The Call of the Wild or White Strombeek

". . . thousands of men were rushing into the Northland. These men wanted cats, and the cats they wanted were heavy cats with strong muscles by which to toil and furry coats to protect them from the frost." --Jack London, The Call of the Wild

Our cats love white. In the winter when we put a quilt over our white comforter, (shown without the dark quilt in the photo below) they move to the second bedroom where they can more visibly soil the whiteness of the comforter in that room. (pictured in the second photo)

I thought maybe white repelled fleas, but I can't find any documentation to support this hypothesis.  In fact one site claims white shoes and socks "excite and invite" the fleas into your home. 

So, for whatever reason, our cats love white. But falling snow was neither exciting nor inviting. While the snow fell, they refused to look out the windows. They slunk along low to use their litter box and hunkered down to sharpen their claws on the scratching post to avoid seeing it. This white stuff falling from the sky was freaking them out. Even when I held them up to the window, they turned their heads away. But this morning everything was coated in sparkling whiteness and Strombeek (who is still lured by the prospect of a backyard adventure) couldn't resist. 

It was her introduction to the reign of primitive law. 

The facts of life took on a fiercer aspect,

And while she faced that aspect uncowed, she faced it with the latent cunning of her nature aroused.

She was sounding the deeps of her nature, and of the parts of her nature that were deeper than she, going back into the womb of Time.

Here was neither peace, nor rest, nor a moment's safety.

All was confusion and action, and every moment life and limb were in peril.

It was the masterful and incom- municable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life.

It was the Wild, the savage, frozen-hearted Northland Wild.

Growth is life, and life is forever destined to make for light.  

 

Much of the Wild had been lost, so that to [other cats] the Wild was the unknown, the terrible, the ever manacing and ever warring.

All intelligence was gone. It was as if she had no brain. Her reason was unseated by the blind yearning of her flesh to exist and move. . .

. . . at all hazards to move, to continue to move, for movement was the expression of her existence.

They were molding the clay of White Strombeek into a more ferocious thing than had been intended by Nature.

Life lived on life. There were the eaters and the eaten. The law was: EAT OR BE EATEN. 

But. . . these were creatures of mastery, possessing all manner of unknown and impossible potencies, overlords. . . fire-makers!. . . gods!

And since the cats had no interest in the Super Bowl, this was pretty much our day.