In the middle of the night, leg cramps struck and I had to get up and walk
them out.

Eventually the muscles stopped trying to turn themselves into pretzels, and
after a good fortyfive minutes of hallway pacing, I could finally go back to
bed.

As I returned to tbe bedroom, I noticed in the gloom a circle had appeared
on my pillow. A perfectly formed dark circle. A perfectly formed dark fuzzy
circle that was making snuffly snoring noises. Shmogg was all curled up -
including upside downey head - in a perfect kitty ring, right in the center
of my pillow. In the gloom, Shmogg on the pillow could have easily been
mistaken for a Japanese flag on my bed.

I *had* to get my camera. But when I came back in, I must have disturbed his
slumber because he lifted his head and opened an eye and gave me the
withering "what on earth is that mad human up to at this hour of the night?"
sort of look. He stood up, performed the most deliciously slow and
hedonistic stretch that only a cat can, and re-settled himself. But not,
sadly, in a circle this time.

Which means the fact that the batteries in my camera were just flat enough
that the camera went through its whole boot cycle but couldn't manage to
keep the camera 'alive' for the extra three miliseconds it would take for me
to actually take the picture didn't annoy me half as much as if Shmogg had
stayed tantalisingly in perfect pancake formation whilst I futzed about with
the camera.

Of course, there was still the problem of a sleeping cat smack in the middle
of my pillow, but he was clearly feeling generous last night - perhaps he
knew about the pain my legs had given me.  I feel so very very priveledged
that he deigned to share about 1/16th of my -I mean his - pillow with me,
and kitty fuzz in the sinuses is such a unique pleasure.

Either way, I still get a better night's sleep dangling precariously off a
pillow with mammoth amounts of dander being directly injected into my
ventilation cavities than I do if Shmogg decided not to sleep on my - I mean
his - bed with me. And darn, doesn't he know it.

B*st*rd C*t.

Yowie