A Feline's Valentine's Day

'Twas Valentine's Day yesterday.

As Robert and I are more low-key types on Valentine's Day, we don't go out and buy one another plush teddy-bears measuring 36 inches tall. We're not big fans of singing cupid telegrams, or sparkling diamond pendants or tie clips.

I am proud to say that I thought ahead and had a festive bag full of dark chocolate yummies strategically placed where my hermit-boy husband would notice them on top of the pile of clothes he had set out to wear after his morning shower. Watching a wet-headed Robert say, "Oh! What's this?!?" was, to put it oh-so-nerdily a tremendous joy. "I'll have to hide them from the girls!" he remarked. That's my boy, always thinking ahead!

Robert's Valentine's gift for me was a beautiful bouquet of Oriental lilies. Vibrant magenta on the tips with pure white centers and the most striking orange-yellow stamens (I'm hoping that I'm adequately recalling 11th grade Botany class with that term).

I had to have a minor procedure yesterday at sweet little Dr. B.'s office, which rendered me incapable of movement for much of this morning, and, knowing that I would be bed-bound, moved the vase of flowers onto my dresser, where I could see them whilst lying in bed. The lilies smell wonderfully, and the only problem with them, is that if you accidentally brush them with your hand, you end up with an orange stain on the spot where they came into contact with skin.

I shut Cooper and Moses, the 21 and 19 lb. wonder cats out of our bedroom last night, not wanting them to be tempted by the lure of the lilies' intoxicating aroma which might beg them to try to take a bite out of their petals, but apparently I forgot when I finally got out of bed this afternoon to pick up Miss T. from school to again shut the bedroom door.

Upon my arrival home, I was checking email at the computer...taking care of business...etc. when I heard Cooper's plaintive meowing (which sounds mostly like a sick cow, as Cooper was in a moped/cat collision several years ago which, according to the vet, has rendered him incapable of meowing modulation...his own form of cat brain-damage [but dammit, he's lovable...]) and turned to see my blondish cat with the white muzzle and chest now stained a deep yellowish-orange.

"Cooper," I bellowed, "Where have you been?" To which he tried to act all nonchalant, or as nonchalant as you can act when being a 21lb. brain-damaged cat.

He was so utterly busted. It won't be long before you see him, and his stained muzzle on a post-office wall.



Thankfully, my lilies seem to have weathered their Cooper fondling. I guess cats need Valentine's Day affections too.