Martha and her awesomeness

Martha and her snake

This is Martha. She and her prickly yet loving sister Charlotte turned two in October. They are the second generation of cats in our household, coming after James and Percy, who were known far and wide for their awesomeness. (We lost both of them to cancer in 2004. 2004 was just a bad, bad year.)

Martha is pictured here with her rainbow snake. She has a very complicated relationship with it. I would dearly love to know what goes on in her little walnut-sized brain concerning the snake. Every night, shortly after we've gone to bed, she processes it upstairs in her mouth, squeaking in major sixths all the way. She then drops it off next to the bed.

Every morning, when we're downstairs, she processes it downstairs and into the living room, again with squeaks. She then spends a good part of the day guarding it, as you see here.

I was just upstairs trying to nap to take my mind off how queasy I felt (I guess I needn't have worried yesterday), and pretty soon Martha squeaked in, bearing the snake. Martha then jumped onto the bed and lay down in the meatloaf position clear on the other side from me: close enough to let me know she was there, but too far away for me to scratch her.

I am so very, very fond of Martha.