Cat Tails: The yarn lady's music

Emma liked it when the yarn lady played her CDs. She had all sorts of interesting songs that she liked to listen to. It wasn't much fun when Val was asleep and the yarn lady used the headphones, though. Her voice was okay, but she sure wasn't going to get a recording contract.

Much of the time she drowsed while listening but some songs woke her up and almost made her want to dance. She liked those songs the best, ones like "If I Had $1000000". When the yarn lady listened to that one she she'd bop around in her chair and do funny things with her hands, like flicking all her fingers out to the sides. As far as Emma could tell that meant she was happy. She didn't understand though why the guys who sang the song would want a monkey, llama or emu when you could have cats.

Songs like "Hobo's Lullaby" made her sad. That guy's voice was kind of quavery, which was sad in itself and it was about some poor guy who didn't have to anywhere to live and people picked on him. The guitar music was really pretty though. The song made her wonder what it would be like if she was a stray cat, without somone to feed her and a warm bed to sleep on. She was really glad she had Val to take care of her (and the yarn lady for providing such a very comfy feather blanket).

Her favorite song (and probably the yarn lady's too, since she played it so much) was "Swimming to the Other Side". She didn't like the idea of swimming, but after she'd heard the song a couple times she realized it had nothing to do with water, so that was okay. It was all about people helping and caring about each other. That's what life is all about, as far as Emma could figure, especially for people. Val and the yarn lady helped each other all the time and were really good friends. She really liked the line, "Loving spirits will live forever, we're all swimming to the other side." She knew that the spirit of her cat mommy was still with her, even though she hadn't seen her for years. Sometimes she missed her a lot, but Emma knew that her mommy loved her wherever she was, even if she'd gone to sleep with the Great Cat.

As the music played, Emma's eyes became heavy, and she finally drifted off to sleep listening to Holly Near sing "Quite Early Morning".