Six years ago, when I first started sharing this writing publicly, I had a few friends and family members reading it, and a lot of foreign bots skewing my numbers on the dashboard. I heard from one of my closest friends from college that she had been reading it for a while, but it had become so focused on cat pictures that she got bored and stopped paying attention. While I didn't hold it against her that she lost interest, it did kind of mess with my mind a bit. I became less confident that people wanted to see my cats, even though one constant has remained true for decades, that the internet is made of and for cats. This comment from my friend came at me when Athena was a tiny pile of kitten fluff, and I struggled so mightily for years whether to show her off as much as I wanted to. I went back and forth deciding cat pictures were okay or not, or were they just okay when the essay itself was weightier than usual. I was always flip-flopping on that.
Today I have one goal in mind, and that is to show off my pictures of Jackie. I'm not going to make the words heavier than they have to be. There's really nothing other than affection for my goofy girl that I want to share today. The house was a bit chilly, and I was trying to empty out my clothes from the dryer, before heading out to sit in the hot tub. (The dryer vent is right next to the tub, so I had to shut it off to be able to soak. While my clothes were freshly dried, I pulled them out and folded them onto the counter where the cats eat. They were gloriously warm, and having them touch my skin as I folded convinced me that I did indeed want to go sit in hot water. Jackie chatted with me while I sorted my folded clothes into two piles, pants and all other. About halfway through the process, I turned around with a pair of jeans to add to the pile, and she had jumped up and settled on the stack. So I lay them on top of her. She purred. I kept sorting, and did it again. She purred louder. I thought if I ran to the bedroom to get my phone, she would have jumped out by the time I returned, but no, she was still there. I finished the whole load of laundry, and still she remained. I soaked in the hot tub for almost a whole hour, and when I came back in, she was still there. (That picture was a little blurrier, and shows a bit more surrounding clutter, so I'll hold it back.)
Without further ado, my laundry buddy:
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