Tag Archives: dreams

Lily

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Lily

She first came to me in dreams that sent me driving around looking for a white kitty beside a curb.  In my dream I saw the kitty just sitting there as cars rushed by and I could see pavement.  I remember being fearful that someone would run over the kitty.  As I would drive around town I kept my eyes peeled for a kitty and I asked my family to do so.  They were used to me doing this so they didn’t think my request was that odd.  Almost always I’ve dreamed about the kitties that have joined our family before it happened, and crazy cat lady that I am, instead of dreaming about the baby I’d give birth to during my pregnancies, I dreamt about having a kitten.  The dream about the white kitty persisted over weeks that led to months.  There were days I would drive around with Hannah and we’d look carefully beside the roadways.  I was certain I would find this kitty but as the months passed I gave up and stopped being as watchful. Then, coming back from picking up Hannah at a friend’s house about ten miles from ours, I noticed something in the road ahead that didn’t move as the cars flew by about 35 or 40 mph.  Sure we’d see a dead animal in the road, I stared at the spot as we, too, sped past. “Stop!  Go back!”  I yelled, “It’s the white kitty!” We turned around and went back as cars continued to race past.  I jumped from the car and approached the kitty who lay with its back toward me about a foot into the roadway that gave off from a slight dirt embankment that had only a rounded corner curb at the edge of the property.  As I approached I spoke to the cat who made no movement whatsoever.  Thinking it may be dead, I reached down with both hands and when I touched it, huge blue eyes looked up at me.  I tightened my grip, scooped up the cat and headed to the car with it.  “It’s deaf,” I said, sitting the unusually calm cat on my lap.  I clapped and the ears didn’t twitch.  I shook my keys and nothing.  “This kitty is definitely deaf.  Who in the world would let a deaf kitty outside near the street?”  She looked up at me and seemed to say, “No matter.  I’m yours.” We brought her home to join our menagerie and as the days passed we learned some things about her.  Not only was she deaf but she had never learned how to bathe herself.  She didn’t understand purring, either, but she did make a screechy meow sound when she was irritated.  We named her Lily. The other cats were fascinated by her and tried every intimidating growl and hiss they had in their bag of tricks to no avail.  She supremely and sublimely ignored them.  When the vacuum cleaner came on and they all ran, Lily stayed put.  When any heavy equipment such as the table saw was used, Lily slept through it.  And the blow dryer that sent all cats running for cover held no fear over her to their confusion; they’d peep from under the bed to see her laying, placid and serene on the counter.  Thus, Lily established herself as a force to be reckoned with and a separate entity from the kitty cliques that live with us.   No one takes her food, no one takes her napping spot, no one messes with her because if they do she screeches a sound that sends shivers up even their backs.  They’ve learned to leave her be. So Lily lives in her own silent world, in peace and harmony with her surroundings.  She bothers no one and no one bothers her.  She is the most serene of cats and the mattiest since she doesn’t bathe and hates to be brushed.  Her favorite thing is to drink running water and when thus occupied I’m able to snip a mat here and there but if she catches on to it, woe to my hands as her lightning paw streaks back and scratches me.  She detests the scissors. Into our household cats and kittens come and go, some make friends and others try to bully.  Lily, however, ignores it all and goes about her business with quiet, silent grace.  She is, indeed, my dream kitty.

Two a.m. Cat Attack

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The thundering thud of sixteen kitten paws, our latest rescue litter, chasing gleefully on hardwood floors is louder than you’d expect, and when in the throes of a semi-deep sleep, rather shocking.   Who knew cute, furry kittens could be so loud?    They easily challenge the sleep deranged mind to think, “Wild horses? In my house?!”

Being awakened by felines in the middle of night, or as in this case, the wee hours of the morning, is nothing new.

Shortly after we were married, Mike and I adopted two kittens.  We had set out to find one, a perfectly white piece of purring fluff, but our first encounter at a pet shop was a tiny, black, hyperactive dustball that swiped our fingers and mewed shamelessly until we plopped down the ten dollars and walked out with her nestled in my arms, now quiet and content as if to say, “HA!”  We named her Popcorn because once home, she bounded up and down the sofa, up and down the bed, up and down the curtains, and up and down our legs.

Surmising our adorable little romp would allow the drapes to live and our legs to heal if given the opportunity to pounce someone her own size, we began anew to find a solid white kitten and happened upon the sweetest looking pink and white face we’d ever seen.  Awwwww.  We named her Butter and brought her home to meet her new sister. 

Whatever Butter may have been before, her new mission was to fervently follow Popcorn’s lead as top cat.  We would hear them winding up down the hallway in the middle of the night, two race cars, burning rubber in their attempt to be first up onto the bed and create claw-baring havoc as they did brodies on the bedspread with us underneath.  It became second nature to subconsciously hear them coming and pull the covers over our heads as they leapt with feline abandon and accuracy into the center of our stomachs. 

Now, my husband is a dreamer, and I mean that in the most literal sense.  He wakes up every morning and tells me the wildest dreams imaginable, like being captain of a submarine transporting cattle to another island, or having to put the addresses of an entire city’s newspaper route in alpha-numeric order before sunrise, or saving the world from a mutant tea bag that absorbed people into it’s little paper sack to be steeped into oblivion.  Strange things no one would expect from a mild-mannered, mellow introvert, yet I did wonder at times if I’d married a spy or a televison producer when the stories reached epic proportions.

Thus it was that one night I was awakened not to the clatter of kitty paws but the feel of struggling fur emitting terrified yowls while being smacked against my head!  As I opened my eyes to see what was attacking me, I encountered a look of utter confusion and horror on my white kitten’s precious face.

“Michael!!!  Wake up, you idiot! You’re beating me with Butter!”

After a few slaps at his own head with my bare  hand, he let go of Butter who darted off to the safety of anywhere away from the mad, mad man who had the audacity to scruff and use her against the head of the hand that fed her.  Mike immediately fell back into what I assumed was a dreamless state of sleep since I incurred no more cat attacks that night.

“Just what did you dream last night?”  I asked over coffee the next morning.

“Oh.  I had found a treasure map and it led to a cave somewhere in the Himalayas and as soon as I figured out where to start digging a group of monkeys came in with banana splits.  We sat at the bar that lined the wall of the cave and ate while we listened to the jukebox and then suddenly the music stopped.  The monkeys deserted me and I heard this rumbling noise so I picked up a big rock that was on the cave floor and as I did, a giant spider, like the one in Star Wars, tried to get me.  I smashed at it again and again with the rock and I don’t remember any more because something woke me up.”  He rubbed Popcorn’s chin and nodded to Butter who maintained a room’s-length distance from him while she simultaneously bathed her spotless coat and threw disgusting looks at him.  “What’s the matter with Butter?”

I pushed my bangs aside to reveal the slight claw marks across my brow.  “You’re the matter with Butter.  She was your rock and I was your Spider.”

His face underwent several colorations from pale to red to gray to pale.  He put a hand to my forehead and closely surveyed the measly damage before turning a look of remorse upon our angel kitten who promptly turned her back and commenced washing.  “Poor Butter!”