Click the Magnificent, the Sublime...

...God-Empress of the Desert Realms. Behold her beauty and despair, ye mortals! Behold her mighty jaws and fear - for the finish of your bathtub.



Click was coming out of her shell for a couple of months before Butch took the Long Trip. She was catching mice and rats again, spending afternoon time down off the loft, and generally getting back to what passes for normal around here.

But other things have changed besides Butch, of course. God-Emperor Kwai Chang Cain set off, condescending to rule heaven (in a truly bizarre event - remind me to tell you about it sometime) and Click's sister Point (Yes, Point and Click - bite me) disappeared during their six-week sojourn in town last summer. We've had a veritable epidemic among the cats until only Click remains. All of this - except for the business about Butch, whom she despised with righteous passion - sent Click into an emotional tailspin that lasted for several months.

But as I said she had been coming around in the past couple of months. Then Butch disappeared, and all was well with her universe. She is now THE cat, she is THAT cat. She has ascended the Topaz Throne, and wants her subjects to know it.

The dogs, as I've mentioned, were literally raised by a cat. They love and differdefer to all cats, even Butch, even though Butch hated them all. Okay, toward the end they didn't exactly differdefer to Butch - they often stopped him from pushing Click around but that's my point. They would not allow harm to come to their cats when they could help it. Now Click is the only cat. You can imagine how she behaves around the dogs. They are her dogs; her loyal, devoted subjects.

She has also become extremely active at night, and by active I mean viciously predatory. She sleeps all day, becomes active in the evening, disappears after dark and by the time I wake at first light she's snoozing comfortably in my bed or in the loft. I must then go see (and clean up) what carnage she has wrought - it's gotten to be a normal morning routine. She and Point used to catch rats daily; they'd behead them and bring the otherwise unmolested bodies into my neighbors' lair. But Click doesn't settle for death; she must also have destruction. And dinner. So I don't pick up rodent bodies, I scoop up heads and tails and entrails and I mop up pools of blood: There's very little left.

Most commonly, she has the courtesy to confine her slaughter to the bathtub. I don't know her reasoning for this, but I do appreciate it. The goop goes into a paper towel, and I can just wash body fluids down the drain. Not always, though. When I rise in the morning it's dark, and I hop about the lair one-legged. I've had to learn to do this more carefully: Yesterday morning I managed to hop right into a soggy mass of innards right in front of the toilet, which the day before had been decently contained within a large rat. Can't say I appreciated that very much.

Nevertheless, I'm happy she's back. She's happy, the dogs seem very happy to have her back, and I guess that's what counts.