The Thanksgiving Cat: Part II - The Leavening

Most appalling, I suspect that he is trying to murder me when he insists upon entwining himself around my feet when I am puttering around the kitchen.

Why do we put up with punishment like this? I'm not so starved for affection that I must stroke his silky, black fur and listen to his "basso profundo" of a purr.

The other day though, I believe that I figured out this whole cat and human thing.

This illumination occurred while I was making one of my infrequent loaves of homemade bread. Just as I was adding yeast to a batch of flour and water, it occurred to me what the importance of the common house cat is to human beings or at least to Joyce and myself.

"The Leavening! He's the leavening," I shouted as the cat snaked around my feet for the millionth time, distracting me so much that in avoiding his sacred tail, the whole bowlful of batter wound up on the floor.

I almost ran out the door shrieking "leavening" in a pale imitation of the ancient Greek mathematician, Archimedes, who according to legend jumped up from his bath after figuring out how to determine the purity of gold and ran through the streets of Syracuse, exclaiming "Eureka!"

Well, I am sure that my discovery is not as important to the history of the race as discovering how to measure the volume of an irregular solid through hydrostatic displacement. Still, it explains much.

In addition to being an agent like yeast that causes bread to rise, leavening is also according to Dictionary.com, "an element, influence, or agent that works subtly to lighten, enliven, or modify a whole."

Ram(bo) helps me to take this world more lightly, not to be so attached to things or concepts. Though he can be infuriating, I find myself smiling or even laughing sometimes when I look at him or watch his antics.

He's so stubborn and independent, it is quite funny. I have come to admire the way he sits on his haunches and stares at me while I call his name. . .perhaps the occasional yell as well, I must confess.

Ram knows he should not get up on the kitchen counters or the stove though he persists in this behavior no matter how much I squirt him with the water bottle. Since he knows all the best places to hide and is about a thousand times quicker than I

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