I have started wearing a skirt.

  It was my mother's idea, about forty years ago.  Ting, our first cat,
loved sitting on her lap but rarely ventured onto mine.  My mother
diagnosed that skirts were more comfortable for cats and suggested I
should wear one.  I declined politely.

  However, recently I got tired of Nanki Poo, who rarely deigned to sit
on my lap, and even if he did, shot off the moment Liz sat down.  So I
tried a towel stretched tightly like a skirt.

  I won a beach towel playing bridge in Hawaii, and now I put it on my
lap, tightly.  Nanki Poo will stay for hours - and even Minke has
deigned to stay for five minutes.  I even have to move Nanki Poo
sometimes when I need to go to the loo.