Yesterday, Nick and I hosted a picnic for our friends and family to celebrate our wedding almost eight months ago. Needless to say, the past couple of days have been full of little chores (and thinly veiled epithets at one another).

We both had Friday off, but I came home from work on Thursday and began one of my to-dos: pre-cutting the table coverings. I had a vision on how I wanted to spruce up a bunch of picnic tables. Earlier in the week, we stopped by the park to cut one of them so I would have a guide to cut the rest.

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Sidebar:

I realized while cutting the table coverings that I had no right to pick on Nick's meticulousness with the centerpieces. I knew the tables were 96 inches long and that I wanted six extra inches on each end. I measured and remeasured each of the 30-some sheets I needed to make sure they were all within a quarter-inch of 108 inches.

The main difference is that I make sure to close doors to bar all witnesses before I let my OCD loose.

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I had two colors to cut: white and aquamarine. Negligently, we had left the aquamarine roll in the living room after cutting that first test sheet at the park shelter. As I set about creating a fail-safe process for myself to get the precise cutting done, I noticed that several feet of that color were unusable: Sophie had chewed through the first several layers.

I think Sophie has finally broken me in. My reaction to her destruction was not anger or frustration (both of which it had every right to be). No, my reaction upon seeing the holes was to laugh and quietly cheer, "Oh, Sophie!" while shaking my head in fond affection. It was in that moment that I realized that I was totally and completely whipped.

Sophie defines the term scaredy-cat. I've never known such a jumpy feline before. Recently, we discovered that she's terrified of random lights: prism reflections, jewelry catching in the sun…and we can't forget the laser pointer, the device that almost makes her wet herself.



As soon as the offensive light appears, she sprints out of the room and up the stairs with her ears flat, making gurgled mewling sounds in her throat. I hear the heavy thud of her paws stop for awhile, and eventually she tip-toes back down. She acts all nonchalant and pretends that she didn't just compromise her street cred.

I can just imagine what happens while our high-anxiety cat is out of sight. In my mind, I see her running to a quiet corner, her front paws over her ears and eyes closed, and chanting to herself, "Calm blue ocean. Calm blue ocean."

You see that scraggly green thing? It's Sophie's favorite toy, and we call it The Ugly. I'm not really sure if it was meant to be a fish or a bird (body of a fish, tail of a bird!) so we'll call it a fird. The fird came in a pack of two. There was the green fird and an identical yellow fird. Sophie has never shown interest in the yellow fird, pictured in the background of the image above.

The green fird is…quite frankly…gross. As you can see, it's been de-tailed, de-fuzzed, the face is now a much deeper hue after spending months in her mouth. I hate looking at it much less touching it, but there is no toy she favors more.

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My favorite book as a child was The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams.

When I uploaded the above photo to Flickr, I added that it was Sophie's velveteen rabbit. The sentence was out before I really gave it any thought, but I haven't been able to stop thinking of it since.

If you are unfamiliar with the story (and it's really a shame if you are), it is about the power of love. A little boy receives a velveteen rabbit as a Christmas present. The boy plays with the toy, and the rabbit eventually loses its sheen and newness. One day, the velveteen rabbit is left outside where he meets two real rabbits. He knows instantly that he wants to be real as well. The oldest (and wisest) toy in the nursery tells him that real isn't how you're made but something that happens to you when you're loved.

It isn't until the boy gets scarlet fever and every toy must be burned that the velveteen rabbit is separated from him. While waiting to go into the fire, the toy rabbit cries a real tear, and through magic he is saved from the fire and made real. The next summer, the boy (who makes a full recovery) sees a real rabbit who strongly resembles his old toy…

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Now, I'm pretty sure that The Ugly has not met up with any real firds, and I don't expect Sophie to come down with a fever that would force us to burn all of her possessions. However, the resounding theme in The Velveteen Rabbit is that only love makes you real.

I don't think a realer fird ever lived.

Yes, she's spoiled. Since she's not repulsively odorous, she obviously hasn't gone rotten yet. Even so, she's well pampered.

She's used to being carried down the stairs in the morning and up in the evening. It's a little (okay, a LOT) ridiculous, but we've started it and can no longer stop it without her acting all wounded and pathetic.

She weighs beyond my post-surgery lifting restriction.

Thus, she's been pouting for weeks. Sometimes she becomes very physical, ramming her body into my shins as I walk and hoping I will take pity and reach down to pick her up. Other times, she will enter the room and bay as loudly and as dramatically as she possibly can. It would be humorous if it wasn't so sad.

About a week ago, my mind on something else, I picked her up (completely forgetting that's still a no-no). She settled in my arms like she intended to stay awhile. Nuzzling her cold wet nose into my neck, her whole body vibrated with the ensuing purr. I don't know that I've ever been acquainted with such an affection-starved feline—the lonely wife whose neglectful husband just paid her a compliment.

It seems like this should be against their nature entirely. Aren't cats hard-wired to be the love 'em and leave 'em type? I admit that we don't always have patience with her clingy shenanigans, but she makes it very hard to stay in a bad mood for long.