Gone Nuts!

For the past couple of weeks, maybe, about fifty percent of the cats haven’t been able to sleep at night and instead keep poking me with a paw, sometimes even emitting a little verbal cat expression, saying, “Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up.” It’s been kind of hard to get enough sleep, but worse, I have been worried about cat mental health, aging, demonic possession, etc. Then I remembered that it IS autumn, after all, and this is something that happens to some degree every year. Last night the wind was bending the trees over sideways, and while the leaves all pretty much held on, it reminded me how there is a particular day every fall where the wind comes in on a big cold front, and in one day half the remaining leaves are gone and there is a frost residue in the morning, and THAT’S the first day of winter.

Then I remembered back a few years ago when I lived in Wisconsin, and my cat, Louis, generally a calm individual, would go nuts for a few days every fall. I figured he could sense the weather changing and some deep instinctual programming turned him temporarily into a nutty squirrel. I would look out the windows as the wind whipped around and watch the squirrels run around like maniacs trying to gather food and hide it away for the long winter ahead. That’s when it occurred to me that the expression “gone nuts” most likely originated when describing squirrels or comparing the nut in question to a spastic, busy squirrel. “Going nuts is about running around like a madman trying to hide away nuts for the winter!” I told Louis excitedly. “And you, sir, are acting like a squirrel.”

He didn’t seem to care, as his activity was deeply rooted and unconscious, and he was soon back to normal, sleeping most of the day. It’s not just cats, though. I encounter thousands of people a day as a walk around the city, and I can’t help but notice patterns I would never see if I saw only ten people a day. Today there was testiness, fear, panic even, as some survival instincts from generations past pushed people toward rude self-centeredness and longing for isolation. I shouldn’t judge them, but then we’re supposed to be civilized. Maybe fifty percent of their cats were keeping them up all night and they were just sleep deprived. It’s okay, though; soon they will be tired from the harvest and will settle into mending drafty things and making acorn squash soup and hot cider with brandy and watching sports. Who of them cannot be happy that they’re human beings?