Hello, Sleepyhead

Last night I was awakened out of a deep sleep by someone saying "Hello," over and over, at regular intervals.  Which I thought was pretty weird, since I was sleeping alone while Sean has been out of town for a few days.  After I woke enough to gather my bearings, I realized that the sound that I thought was "hello" was Otto, snoring like a buzz-saw.  Something about the way he was holding his mouth or the position of his vocal cords was making it sound like he was saying "hello" repeatedly.  There he was tucked into a little ball in between my legs, and "talking" in his sleep.  

Clearly, Otto will find any excuse to talk, because he was the only one of our cats who used to talk while eating when he was a kitten.  (Actually, we can't say that for sure about two of them, because we didn't really know them when they were kittens.)  But Otto would sit there as a tiny fluff of grey and white, his big blue eyes half-closed in pleasure, and eat his kibble while saying (in the parlance of the LOL Cats) "nom, nom, nom."  He'd just keep vocalizing right through dinner, and no matter how much we told him that it is impolite to speak with one's mouth full (okay, we didn't really do that), he just kept doing it anyway.  

Sometimes we totally "get" what Otto's saying to us, and sometimes it is completely perplexing.  Last night as I was sitting on the couch, he jumped up beside me, looked me right in the eye, and started earnestly mrowing at me.  I figured he wanted to play, so I pulled out a couple of their favorite toys from the toy-box and commenced playing.  He ignored it.  I cuddled him.  He ignored that.  I stuck him under the throw blanket on the couch, thinking he wanted to play the pick-at-his-fur-under-the-cover-game.  Nope.  

I think he was just trying to tell me to go fetch Big Buddy, and PRONTO.  Otto was getting mighty tired of this business about his not being here.  I know Otto loves me, but I'll never be a match for his Big Buddy.  I guess I should just feel thankful that he can talk about it, even in his sleep!