For years now — maybe a decade — Kris and I have had the same yearly page-a-day calendar in our bathroom. It’s a cat calendar (“the cat calendar”, as we call it), and every day has a picture of a cat, the cat’s name (and the name of its owner), and some blurb about catness. We love it.

The first three cats of the year are prize-winners. I used to take the page from January 1st and tape it over the cats’ dinner bowls. “Look at this cat,” I would tell them. “This is what you should aspire to. He’s a Good Cat.” They never listened, but they had to stare at the winning cat for 365 days. Sometimes 366. One of my money-making blog ideas is actually based around this cat-a-day concept.

Anyhow, this is all prelude to the following picture:

Why this photo did not win first prize for the year I will never know. Look at it. This one snapshot encompasses a metric ton of catness. Poor, poor Sugar Plum. What mean humans she has, to subject her to such torture. And to photograph it! The indignity of it all…