The Morning Beignet

Ever since he came to live with us as a kitten at 10 months of age, he's displayed a certain look that warns the bystander when he is about to do something totally unexpected and something to which he considers himself perfectly entitled. 

That's the word. This Beignet considers himself entitled. Probably my fault.

He wore that look this morning when I first woke, raised myself up in bed, and spotted him sitting outside the salle de bains. A barely audible "unnnh" escaped from somewhere in all that fur and he abruptly moved toward the bed, disappeared from view momentarily, and a split second later he was floating above the horizon as though his eighteen pounds were as a feather. 

Donovan might describe it like this: there was a cat; then there was no cat; then there was. He made a perfect landing on the bed in mid-stride and lost not a mite of momentum as he trod across my chest and finally came to rest just below my chin. 

In all this activity, he never lost that expression of his; the one that said, What? as if I was about to criticize his behavior.

"You can lie there," I said, "as long as you don't knead."

He began to knead. 

I wrapped my hand around his paws. He stopped the pushing but he continued to open and close his claws. I was happy that we'd recently clipped them.

"You're going to have to move after all," I said as I gently urged him to decant. He resisted and moved his tonnage ever closer to me. "Don't put your butt in my face," I said as he 180-ed around. I pushed his hips away before he could lie down.

"What?" he said looking back at me from about midships of my stomach. I gave his head a nubbin that said settle in, get comfy.

This ginger-backed boy with a powdered sugar undercarriage looked so much like the deep-fried breakfast pastries of New Orleans that there was never a question about what to name him. It seems only right that he should have a morning habit to keep company with his name.

Beignet is really the ideal cat. I'm sure he was the cat model that all others were based on. His excellent qualities have won him the title of "Cat of the Year" for six years running and he's making a strong showing again this year. If he's awarded the title once more, it will be a new record.

And there's no doubt in my mind that he will win that title this year and every year hereafter.