ET! ET! ET! Be Good!

Dear B-Reader,

True love comes around rarely in one's life. Go ahead and prepare yourself to be jealous. True love has has happened to me twice.

"What?!" is probably what you're screaming at the computer screen right now, if you are related to or know my husband, Jeff. Of course, Jeff is my original true love, my perfect match, my childhood sweetheart, my Paco. Puccini, my eight-year-old companion of the feline persuasion, is my OKB (Original Kitty Baby), my second true love, my ET.

Let's focus on the ET concept for a moment, shall we? You remember Spielberg's '80's classic film featuring the extra-terrestrial, ET, and Elliot (played by Henry Thomas)? They were connected. When ET became drunk on beer, Elliot became inebriated; when ET watched a dramatic love scene in a classic movie, Elliot acted out that scene in biology class with his elementary school crush; when ET was presumed dead, recall Elliot's heartbreaking line, "You must be dead, because I don't know how to feel. I can't feel anything anymore."

Puccini is my ET. We feel what each other feels.

* ET (1982).

Last night, Puccini showed me the most affection he has ever shown a living creature. He has been recovering from a permanent manicure (declaw), and I have been feeling under the weather and seriously stressed ever since his surgery last week. Yesterday evening, Puccini crawled up onto my lap, nestled into the blanket, and slept on me for an entire two-and-a-half hours. It was so comfortable that the two of us fell into a deep sleep. He needed this one-one relaxation and recharge time just as desperately as I. He knows me, and I know him. My true love. My ET. My Puccini.

* Chalkaholic and Puccini (2010).

Oh, and just because he's my ET does not mean that Puccini and I make any promises to "Be good." You know, ET said that line to Gertie, not Elliot, so the expectation is not that I, Kathy, be good, but rather, that someone else, perhaps you, B-Reader, be good.