Poor ol' Peaches didn't deserve this vexation in his dotage. Not enough that he's deaf and has that shriveled, unsteady look the elderly sometimes get. Not enough one ear is split top to bottom from a long-ago altercation with a marauder, or that degenerating grooming habits have rendered his fur thin and disheveled. Not enough that his 18 years have robbed him of what joie de vivre he once savored -- now he has also lost the sovereignty of being top cat.

We've been expecting the old fellow to go to that great litter box in the sky for several years now: he declines, then improves, then fades, then gets better yet again. He sleeps sometimes 20 hours a day, showing only occasional interest in the curly telephone cord or Dave's mealtime whistle.

The little peach-fuzz-colored kitty with the huge purr was drifting into a relaxed and easy twilight. He dozed where he would, in the middle of the floor or on his recumbent deity, and was never challenged for his dinner bowl.

Until now.

Until the arrival of house guests, our daughter Jean's cats, Chica and Gim. They've been with us since she moved to Virginia to mother a child with a severe allergy.

Desensitization is in progress, and the cats will go back with her when she visits in April. But meanwhile...

Meanwhile, we vacuum daily -- floors, couch and bed. We brush cats daily; we clean litter boxes daily. We have installed spring-loaded catches on screen doors, and we have put dried floral arrangements out of reach.

But our trials are nothing compared with the tribulations Peaches has had to bear. Unable to hear one of the interlopers coming up behind him, he startles violently, and finds himself in a spitting, snarling brawl, over as swiftly as it began. But while big, placid Chica has barely broken her slow waddle, Peach's heart is pounding, his usually-squinchy eyes wide and fearful.

He took to sleeping on a bed in the spare room -- a room he never ventured into before -- because the big cats seldom go there. We had to keep that door closed, however, when he decided to reduce his exposure further by using that room for -- well, all his functions, rather than risk a trip to the litter boxes in Dave's shop.

Now he sleeps on one of my grandmother's cane-bottomed chairs, or else coils beneath it, its double rungs forming a protective cage for him.

Jean adopted the cats from the Harrisonburg, Va., animal shelter almost 10 years ago when she got her very first own apartment. They've crossed the country with her twice, to Fresno, then Juneau, and now back East.Chica has a bland, inscrutable face and medium-length hair of anindefinite tortoise-shell coloring, and despite all efforts to restricther food, weighs nearly 15 pounds. She is so huge you can't see daylightbeneath her as she ambles across a room. She loves belly rubs, rolling over sensuously, clasping your handpassionately, claws retracted. She also loved to sleep between us atnight, until I finally banned her from the room. With that much weightpinning the covers, it was hard to pull them up around my shoulders atnight. Chasing her to the foot of the bed didn't help. Gim slept there, inloaf-of-bread position, and with a cat on each side, our feet went tosleep.For all her size, Chica's lightning quick, but both are strictly indoorcats. They crouch on the porch for hours, tails twitching, while birdsand squirrels tantalize beyond the screen. Gim, I confess, is my favorite. Lanky, wiry Gim, the luscious color ofcaramel stirred into vanilla ice cream. Napping in the sunlight, he rollsand stretches. It takes an entire yardstick to reach from the tips of hisextended paws to the end of his tail. And what a tail! Full and lush, it sails proudly aloft when he paradesacross a room, inviting adjectives like awesome, glorious, stupendous.Asleep, he uses it as pillow or eyeshade.His snowy throat and tummy are warm in the sun. But beware of strokingthem. You have about 10 seconds before sabers slash your hands for suchaudacity. When he rises, the sunlight shines red through Gim's great ears, madelarger by half-inch tufts of hair at their extremes. His wide golden eyesgive him a look of surprise; his voice is a throaty contralto as herampages wildly up the stairs. Gim plays Jack Spratt to Chica's Mrs. Spratt, bolting his food hastily assoon as Dave calls. At a glance, he looks as big as Chica, but if youwrap your fingers around his spine, they sink through long silky hair tothe bony body within. He weighs half what she does -- we nicknamed himLightfoot for his delicate landings on the television and his habit ofslipping through any opening.I'll miss these odd personalities -- but not the hair that clings to ourclothes, shimmers in the afternoon sunlight, and embarrasses us whenguests sit down. It will remain long after April, a souvenir of Peach'snightmares come true.Could be worse, I guess. We have friends whose long-term house guests aretheir grandchildren.Hurry April!

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