sidhe has been mean to me again and is in desperate need of a good whacking, Hrimnir is keeping me awake because he wants to play and needs a diversion, there’s a fly in the kitchen stubbornly staying out of claw-reach, and I am in desperate need of a cuddle. What shall we do first ?”
Of course you don’t want to get up at 6 AM. And so -of course- you gently shove the wake-up caller aside and turn around in a futile attempt to catch a few more winks. But then the sound is repeated and a stubborn paw prods your cheek. It’s the prelude of the equally stubborn but shockingly cold nose (which can -and will- be applied on far more vulnerable spots of your prone body) and thus one is once more forced to lavish some attention on the small purring alarm clock. Mind you, a murderous look shooting daggers does not phase her in the least, she just takes it as just another show of attention which she enthusiastically receives with all the aplomb of a reigning monarch. The purring just gets louder too.
Before Frankette joined the feline denizens in the House of Chaos we always thought that nothing could rival Hrimnir when it comes to the sound of his formidable purr. But then he got dethroned by this small and far more lovable upstart. True to his most amenable character Hrimnir has never objected to this, he knows there are other -far more important- ways in which Frankette can never win from him and he still is the most energetic head-butter of Da House. But the Purr is hers. And thus one can enter the House of Chaos after a long hard day of work and be greeted by that rumbling soothing sound that cats so mysteriously produce. Frankette’s quite loud, vibrating, resounding. That such a blast of sound can come from such a tiny furred body is yet another of Mother Nature’s Mysteries, especially when you know that her mewing is always timid and soft. When Frankette mews it’s a lady-like mew, a thin sound uttered with civilized grace. Even Loup-Garou’s trademark pathetic “iew” is loud and uncouth compared with Frankette’s lovely “mew”. But then, she’s a girl. Girls are supposed to make girly sounds.
Not so girly is her growl though. And when you have heard that distinctive sound of aggressive rebuttal being emitted by our girl-kitty at 3 AM in the morning you just know that either Almost-Franky has been trying to enter the House of Chaos again and got as far as the Master Bedroom before being almost murdered again by the Elder Siblings, or Bean Sidhe wanted to snuggle up in The Nest where Frankette was already reposing. In the latter case I can always observe with some Schadenfreude how an embarrassed but not-understanding Bean Sidhe -three times bigger than Frankette- would slink away with a plaintive yowl, declaring his puzzlement at such an uncalled for hostile treatment. It’s not as if he has ever attacked his little foster-sister, now hasn’t he ? It’s only that Frankette seems to somehow associate this bigger hulk of a cat with danger. Bannikin’s usual boisterous play with Hrimnir might also explain the far smaller kitty’s apprehension.
And if Frankette may be a tad on the shy side when it comes to asserting herself to the rest of the world, when it comes to Bean Sidhe she has no compulsion to cower into a submissive retreat at all. “My Nest !”, she growls and the Bannster has no choice but to relocate to a far less hostile napping spot. No matter that The Nest is a king-size 2-persons bed with plenty of space for all resident feline denizens of the House of Chaos to spread out and still leave space enough for the occasional simian that would try to sleep in it. As far as Frankette is concerned there is not enough room in one room for her and Bean Sidhe.
And when she is awake there is no room in The Nest for anybody else as well. We must all be downstairs, doing her bidding, filling the foodbowls, giving her scritches and -the other felines at least- leaving her alone.
Picture below: “Hey, look at me ! I’m cute !”
Our kitties will be visiting their usual weekend haunts again, swilling Tunatini’s and hogging the ‘nip, over at The Friday Ark, but also at the Carnival of the Cats hosted this week by Victor Tabbycats, Weekend Cat Blogging which will take place over at Stella Luna‘s and the Bad Kitty Cats Festival of Chaos that will be organized by Pet’s Garden Blog.
House of Chaos 