Being owned by a cat isn't so bad. She gives me lots of snuggles and rubs, talks with me and entertains me . . . IF I'm good.

Play time each day is mandatory. I must spend at least 30 minutes a day waving the teaser toys for her to attack and throwing her catnip mouse. (I usually tire out before she does.)

My boss seems to like laundry. Almost every day I find socks or other small items from my laundry basket scattered around the house. (I know that I didn't put that sock in the middle of the living room floor.)

Once per day I supply my boss with crunchy kitty treats. I toss them across the living room floor so she has to chase them (maybe this gives me some credits for play time). So that my boss doesn't get fat, I limit her to 3 treats per day.

Desmond Morris in his book "Cat Lore" claimed that cats can't count. He was wrong. Ms. Julia knows full well when I have dispensed 3 treats and that she will not get any more.

Ms. Julia and the neighborhood outside-cat squared off a few months ago with my bedroom slider screen between them. The result was that the screen was shreaded. Many small holes and one about the size of a lemon. It cost me $80 to have it re-screened with 'supposedly' pet-proof screening material. She hasn't reimbursed me yet.

My Queen is an indoor monarch. However she does have an adventurous nature. I have to constantly be on my toes. Once in awhile when I go out the front door to get the newspaper or dump the trash she makes a mad, flying leap to get through the open door. I keep my guard up and she has never been successful (so far).

She did get out the hole in the rear screen door before I had it repaired. I only knew it when I heard her scratching to get back in. (She's a timid escapee.)

Ms. Julia loves to hang out with me. Unfortunately, when I am on the computer, she normally plops down right in front of my keyboard so I can't type or right in front of the monitor so I can't see what I am doing. Otherwise she's content to sit alongside of me on the sofa in the evenings. (She's not a lap cat).

When I approach her sitting in a hallway or room she holds her ground and requires me to walk around or step over her. (Most cats would dash out of the way of an approaching giant. Not Ms. J.)

Apparently she trusts me to not hurt her.

When I go to bed at night Ms. Julia waits until I settle down and then comes to command me to give her a bedtime pet. If I ignore her she nuzzles my face, pats me on the arm or face with her paw and purrs loudly in my ear. After she gets what she wants she retires to her far side of the bed. (She's not a bed hog).

Ms. Julia awakens me at about 5:30AM each morning to begin my duties. If I ignore her at first she will let me sleep another 20-30 minutes and then paw me or tromp on my body. After getting me up she then goes back to bed herself. (She loves her warm water bed, winter or summer.)

I normally feed Ms. Julia Costco's Kirkland brand dry cat food. She likes it and her vet said it is a good formula. It is certainly less expensive than the premium brands. A couple times a week I'll also give her a tablespoon or two of 9Lives wet food, her favorite.

I got the coupon for a free 3 pound bag of Purina One from the Internet. It is normally $7.95 in local pet stores. It promised to give her a shinier coat, better skin, brighter eyes and more energy after 30 days. She liked it and ate twice as much as usual . . . and pooped twice as much. Unfortunately none of the promised changes occurred in Ms. Julia. At least I saved a few bucks in the Queen's budget for the month.

My boss likes to chew on the ends of my computer paper stacks and practically any plastic bag. Perhaps she lacks roughage in her diet. I've tried living "kitty greens" before but they seem to just get ripped out of their container and spread around the kitchen floor. (More cleanup work for me.)

Each summer the local ants like to invade the kitchen and swarm over Ms. Julia's food bowls and bag of dry food. Putting her food bowls in a dinner plate with water and a little detergent seems to provide a temporary moat that the ants don't like to cross.

I've tried several brands of ant baits in the past but by far is the Terro brand (see the link below). It is a sugar syrup with nothing more than Borax in it (the same stuff as used in hand soap). It is not immediately toxic to the ants so they take it back to the nest and feed it to the babies and queens. Then it does its work.

This year I must have had a large nest nearby. The interior Terro baits were working but the ants kept coming. I put out a couple of Terro's outside bait stations and the ants stopped coming inside.

Ms. Julia is happy.

Ms. Julia has commanded me to produce a cat/human dictionary so that she can better give me commands. (This assignment is not easy!)

Mere humans don't have the vocalization capabilities that cats do. I have tried to document her emphatic "Ma-wa-ha" command but it seems to vary considerably in inflection and intensity. I'm not sure that humans can fully discern the nuances of a cat's superior vocal capabilities.

"Ah-rooh", which is only spoken in the kitchen, seems to mean, "I'm hungry. Are your going to feed me now?"

"Mew-mew-mew", said rapidly and in a high pitched tone when she runs to find me, seems to mean, "That bad outdoor kitty is scaring me through the screen door again".

"Ma-waa", said briefly and in a low tone seems to mean, "You disturbed me. What do you want?"

"Wreh", "What was that?? Please repeat."

Also, I'm just studying Abyssinian. I'm sure there are regional and ethnic speech variations in the cat world as there are in the human world.

This is a difficult task and an on-going project. I'll keep updating the dictionary as I learn more.

To clean out her water bowl: when she starts drinking my bath water.

To clean the kitchen floor: when my feet start crunching the dry food crumbs she scatters about. (She eats like a slob)