Santa, you were wise this year, and gave a gift guaranteed to garner cat pictures. Thank you, Secret Santa, cloaked in mystery! My real gift this year is to see my cats’ joy. Or, at a bare minimum, to watch them schiz out on the copious amounts of high grade catnip that accompanied this intriguing toy. But perhaps, Santa, just perhaps, you have given the gift of freedom to a prisoner, succor to the besieged.

You wrote me a note. Very kind. I should have done the same when I took my turn wearing the red hat this year.

“A cute scratching disk to keep your kitties busy!”

I did not tell you much about my cats in the quiz. Quetzalcoatl is the tuxedo, with lovely gloves of white, a loud mouth, a seething hatred of closed doors, a warm heart for humans, but also a cold one for other animals. She was given to be by sister on December 21, 2012, the day the Mayan calendar “ended,” and so I named her for the Mesoamerican deity some prophesied would return that day. Hopefully, the feathered serpent is not too mad I named a female cat for him.

Sweet Pea I did not name. She was a rescue from the mean streets of Norristown. Plucked out of a cat colony tended to by a kind hearted niece of a coworker. The niece constructed little cat shelters for the park in hopes of giving the ferals a warm place to stay. She is like a secret santa to strays. But I can’t imagine Sweet Pea was born into kitty poverty: she is skittish, but not enough to have never known a kind human’s hand, and she her profile seems bred.

Quetzalcoatl is Sweet Pea’s jailer. I tried to do it right. I had had Quetzalcoatl for about 2 years and though it would be nice for her to have a companion while the humans of the house were at work. Said yes when my co-worker mentioned she knew a cat that needed a home. I introduced them through closed doors with food bowels at the threshold. Added a baby screen. Switched the rooms. Did it again. Removed the gate. And here I had all unknowingly set the cats territories. East and West Germany. Quetzalcoatl owned the house, Sweet Pea was suffered to live in my bed room.

It never comes to outright blows, but Quetzalcoatl chases Sweet Pea when she dares step foot into the house at large. When Sweet Pea does dare to transgress she is hyper vigilant, alert to every sound that could be a padded footfall preceding a charging murder machine.

Santa, maybe your gift will change all that. Maybe it will lead to peace and a peace between cats. I think Sweet Pea is super down to rub faces with Quetzalcoatl, but Quetzalcoatl has some deep seated issues in re other cats having the temerity to exist. I will put the toy on the threshold, and if I ever find them playing with it together, I will sing an ode of thanksgiving and praise to my 2017 Secret Santa. Indeed, I do so anyway. Thank you! They will love it and so do I.