Rajeshwari's Guide to the Care and Keeping of Cats

     Remain unmarried.  Instead of a partner and children, approximately twenty-two tumbleweeding, mewling, hissing balls of fur should inhabit your home.

     Your loving, generous nature should consistently drive your desire to rescue just one more lost soul from the mean streets.

     Vegetarian you, should purchase fish for feeding your furry charges.

     Cats treasure tea.  They take their afternoon tea, with plenty of milk and sugar, in saucers laid around the dining room floor.  Use only your best china for this purpose.

Cats by Meredith Counts

Cats by Meredith Counts

     When sauntering past a furry friend engaged in a battle of howls with another, casually lean forward, pluck your friend from the ground by the scruff of its neck, and arrange it over your shoulder like a fox-fur stole.  Your friend will immediately go limp and be compliant.

     Entwine your psyche with the psyches of your housemates so they become your familiars.  Move in synch with them, adjusting your emotional cycles to theirs until you achieve a harmonious commune of cats.

     Every spare second of your waking day should be spent thinking about the welfare of these creatures, closer to you than even your family members.  These are the children you never had, the confidants you yearn for, the companions of your dotage.  You may be "small mother" to your nieces and nephews, but you’re the only mother to your feline friends.

     You should blithely ignore all pleas and proddings from human family to limit the number of creatures on hygiene grounds.  You know better.  You always have.

- Asha Rajan