Who is immune to the ratcheting up of anxiety and distress, the societal focus on impending CATaclysms? With great good fortune, cats seem to carry invisible, almost impervious force shields, keeping many human concerns at bay. Beyond that, some are also quite able to perceive an individual's "dis-ease" separate from mass media mania. In short, cats are proving themselves invaluable as emotional support animals, a status that requires no training, only a letter from a mental health professional. A friend of mine who taught at Unity College in Maine told me several of her students came to class with their cats, and were much better able to focus on lessons and assignments.

Yes, of course, a cat sits on my lap as i write this, so yes, of course, my fingers may be nudged in favor of the feline species. A dog warms my feet at the other end of the couch, however, and reminds me that they too can serve to lower human blood pressure rates, and settle erratic breathing when people taught about these benefits attend to entrainment.

So for this National Cat Day, let's give a grand salute to all the Cat friends whose purring reminds us of what is right in the world, and who always know to curl up with us when we're under whatever kind of weather. Charlie Delaney, the patriarch in my novel The Scent of Distant Family, finds his many feline friends an antidote to stress, as shown in the following passage:

The sound of kibble dropping into bowls revs the excitement up a notch, and cat voices fill all the choir roles: the black long hair is bass, the brown tabby covers tenor and two orange tabbies hit the baritone. He holds a bowl in each hand and waves them around, orchestrating. The Siamese, of course, sings high soprano, a torti performs mezzo and the lady in blue provides the contralto.