I awoke early this morning to the sounds of an animal hacking up what appeared to be a product borne of fur and saliva. OK, that's a fancy way of saying the cat was spitting up a hairball. But here's the caveat: it was inches from my face. After seeing the disgusting item deposited on the sheet next to me, I wrestled with the notion of slogging my body out of bed to clean it up or going back to sleep and just vowing not to roll over in it. The smell of this hair mass was the actual catalyst that forced me from my cozy bed and after cursing at no one in particular, the mass of hair and spittle was cleaned up and the sheet stripped.

Annoyed that I was provoked to rising at 4 am to clean up someone else's mess, all was soon forgiven when the culprit climbed back into the bed and onto my chest with her furry head buried under my chin. How can one stay angry?

I am not one of those fanatical cat fanciers who enjoin that society of people who gather the details of their lives around their cats. They are simply part of the society of creatures that live under my roof. We own two cats, litter mates, who were adopted from the San Francisco SPCA nearly two decades ago. As the story goes, Fang and my brother Marv went to the SPCA to adopt a cat. It was an intervention on their part, I think, to assuage my heavy grief at the loss of an adored pet that met an early and untimely demise. They saw the two kittens, and engaged by the feistiness of an ungainly male with too large ears and a female, clearly the runt, they adopted them both.

That was over 18 years ago and they both thrive, to my absolute amazement. They've proven easy companions, forgiving and prone to those likeable characteristics more consistent in canines than cats. To this day, they fight and dodge over portions on their dinner plate and they compete fiercely for attention when a cat toy is pressed into action. In their lifetime, this duo has made cross country moves three times, to say nothing of numerous other house moves, all with that reluctant stroll into the cat carrier. Their eyes seem to say, "Where are we going now, bitch?" And mercifully, they always adapt to their new environment within minutes of arriving.

Of course, they are beyond geriatric now. According to their vet, they are the equivalent of 95 years old. Each. And there are definitely times they show their age these days. They get confused and sometimes mew at the hallway wall in frustration because they've forgotten how to get to the catbox. They also don't have the agility to scale the high bed anymore and I had to buy them stairs to assist them in getting up on the bed. (An aside: Fang is still annoyed that I spent far too much money to purchase mahogany library steps instead of some cheapo pet steps--but the library stairs match the bed frame and are far more elegant!).

But for all their cat dementia and hacked hair ball droppings, at night when I go to sleep, I have both of them cradled under each arm and it's bliss.