I Might Be Nocturnal

At one time I had three cats. They were all from the same litter. They all could have passed for pure-bred cats, but obviously weren't since they would have passed for three different breeds. One is a perfect apple-head siamese, one is a classic orange tabby, and the third is a bombay black. The orange tabby made it a very strange mix indeed, since the red genes he obviously held in force did not show up at all in his brothers. Clearly sons of three different fathers and a mother cat who contributed nothing to their genetic mix. But what has them on my mind is their behavior.

Two of the three seldom touched the floor. They slept on top of the kitchen cabinets and traversed the living room by a series of leaps from couch back to chair to piano. Their brother prowled the lower regions, keeping his feet firmly on the ground. On the rare occassion when he got up on the kitchen cabinets it would take near starvation for him to make the jump down to the counter. I think in the common housecat there is a blend of ancient tree dwelling species with other creatures of the broad savanna, and my three boys came from widely divergent branches of that heritage.

People might be just as diverse a blend. I think I must be descended from some rare nocturnal stock.