Eddie says: This is another guest post by Jackie Fox. Last time she told us about her kitty Xena and her experience with feline hepatic lipidosis. Also, try not to be confused: Jackie's kitty Cleo is not the same as my BKF Cleo!

It’s not just human beings who enjoy hobbies. Animals need to occupy their days, too. My cats, Xena and Cleo, have several interests and also serve on the household advisory committee.

The cats have many good suggestions -- for instance, the improvement of the refreshments served at advisory committee meetings. As head of the refreshment subcommittee I haven’t always provided delectables that meet with the satisfaction of the other advisory committee members, although tuna always goes over well. Cleo has, on occasion, taken it upon herself to provide the refreshments, but as I don’t really go in for dazed and frightened bird or dazed and frightened rodent, I’ve had to kick Cleo off of the refreshment subcommittee. Although, to be fair, dazed and frightened rodent may not have been intended as refreshment but simply as a timely reminder that the sanitation subcommittee (in other words, me) really needed to get onto the rodent infestation issue that had been on the agenda for several weeks.

Meetings of the refreshment subcommittee sometimes take place at five in the morning. On those occasions on which I have moved to adjourn the meeting until a more reasonable hour, Cleo has invoked a meeting of the subcommittee for sleep deprivation studies. Of course, since the committee for sleep deprivation studies requires refreshments at its meetings, I generally find myself awake at 5 a.m. opening a can of cat food, a less popular choice than tuna but one usually deemed acceptable all around.

Xena is the head of the occupational health subcommittee, a duty she takes most seriously. Her job is to prevent carpal tunnel syndrome by sitting on my mouse, and every so often on my laptop itself in order to shut it off before keyboard-induced injury can occur. In her spare time she enjoys spelunking, particularly in the dreaded blanket caves of the den. She is such an accomplished spelunker, that she is able to explore said caves with her eyes closed. She is so good, in fact, that she can do it in her sleep.

Cleo’s subcommittee is data security. All documents in my office are shredded post-haste, even unpaid bills. You can never be too careful. Better to obliterate them as soon as they are out of the envelope, just in case. Same goes for those pesky “final notice” reminders. They’re nobody’s business. Her preferred diversion is ornithology, and she sometimes combines her bird watching activities with her other avocation, operatic singing. While she is definitely better at the former, she makes up for her lack of formal voice training by practicing day and night.

And finally, my girls enjoy sports, particularly crinkle ball hockey. And lest you think I pass all my time in subcommittee meetings, I’ll finish up by noting that I also spend a great deal of time fishing. After all… someone’s got to fish all those crinkle balls out from under the sofa.

Photo by DGMiller777.