The average cat sleeps 15 to 20 hours a day.  But that doesn’t mean a cat can’t get lonely.  Especially when its servants (some would say owners, but let’s be real) aren’t around much.

Earlier this year Rhumba spent two months in hospital and rehab.  It proved rough for both of us.  Between tending to work and tending to Rhumba, I spent all but one or two waking hours each day away from home.  And from the cat.

She’s a  meaty 13-year-old Siamese/Burmese mix with muscles of steel and an attitude.  But when our other cat died last year, our tough cat became more — needy.  And then, with neither Rhumba and I around much, almost desperate.

I gave her what attention I could. I knew that she enjoyed being brushed.  So I brushed her until she rolled on the floor and purred.  I brushed her before work.  I brushed her when I fed her dinner.  I brushed her late at night, three-quarters asleep after tending Rhumba all evening.  I brushed enough fur off her to make another cat.

But she didn’t care. She’d flop from side to side on the floor so that I could brush both sides equally.  She purred.  And she purred.   And she PURRRRED.  Until you could hear it  ten feet away while the neighbors used power tools.

And when Rhumba came home, she asked: “Why is the cat going bald?”  I hadn’t even noticed.  The cat hadn’t complained.

We’re both at home now, and Rhumba is back to at her job.  We come home every evening. But the cat still wants to be brushed.  Constantly.  When I come downstairs to feed her in the morning, she runs to her brush, not her food bowl.  I have suspicions that she’s learned to live off the kinetic energy transmitted through the brushing motions.  That, and solar energy from her daily sunbaths.

And I wonder if she will gradually fade away under the ceaseless brushing, until there is nothing left but an eternal purr — a standing wave of sound that never dissipates.  When it wanders near, I’ll run a brush through the heart of the purr, back and forth until the kinetic energy from the motion tops off its power levels.   Then it will float into my lap and PURRRRRRRRR far into the night.

And if we should ever sell our place or pass away, the disembodied purr will wander out of the house onto the highway and let the cars run through it for the sheer love of energy.  Until it is the size of an elephant, and the PURRRR measures on seismographs.  And people will come to wave their hands through it and feel the PURRRRRRR for thousands of years to come.

PURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.  Damn!  She wants to be brushed again.

This blog will experience a slight delay because of coffee.

On Labor Day, in an effort to be cool and suave and get out of the house, Rhumba and I took our act and our personal electronics to a coffee house.

I set up my laptop on a big table in the middle of the room and, after a few productive minutes of writing, knocked a glass of cold-brew coffee right into the keyboard.

I hefted the thing into the air and turned it upside down.  Brown liquid streamed from the cracks between the keys.  No cause for alarm; I’d backed the thing up a mere — six months ago.

“Turn it off before it shorts!” somebody called out. Good advice. I shut down the laptop without incident, half-closed the clamshell and stood the laptop up on its “legs,” so that it dripped and drained for another 20 minutes.  I made no attempt to turn it on. It went home with us, smelling strongly of coffee.

Knocking things over is a sort of unintentional hobby with me, but I actually haven’t spilled fluid into data processing equipment since the ‘80s, when I sloshed a can of Diet Coke into a computer terminal.  It did not survive.   I hoped for a better outcome this time around.

Fortunately Rhumba has a laptop, also, and the Internet is a fine source of information on anything trivial.  We were not surprised to find an extensive literature on the ramifications of pouring coffee into laptops.  The wise heads advised putting it on its legs and letting it dry out.  Preferable for a couple of days; a minimum of one, you mad fool.

I waited one.

My laptop booted alright, but the fan wouldn’t turn off.  After a couple of minutes the screen went black.  Then it tried to boot again. Then it went black.  Then it tried to boot again.

Finally, it just sat there and looked at me.  And then it spoke:

“BoopBoopBoop.”

“What?”

“BoopBoopBoop.”

“What does that mean?!”

“BoopBoopBoop.”

What it meant, the Internet told me, was that I had a RAM problem.  Either one of the RAM modules had gone bad; or, it wasn’t seated correctly in its sockets.  Or some foreign substance had gotten into the socket.

Was this substance brown, liquid, and of robust flavor?  I can only surmise.

So the laptop goes back on its legs to dry out for yet another day. We shall see if the morrow brings happy sockets to its motherboard.

And if not, I’ll hunt through our rolodex for the number of a certain bearded yeti who lives in the hills, descending only to buy supplies and fix ailing computers for cheap or free.  And to occasionally play the marimba at parties.

In the meantime I have Rhumba’s computer, but none of my files.  Who would think that something like this could happen in this day and age?

BoopBoopBoop.

(Update, 24 hours later:  It’s back from the dead, by God! Happy sockets fer sure!)