Catwatching

Cats have little hard heads that they gently ram into your shins or ankles when they mark you as a possession. This is often taken (or mistaken) as a sign of affection. We don't know if that is so, but it seems affectionate.

Cats are lazy conservators of energy. That is, they recharge their batteries slowly and expend their charge quickly. They are playful, and play is integral to the nature of the cat; a cat who cannot play is a sad creature indeed. Most of the energy they save is thus expended in play.

I've often observed a cat who, having just awoken in the morning, stretches and after limbering up proceeds to chase his own tail or writhe in orgiastic innovation all over the patio tiles. After intense and almost violent activity of this kind, he suddenly goes boneless, a mass of sinewy fur lazing in the morning sunlight.

He will do this on your feet, given a chance. I know a cat who will deliberately deposit his weight on your toes, just to make the point that you are not moving off without alerting him first. This means that you are 'his' human, for as long as he is interested in that being so.

Cats are indeed somewhat territorial, and we who belong to them must remember that it is a mutuality very different from the man-wolf duality in which the power of the pack was broken and reformed with man as leader. In the man-cat relationship, man is a source of convenient treats and novel experiences; however, there are many such elsewhere. It's just that humans seem as if they -want- to provide these things at no cost.

And cats are lazy conservators of energy.