Some may think summer is the time for kicking back and relaxing… other creatures find back-to-school much more rejuvenating.

How they still wedge themselves into the bed they shared as kittens, I don’t know.  Sometimes the combined weight will cause the cat bed to careen off the edge of the Kitty Condo Tower, sending Meep’s pear-shaped butt hurtling through the air in a desperate attempt to land on her feet.  She needs the tower to be a few feet taller to master that manuever.

Because as kittens are apt to do, they turned into Cats.

This cat formerly known as Mia — the perfect cat name I had chosen 21 years ago much the way a young girl would pick her favorite baby name — this cat has turned out to be not a Mia at all, much the way the name I dreamed of for my some-day daughter would be vetoed by my husband as the name of the girl in the back of class that ate paste.  Mia just didn’t fit right.  She was soon renamed Meep, in reference to the little squeaky peep she emits instead of a common meow.  Of course from there, it was a slippery slope to Queen Meepersly Squeakersworth.  (*Meep* )

In an unfortunate series of events, and without the use of performance-enhancing kitty treats or Ben & Jerry’s Mouse Tracks, she has morphed into a cat of Rubenesque proportions, a look that is difficult for a cat, or the rest of us for that matter, to pull off without ridicule.  Yet another visit to the Vet confirmed that cats do come in all different shapes and sizes, like the rest of us for that matter, and, while unfortunate, her shape is within the scope of normal.

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Cowboy, on the other hand, is a long, tall glass of water.  He got to keep his name, because it fits him.

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He has Ten Gallon ears.

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So, by contrast?  When Meep stands next to him?  She looks like she has a tiny head and is wearing a furry hoop skirt.

Poor Little Bo Meep.  Maybe kicking back will tone her abs?