Ride 'em Cowgirl!

I think by now we've already established that Wanda is...not like other cats.  She likes to be chased; she can hold a grudge for about a year, more or less; she eats spiderwebs.  (Have I not mentioned that part?)  What we definitely haven't told you yet is that Wanda is an accomplished equestrienne.  It's true.  Okay, not with real horses, but I wouldn't put it past her.

One of Wanda's favorite play-time exercises is to cling tightly to your leg, length-wise, and dig her sharp little needle-claws in for a "horsey ride."  You know those rides you used to take on your Uncle Arthur's knee as a kid?  Yep, just like that, only it's the cat riding bareback instead.  She indicates her willingness to ride the bucking bronco by jumping on your leg and then kind of wiggling expectantly.  At which point, the leg she is "riding" will start bobbing up and down, to Wanda's great delight.  At this point, we sing the (by this point, entirely expected) song:  "Horsey ride, horsey ride, horsey horsey horsey ride!"  (I'd tell you what tune that is set to, but it's actually an original.)  Then, when she's got a pretty good stranglehold on the leg, the leg will start going side-to-side, and Wanda will ride the thrilling ride to its logical conclusion, sliding off the side of the "horsey" as it goes to one side, but righting herself again as it swings to the opposite direction.  Not unlike an ill-fated actual horsey ride I took while in college.  But that's another story.  And thankfully, not for this blog.  Right now, this is about Wanda--the wind in her hair, the bugs in her teeth, as she goes riding off into that sunset atop her trusty steed.  She may be getting up in years, but the old girl still has a lot of moxie.  And a heck of a lot of imagination.

(As an aside, this is not the most fun Wanda's had doing a horsey ride in a while.  At this point, she'd already done several minutes of riding and I think she might have been getting a little saddle-sore.)