Laundry: it's what weekends were built in for, sadly.

When Nick is doing laundry, he takes the clean clothes up to our bedroom to fold them in piles on the bed. When I do laundry, I fold the clean clothes on the living room floor and then repack the basket to take upstairs. I'm not quite sure why I do it this way—except that it's the way I've always done it, and I like patterns.

I think of Mufasa telling Simba that everything the light touches is his kingdom. To Sophie, everything that touches the floor becomes hers by default. She's a territorial mongrel, but she's like Attilla the Hun with rosy little cheeks that you just have to squeeze: possessive, but distractingly cute.

Even though I knew she was going to bug me with the laundry, I held out hope that this time would be different…that she wouldn't look at my neat piles like pins that her bowling ball body will take care of. Not the case. I kept shoving her away. She kept coming back. Nick laughed from the couch, and I threw a pair of his boxers for Sophie to chase down (she loves playing fetch).

Once I was done and reclaimed the diversionary boxers, I noted that they were coated with bits of catnip. I brushed off what I saw, shrugged, and folded them to add to his pile. Nick is going to be a very popular human with the feline population one day this week…

There is a certain flow to my routines. Since they flow rhythmically and unfettered, I subconsciously repeat the same sequences every day…over and over again…forever. I catch myself sometimes and have a little chat with my reflection on the proper way for sane people to behave. Inevitably, my reflection sasses back during my exhaustive speech that I should shut up because sane people don't talk to themselves, either.

When I arrive home from work, I…

1. Walk to the iPod charging base to plug in my iPod
2. Walk back toward the entrance and place my car keys in the key basket
3. Pull my cell phone out of my bag, take it out of silent mode, and place it on the Power Mat to charge
4. Hang my bag on the door knob of the front door
5. Slip off my shoes on my walk back the other direction
6. Remove my coat and hang it in the closet
7. Feed Sophie

I am sure that if I inked my feet, I would be quite humored at the jumble of steps I would leave. It's probably not the most efficient sequence, but it gets the job done, and I can do it in auto pilot (that last bit is vastly important…can't rely on me to remember anything!).

As you'll note, my little routine involves the cat. My sequence is a Rube Goldberg machine, and feeding Sophie is the marble rolling into the little cup to raise the flag at the end. I did not fully appreciation my routine until today.

I came home, and Sophie was waiting for me at the iPod charger. She was underfoot as she raced to get ahead of me in front of the key basket, then the Power Mat. I hung my bag on the door knob and she pranced over to the closet while I removed my shoes. As soon as my coat was on the hanger, she ran to the kitchen like the devil was on her heels. She looked at me with eager eyes, sitting where I always set her bowl on the floor, and waiting for me to raise that glorious flag.

She was having a lot of fun, I could tell from her eyes. This was a game to her, this figuring out that the Food Giver is crazy—but who cares because it ends with food. At what point did the tides turn? I thought the cat was supposed to entertain me, not the other way around. Maybe it will all make sense after I talk it out with the mirror tomorrow morning.

Soph and I were a bit frazzled with the thunderstorm last night, and blogging was the last thing on our minds.

Nick loves thunderstorms…a lot of people seem to. I hate them, and I always have. I hate that they are loud (I don't like loud things as a rule). I hate that the hard rains make me feel like our fort is under attack. Most of all, I hate that there is electricity randomly missiling through the air (I don't think that "missiling" is actually a word, but it's the best I've got). Electricity should stay corralled in outlets, end of story.

Sophie feels the same…she told me so in her way. When the skies open up, she either hides in a dark corner or becomes excessively loving on my lap. She definitely takes my mind off the madness outside because I worry that she's going to work herself up into a full anxiety attack.

Lighting blares through the window and she looks sharply right to see what's going on. Then thunder crashes and sounds like it's coming from the window at her left. She throws herself dramatically into the blanket in a way that looks as though she would have also sighed "Fiddle-dee-dee!" Oh, our little southern belle.

Sophie's parents got iPhones on Friday. They have been totally absorbed in them, often sitting in silence, hip to hip, as they play. Sophie doesn't understand what is happening, why all eyes are not going to her as she struts into the room. How much cuter does she have to be!? GAH!

Armageddon must be near.

Concerned that these new devices are brainwashing her parents, Sophie has been diligently creating havoc this weekend in effort to break the trance. Nothing seems to work. No matter how many times she jumps on the counter, tries to steal food from between their fingers, or reaches up to knock objects from the coffee table, they remain consumed. She isn't sure what to do or who to call (not that she'd know how to work one of those newfangled phones anyway).

She believes they are a lost cause. She has nothing left to try. Dejected and beaten, she hunkers down to wait for the end of days.

It's routine.

Every morning she gets a few tarter control treats. She looks forward to this part of her day like she looks forward to every part of her day that involves food: with unparalleled excitement. Her excitement is go great that she carries on in the mornings until I get out of bed to dispense the treats.

When we first adopted Sophie, Nick and I made an agreement that he would deal with the litter box and I would deal with the food. Essentially, we divided the cat—where I take care of the front half, he takes care of the back. Still, I think he got the better end of the deal because she's never thrown her body at him to demand that he empty her litter box NOW. The insistent begging is the most obnoxious behavior that Sophie has.

So, the same scene plays this morning. I get up and trudge downstairs and notice the bag of treats on the floor. "Odd," I thought to myself. I wasn't sure how the bag got down there. I've had the fan in the living room on high for the last several days, so maybe it blew the bag from its hiding place behind the picture frames on the fireplace. My irritation grew as I stepped closer.

I had flashbacks of the bajillions of crime dramas I have watched on television, where the star detective sees someone dead on the street. They don't have anything obviously wrong with them (besides the whole not breathing thing)…until the detective turns the body over and all of the truly gruesome wounds are visible. I turned the bag over.

She had ravaged the foil bag in three different places, eating almost all the contents.

And what was I angry at? It wasn't her gluttonous behavior or that she plowed through a package of expensive treats over the course of a few hours. I was angry that she had a belly full (I would even say "bursting") with treats, but she still had to put on a scene until I got up to give her more those last few in the bag.

Brat.