Monday, August 3, 2009

Psychic Cats test

Perhaps the most psychic test telepathic and mysterious of all animals, cats have been worshipped, feared, included in complicated rites and linked with strange superstitions. In fact, those who were once accused of witchery often were being accused only of consorting too closely with cats. To us, the cat, with his constant and unconscious grace, remains an ideal. There is not a ballerina alive who wouldn't want to move as fluidly as the most common housecat. The dexterity of the cat is a basis for certain schools of Oriental combat; and surely the Fastest Gun in Old Cheyenne would seem slow if his draw were compared to the lightning speed of a cat's most casual swipe! The cat remains a symbol for such medieval holidays as Halloween; cats find their intelligent, inscrutable faces on the covers of occult magazines; and their profiles are used to suggest terror in tales of the supernatural. Truly, no animal has inspired such outpourings of affection from humans as has the cat - but neither has any other household animal quite so many enemies.
I grew up in a family in which everyone liked dogs and the only cats we had lived in the barn. I never knew what they did there, except to catch mice and to sleep beneath the cows' noses on the coldest nights so they might be warmed by the soft, bovine breath. While I had a certain affection for cats, I also had the usual misconceptions about the feline spies which people who have not studied cats often have. I thought them disloyal, aloof, basically uninterested in human affairs. I don't exactly know what this says about me, but I wasn't terribly anxious to have a pet who was not loyal to me.
It wasn't until I went to college that I had my first real encounter with a cat - an encounter which lasted nine years. The cat in question - my first and all-important guide to the world of feline intelligence - picked me out in the late spring. He must have been only four or five months old, and as appealing as any of those cats whose pictures appear - usually with a ball of yarn, or wearing a gardening hat - on certain kinds of calendars. All grey, except for one white spot and a bit of white on the tip of his tail, this young cat had a somewhat Siamese body, yet a roundish face and a much fuller tail. There was no question that I found him appealing, yet there was also no question that I had no intention of keeping him.

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