Review: Cats are All That? Purrfect!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 18, 2014
If you've never housed a cat (notice I didn't use the word "owned"), you probably won't quite get this short-and-sweet book. Back when I was growing up on a farm in southwestern Ohio, at one time I counted 28 roaming around in the yard (my neatnik mother wouldn't hear of letting any kind of animal inside her pristine home). But I, as a feline-lover, gave names to each and every one (Paderewski, for instance, because, as the old joke goes, he was the "peein'est" cat I ever met).Once I left home for college, subsequently marrying a guy from northeastern Ohio and settling down there, I made sure that our home included a cat. Back then, when spaying and neutering just weren't very important in the overall scheme of things, the number of whiskered friends increased, although - since my otherwise sweet husband wasn't quite as enthusiastic about kitties as I was - none except the Daddy or Mommy was allowed inside the house.These, too, got names - often reflecting their personalities. Muhammad Ali Cat, for instance, was a cool coal black critter who roamed the night, many times returning home with another notch in one of his ears that was no doubt earned in the heat of battle. The less said about Sh**t Head the better - the name is all the clue you need as to her behavior.So it is that I can relate to this book, which spells out cat behavior alphabetically ("B" for Boxes, "S" for Shedding and so on). It's short - just 52 pages - and funny (there was not a single letter that didn't provide at chuckle, if not an outright guffaw). More to the point, it was right on target. There can be no cat lover who can't relate to "W" for Washing: "The only thing a cat loves more than a sparkly clean sphincter is an audience."