Cat-o-pause

It is my 7th birthday on Sunday, and I have been in a reflective mood lamenting the soon to be past "best age" - six.

To quote A.A. Milne (Now We are Six, 1927),

When I was One, I had just begun (to discover the joys of sharp claws on furniture and my owners' bare knees)
When I was Two, I was nearly new (my paw pads were still pink and my belly fur impossibly fluffy)
When I was Three, I was hardly me (I was between homes and dislocated)
When I was Four, I was not much more (on my way to my current owners, with numerous fleas, ticks and assorted other "hitchhikers" along the A331)
When I was Five, I was just alive

But now I am Six,

I'm as clever as clever (I think we can all agree that this goes without saying?), So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever. 

Sadly, I shall be clever-and-six for a few more days and then it can safely be said that I will be middle aged. The start of my own Cat-o-pause, if you will.

I shall spread around my middle, start thumbing through motorcycle catalogues, and lust after girly-kittens half my age - or worse than that, I am now officially in danger of becoming a MACIL - the feline equivalent of the Middle-Aged-Cat Man-in-Lycra (MAMIL) brigade of puffing and panting middle-aged humans who polish the rear derailleur of their much-drooled-over Pinarello Dogma carbon cycles, whilst lowering their mirrored shades and pedalling into the hills, to compare GPS route-finding cycle computers and pretending that they know how to stretch!

There are some advantages to getting old - no longer do I have to get my kicks from tearing around and chasing birds - I can get the same "high" now from standing up really fast from my water bowl!

Ah! My kitten-youth was a wonderful thing - what a shame I wasted it on chasing my tail and now it is too late to start painting a portrait to put in my attic (à la "Dorian Gray")! Everything slows down with age, except it seems the time it takes for my Whiskas to attach itself to my hips! Sigh.