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Tipper Ann, aka the Benevolent Kitty Goddess

Tipper Ann is quite the feline. She's white, with a gray blaze on her forehead and a gray tip on her tail. She grooms incessantly, is a creature of habit, and has perfected the art of owning a human being.

I, as it turns out, am her human.

Make no mistake, I buy her Science Diet and organic kitty treats, see that she's well and cared for and has a clean litter box at all times and knows she's well and truly adored, but in the end, I am her subject. Her pet. Her hers hers.

The cool thing about a very distinguished cat? They're goofy too. Like the time when she was draped over the ironing board, espied her own tail, and played keep away with herself for about twenty minutes. Or the time when she decided that it was waaaay fun to run full speed down the hall, across the entryway, through the kitchen, then do a ninety degree turn into the breakfast nook, losing traction in her backend and skidding like crazy before she regained her footing then accelerated again, this time on the opposite side of the loop on carpet....

Around and around and around she went. Ten times at least while we were enjoying the newspaper and our breakfast, legs tucked carefully up and off the floor where skidding Tipper cat might accidentally collide with them should they be resting in their customary places...

She also likes to play hide n seek, and enjoys nothing more than to 'find' you, and have you scream and jump and act very very frightened. Because she's a fierce jungle tiger playing with her prey, you see, and when she has you very very afraid? She's the boss of you. And it is important that you remember this always.

Turnabout, though, turnabout is fair play. I love being super quiet, sneaking up on her, then waiting until she becomes complacent, then jumping out and scaring the daylights out of her. Heh. She jumps, swells immediately to four times her normal size, glares scary cat glares at me, then she stalks off to her lair beneath the bed, where she will, eventually, recover her temporarily misplaced dignity. This will cost me, though. She may withhold, for the first part of the evening, the favor of her presence in my lap should I alight at some point.

The benefits of having a kitty like Tipper Ann? There's never a dull moment in the house. My lap is never without a purry creature in it. And she likes to sleep against the small of my back in bed, so I am ever cozy warm in the winter.

The benefits of having a human like me if you're Tipper Ann? Free publicity, a never-ending comedy of errors provided by our progeny, daily foibles and physical comedy, dinner guests, and various family visits. Oh, and the lap in the evening thing? That's not bad either.

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