Loving Animals

WHEN I'M HOME, which thankfully is a lot, and am comfortably ensconced in a chair, couch, or bed, two cats repose upon me, by default. Its automatic, my taking a seat, and my darlings snuggling with me. We,, ya gotta be somewhwere...My problem is that I am a bit, shall we say, "mature in years"; (one way or another, age is going to get you). In my case, I'm in great shape for an old man, but if I sit in a chiar for more than five minutes without moving, while making a good cat lap, I tend to tighten up, and I need to either stand up and stretch, or endure the consequences, whcih can range from feet asleep to complete bodily paralysis. I used to be a proponent of the moral principle that when sitting or lying, if a cat or a dog is sitting on you, you may not get up or move. I've joked about this with many people, and everyone seems to agree. I am no longer capable of practicing what I once preached. If nothing else, I must at least recross my legs every fifteen minutes or so, and sometimes I can do this without disturbing the cats, but often, annoyed, they jump down from my lap. fortunatelly , I have gradually trained them to understand that most of the time, whenthey jup down because of my moving and stretching, they can jump right back up within a minute or two, when i get back from using the restroo, or getting a snack or drink. They have grown accustomed to short lap cat naps. While they sleep, or try to, I rub, pat, hug, and kiss 'em repeatedly, giving them a huge amount of affection over time, or on any given day. Giving a lot of affection to a non human animal will spoil them rotten, just the way you want them. Giving affection to almost any non human animal is extrmelly rewarding, emotionally. Dogs and cats are the best, but horses and mules receive affection well as well. I recall standing, leaning up against the corral, my back to the enclosure. The sweet horse put his face underneath my hand, and actually picked my hand up, wanting me to rub his nose, to give affection. That made me feel wonderful, useful, worthwhile. I've kissed horses and mules. At a large outdoor zoo, people were allowed to walk around in the large kangaroo enclosure. The kangaroos were very friendly. A female named "Reba" kept following me around, and I kept giving her rubs and hugs. She loved it, which was good, becaue I recall thinking that she was definitely big enough to do damage to me, with her legs, presumably. A friend of mine and I rubbed the belly of a three hundred pound tiger as it lay on its back, loving the attention. I once had a neighbor with an eight foot python as big around as a new roll of toilet paper, and I swear he and that snake exchanged affection, by rubbing. He draped the huge snake over my shoulders, and it was so heavy I could barely stand up. Everything was good until it started to move, at which point a rapidly told the owner to come and get it. One wild night, in my early twenties, I sat in a mobile home at a party in the rundown a trailor, with a baby coytoe on my lap and a bottle of moonshine in my hand, and no complaints.