Pathos

Yesterday it was balmy and warm. I arrived home from my weekend away at around 5:30 yesterday, and promptly opened up my windows to let in some air. Hope was thrilled. She loves the open windows.

I fell into a deep sleep at around 9:30, wiped OUT. Windows still open, air still balmy.

Hope, after a brief waiting period to show me that she is still boss, jumped up on bed, curled up next to me (BUT NOT TOUCHING ME, GOD FORBID) and went to sleep.

I woke up this morning at my regular 5:30 a.m. It was pitch black in my room. The balmy air had now turned frigid cold. I was cold, sure, but through the darkness, coming up to me from Hope’s furry body, was a sound I didn’t recognize. A kind of jittery clackety-clack, like rolling teeny dice together in your hand. Did she have … something in her throat?? I leapt out of bed and turned on the light, in my freezing room.

She looked up at me and it was the sound of her little teeth chattering with the cold! Her little jaw was flapping up and down nervously, like one of those wind-up skull-heads, her teeth clacking against each other … and it was the most pathetic thing I had ever seen. It cracked my heart. I raced around closing the windows and then scooped her up in my arms, bombarding her with my furnace-level of body heat that I’ve got going on at all times.

She was NOT happy about that.

Teeth chattering in the night? She’ll deal.

But overly insistent closeness? Hope’s not having any of it.

I kept saying, “Hope! Your teeth were chattering, honey!”

I realize that, lady. Could ya shut the window, please? Thanks.

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8 Responses to Pathos

  1. Karen says:

    I have never heard of a cat with teeth chattering! My cat’s allowed outside, and sometimes when he comes in his feet feel like ice, but shivering or teeth chattering, never.

  2. Jen W. says:

    Omg, that is so funny- not that she was freezing, but that you HEARD it.

  3. Kerry says:

    Oh, poor little thing. A scene straight out Dickens or Hans Christian Andersen.

  4. Dave E. says:

    I sort of knew where this was going from the first line, since we had that temperature drop a couple of days ago. I didn’t figure Hope chattering her teeth though. I’m surprised she didn’t wake you.

  5. just1beth says:

    My heart is breaking for poor Hope and her tiny teeth!! I kinda want to knit her a sweater…

  6. tracey says:

    Poor little Hope! Now I kinda want beth to knit her a sweater …

  7. Grey says:

    Mine are indoor-only. We had a lot of snow the other day, so I picked Echoes up and went outside with her in my arms so she could see the snow… she sniffed the air for a minute or so, then delivered her sole comment: one huge, full-body shiver. It was adorable.

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