The Friday Afternoon Post

Ahh, Friday. Friday has such a festive air about it - it's like a small version of that feeling of joy and anticipation you have on the last day of school before summer break. It helps if the day is sunny and delightful. This Friday, at least in Chatt-town, cannot seem to make up its mind. It's cloudy and grey, wait - no the sun is shining, was that thunder? now it's monsooning, now it's clear and sunshiney again & not a cloud in the sky, oh wait - cloudy again. So tricky, weather. Making my Friday feeling fluctuate.

Today is the day for young Francis the cat to get his hairs cut. I know, I know. But he's got this really long thick coat, and lately he's taken to sleeping either on the cool tiles in the kitchen or on top of the glass coffee table, directly under the ceiling fan. Given my window air conditioners, and the fact that I run them as little as possible because I am cheap, I fear that he is sweltering. He is bearing it nobly, only kind of complaining, but I feel bad for him. So, I went to his vets at the Cat Clinic (they also groom - these people REALLY like cats) to consult, and they recommended a cut.

Now, when we were in middle and high school, Lisa Swafford (now Vanderwall) and her family had a cat whose name was Kristen Faith Swafford. Kristen was one of those real kinds of cats, and she had big blue eyes and beautiful luxurious white fluffy fur. Very long white fluffy fur. Every spring, Kristen would get her long fluffy fur shorn so that she would not spontaneously combust in the heat of a southern summer. She was moderately stand-off-ish when she had her full coat, but after her trim, I remember she just acted embarrassed. She would skulk around the edges of a room, and hide behind furniture when possible. No one could catch her. Her cut looked something like this:
(this is not Kristen, but the photo of someone called misplacedparadox on flickr.)

As you can see, this look could be somewhat amusing. Maybe not for the cat, but for the owner and other humans. I wasn't sure about committing to something this drastic though (what if instead of funny Francis ended up looking like a giant bald rat?) I ended up telling them just to give him a trim, which they said is sometimes hard to make look normal, and if it looks weird, go ahead with the full-on lion. I am very interested to see what he looks like/if he still speaks to me when I go pick him up after work.