Difficult? Just Ask My Cats

Moi? Difficult to live with? Certainly not.

A list of virtues:

1.     I’m a good cook when I get around to cooking, which isn’t as often as it was when I was in charge of growing boys; but, still, I make a mean minestrone soup.

2.     I hate okra (thanks, Sue Ann, for reminding me) and will never slip it into anything that winds up on a plate or in a bowl in my house.

3.     I put my clothes and shoes away at the end of the day. “Away” is a relative term, but I do not leave them on the chair, the floor, or slung over the door. There is, however, a reason the closet door locks from the outside.

4.     My cats rule. They would not consider this a particular virtue, merely the way things are and will always be, the right order of the universe.

And now, in the nature of full disclosure, a couple of things that not everyone might love:

1.     Any piece of paper that I touch magically becomes two pieces of paper, and those pieces build into dangerously unbalanced stacks on every horizontal surface. I can’t throw them away because it’s entirely possible I might want the 10% Off coupon for the plumber’s services or the printout of last week’s movie schedule or the latest reminder from the Southern Poverty Law Center that my membership renewal is overdue.

2.     I sniff a lot – allergies, probably – and keep boxes of tissues in every room, which in itself isn’t so bad except that I carry tissues with me and leave them in every room, little crumpled white mementos of my passing. My S.O. once told me I would be buried with them just in case.

3.     I write books. In order to understand the market, and because I love them, I read books too. Real ones, you know, with paper and cardboard? I’ve stopped counting but when I moved, I had a carpenter circle an entire room with bookshelves and I still have piles of crime fiction books on the floor.  (Thank you Bouchercon, Left Coast Crime, and Malice Domestic.)

4.     My cats rule. It’s a good idea to keep one eye on the floor when you come to visit – and I hope you will – to avoid felt balls, foam balls, furry critters on strings, furry critters stuffed with catnip, balls with little bells inside, and two medium size, definitely orange girls who will want to flirt with you and make you their subjects.