One of the things we got for wedding presents were a small handful of cat beds. After all, with seven cats, one can never have too many cat beds - and now there are plenty for both upstairs and down. It's a fairly regular thing now to find at least two or three of the little foam cups occupied - especially the one I put in the dining room, where the sun creates one of Sebastian's favorite warm spots for afternoon napping.

Allegra, however, is not to be seduced by these new and squishy napping spots. She insists on keeping to her old standbys - a rather squashed cardboard box that we actually moved with us just for her (it lives in the bedroom), and a much smaller box that I use to collect miscellaneous mail, bills to pay, etc. It sits on the desk behind me in the home office, and when I'm at my computer, I quite often hear the soft sound of snoring emanating from that box. The smaller the box she can squash herself into, the happier she is.

I have to admit that I'm one of those crazy cat ladies who calls her pets silly little names. The words sort of come out of my mouth without my giving it much thought, and the cats don't seem to care one way or another, as long as I'm willing to give them the attention they want.

Lately, however, I've been doing it more on purpose and less on accident, simply because it's fun to see Richard's reaction to the latest inane babble I can come up with. He turns to me with that 'what did you say?' incredulous expression on his face, before we both burst into laughter.

My best one so far has been 'fuzzy window beans'. Don't ask me - it just popped out of my mouth. Now it keeps coming up from one or the other of us, and *everything* related to the cats now has to have 'fuzzy' and / or 'bean' in it somehow.

I think I may live to regret this. Hmm...