Effie multi-tasking: Staying warm while modeling

Effie’s natural adorableness makes it a challenge to resist being a stage mom!

Effie, sunbeams, and a Downy woodpecker

I was happy to see a couple of Downy woodpeckers return to our Spirea garland tree this week, as winter continued to negotiate whether to settle in or depart. I tend to believe the migratory birds know better than the Weather Service; after all, the birds have more at stake.

Snow remains on the ground, but less of it. The lovely crystalline stuff gradually melts into the soil to awaken bulbs, grasses, and ubiquitous weeds.

Effie has less at stake than either birds or weather predictors. After frolicking in her sunny 40° Effieland, she comes inside for a ready-to-eat lunch, jumps into her hammock to give herself a thorough scrub-down, and then, unlike Hamlet, who could only feign an antic disposition, she undertakes a true antic routine.

The Downy woodpecker (follow the red forehead patch)

Effiesian physics in motion

My husband captured this sequence of Effie’s mid-air mouse take-downs; his camera, eye, and hand are faster than mine.

I always find Effie Airwalker’s hunting escapades delightful. I believe she instinctively apprehends the laws of physics, even though I suspect she is motivated to make the laws conform to her aspirations. Like Cat Stevens, she makes her own rules.

My husband has gallantly proposed that we get Effie a G-suit for Christmas.

Effie: Three variations on “Good morning”

Unlike Hamlet, Effie has no reason to “feign an antic disposition.” Her adorably quirky nature and acrobatic giftedness, even for a cat, are unfeigned. Cats frequent only reality. If they find they have miscalculated, they meant to.

Effie rises to greet her feathered mouse. After perusing an array of foreign grammars and dictionaries, she decides to investigate Spanish grammar. She returns to her hammock for a nap, and stretches her tummy to greet the day–and me!–again.