Cats

It is inevitable, I sit down on the couch and I become a cat repository. First, the aging diabetic cat walks across my chest (and I am sitting up straight) a few times and eventually I have to force him to flop down so I can see either the TV or the computer.

Of course, he is usually across my arms as well which makes typing a strange variation of bicep curls.

After a few minutes one of the other two cats shows up.

If it's the ginger, she creeps from above. Walking across the back of the futon, stopping to sniff my head in a disturbing, bug crawling in my hair manner. Then she places one paw carefully on my shoulder, and descends my right side like sloping pavement covered with a skin of ice. She settles, somewhat uncomfortably, on my lap behind the laptop screen.

I don't call her ginger simply because she is orange.

With any luck, the third cat will decide she can't be left out. She will sit delicately near me and purr. Aggressively. All 20 pounds of her.

After a few minutes she will extend one paw and pick delicately at my sleeve. Turn her head demurely expecting a touch.

She may just settle in that spot eventually.

If she is feeling extra aggressive she will take a few careful steps closer to me, place half of her body on my arm (right or left), rest her chin on her paws, and continue to purr aggressively.

Three cats and a laptop battery (and possibly a fleece or down blanket) ensure a gradual progression from an endothermic to an exothermic state.

For me.

The cats always seem surprised when I explode.