Dear Reader Column 09-25-07

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Dear Reader,

I'm on vacation for two weeks and I've asked some of my friends to fill in for me. Today's guest column is written by award-winning speaker and author Chellie Campbell.

Chellie's written two books, The Wealthy Spirit: Daily Affirmations for Financial Stress Reduction and her latest, Zero to Zillionaire: 8 Foolproof Steps to Financial Peace of Mind.

I met Chellie in Los Angeles when I was at Book Expo America. She's become a good long distance friend, someone I can always count on to help me get "grounded." But I really should ask her for a poker lesson sometime. This past January, at the LA Poker Classic, she came in 3rd Place and won $10,000.

If you'd like to contact Chellie, she'd love to hear from you. Every single reader who sends her an email will get a copy of Fabulous 50 Abundance Affirmations. You can reach her at: chellie@chellie.com

Thanks for covering for me, Chellie.--Suzanne Beecher

Dear Reader,

I love Suzanne and her book clubs, so I was delighted when she invited me to write a guest column for her while she's on vacation. We're both cat lovers, and when I shared with her about my big, orange love-cat, she said, "Write about him!" So welcome to my cat-loving world:

After marriages, divorces, loves, friendships, careers, volunteer activities, hobbies, and all of our life's adventures, my roommate, Shelley, and I have settled into a comfortable domestic routine. The conclusion is inescapable: we have devolved into two old ladies with cat.

We are a polygamous family; two working women and one big, fat orange cat, the sun around whom our moons revolve like the sister-wives around Bill Paxton in Big Love. We used to have another cat, also. Yoda was a scrawny little calico gal, feisty and territorial, who ran circles around Mr. Kitty. But her heart gave out one day when she was 15, probably frustrated from trying to get Mr. Kitty to jump around with her.

Mr. Kitty ("They call me 'Mister' Kitty!") doesn't jump much. He weighs 28 pounds. He used to weigh 30 pounds, but we put him on a diet. I couldn't make it work. He turned his nose up at the diet cat food and I crumpled when his big, sorrowful eyes looked at me accusingly. I could hear him thinking, "What's this dreck you've put in my food dish? Cat tofu?" When the veterinarian called to check in on how the diet was going, I had to sheepishly say I just couldn't feed him the diet food because he didn't like it. The vet was exasperated. "What do you think he's going to do about it? 'Leave home?'"

My introduction to Mr. Kitty came late one night when I arrived home to find a large, brown-paper note taped to the front door, upon which was scrawled "We have another cat. Otherwise, he is going to DIE!" I laughed and walked in to meet our new Lord and Master. Shelley had found him in a friend's backyard, where he was being attacked by a dog. Naturally, she rescued him and brought him home. He purred when I petted him, then reached for me when I stopped, so I pet him some more. The hook was in. I work for him. He controls the vertical, he controls the horizontal. He returns control to me on a limited basis when he is, for the moment, satiated.

I have had dogs before, and don't get me wrong, I love dogs. But they are all-love-all-the-time and it gets a bit exhausting, don't you think? Mr. Kitty is a master of the only thing that drives lab rats crazy: intermittent reinforcement. Sometimes he loves you--and sometimes he doesn't. It's your job to figure out what he wants and when he wants it.

As a speaker and author, I read a lot of self-help books. Mr. Kitty always has an opinion about them. When I was reading Who Moved My Cheese, Mr. Kitty stretched and sharpened his claws on the carpet, as if to say, If They Move Your Cheese, Claw Them to Ribbons. His advice from The Power of Food Now involves how to identify and control the primary food giver, and he makes it clear The Fat Cats Next Door will feed you, too, if you play your cards right. In his opinion, Cats are from Mars, Dogs are from Venus, and his hero is The Fattest Cat in Babylon. Babylon may be dried and dust, but Mr. Kitty, the fattest cat in Brentwood, lives to eat another day.

And only the finest, juiciest cat food will do, so I have to go back to work now. My life has purpose and meaning: I have to bring home the cat food. One day I'm going to write down Mr. Kitty's wisdom in a new book. I'm going to call it "The Fat Cat's Guide to Living Rich so You Don't Have to Work Like a Dog."

And who knows? Maybe you'll be reading it at Suzanne's book club one day.

Chellie Campbell

Chellie's website: http://www.chellie.com/ and her email address is: chellie@chellie.com

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Comments

[Sue]

Wonderful, simply wonderful. I have a dog now. For years growing up I had a cat. Thanks for reminding me of all the quirky, fun, personalities of a cat. My next stop is the humane society. I'm gonna go get me a cat.
Thanx

[Karen Wormald]

Chellie, your book about Mr. Kitty's wisdom could be the companion to my book, "How to Work Like a Cat." Your delightful post came to me courtesy of Google, and I'm so glad it did. Quite enjoyable reading! Mr. Kitty definitely sounds like my kind of cat, and he's very lucky to have such a talented writer chronicling his life.