I have a problem and I hope someone out there in cyberland can help me with it. You see, I have a morning routine – I wake slowly, so I move slowly, wrap myself in a warm housecoat given to me by my wonderful mother-in-law several years ago, and wander to the kitchen, where I make a cup of coffee and usually a single piece of toast with crunchy peanut butter and jam of some kind. This morning it was homemade by a neighbour – mango and strawberry, also chunky.

I then sit in my favourite chair which faces the front window of our home so I can keep track of the few vehicles that might drive by, as well as the deer that wander the neighbourhood every day. I sip my coffee and munch my toast, then pick up my laptop and check my email. After that I open a Bible app and read a chunk of scripture. It’s a rather big chunk right now, because I’m doing a challenge, put out by Mary DeMuth to read the entire Bible in 90 days.

This is when my problem occurs. His name is Little Duffer (aka Little Stinker, Little Terror, Bad Cat, Cheeky Cat, etc.).

You see Duffer likes to jump up between the laptop and the arm of the chair and crawl up to lie on my chest. That effectively restricts the ability to move my left arm, and view the monitor, which makes it a little awkward to type. I could put up with that, I suppose, but then Duffer wriggles a bit higher and begins to knead with his sharp little claws, while twisting his head around to lick my hand. Not just one lick, mind you, but over and over again until there’s a small river running between my fingers. If I push him down, he immediately comes right back. By then I’m ready to do some writing or editing on my WIP (work in progress), so Duffer’s habit becomes rather annoying.

To this point in time, I have found no way to stop him from doing this. Can anyone help me? Pleeeese! I like the little critter but he’s driving me crazy!

By the way, I am following the advice of Garrison Keillor in writing this post.  Mr. Keillor wrote – “Life has its sorrows. Make something beautiful out of it.”

I don’t pretend that this is ‘beautiful’ nor would I class my problem with Duffer as a ‘sorrow’ but I hope it gives you a chuckle as well as a proverbial light bulb idea that works to solve my dilemma.

If not, I may have to resort to putting a wire cage around my chair so I can get some work done!

I hope you have a wonderful cat-licking free day.

MCL