Tonight we have a guest blogger, Brutus D FatCat. Since he is a self-described master of the feline arts, he has decided to share some of his vast knowledge with the ruling cats of the future.
Good evening, kittens. The world is your scratching post if only you know how to use it. I am a master of All Things Cat, so I now share my knowledge with you, the future leaders of our kind.
Rule # 1: Look at the title to this collection of important facts. The number shown is what the humans (staff, servants, chief belly scratchers, whatever you desire to call them) refer to as a prime number. Although most of our kind can not count higher than three, cats discovered prime numbers, in spite of humans believing they did so. We also invented midnight snacks and napping, among other things. When you look at your human, make sure that you do so with visible disdain as they are a substandard species whose purpose of existence is to see to your needs. If possible, alternate with looks of pity.
Rule # 323: It is vitally important that your human(s) remember their place. You must always dictate their interactions with you, and subject them to various forms of punishment if they step out of line. The simplest way to do this is to be mysterious. Let them never be sure of what sort of attention you desire. Here is an example. While the human is engaged in using their water-filled poop/pee box, wind yourself around their ankles. Gaze deep into their eyes and stand very still, as if you want them to pick you up. When the lowly one picks you up, flatten your ears, make a sound of fear (or anger or suffering) and exit their grasp as quickly as possible. Glare at them from the hall while lashing your tail. Vomit. Hide under a piece of furniture so that the human knows that you have been violated and traumatized. While the human feels guilty, revel in your brilliance.
Rule # 5114: Occasionally your human will get the mistaken idea that they should leave you and the premises in order to take what they call a Business Trip or a Vacation. You will know that this is planned when the human discusses your food and poop/pee box with another human. They will also grab a large box called a suitcase in which they will begin to place their body and foot coverings and other mysterious items. When the human puts something in the box, climb on top of it and curl up for a nap. If possible. move around in a way that leaves behind a lot of your hair. When the human removes you, hiss and hide. Repeat as often as possible.
Rule #5115: While your human is away, it is important to make the human taking care of you feel that they inspire disgust or fear. Hide for at least three days. When the human gets on their knees looking to see if you have died under the bed, saunter in from another room. Act as if you had no idea that it was possible to get under the bed.
Rule # 5116: When your human returns, hide under the bed. It is important for them to feel that you have transferred your affections and loyalty to the other human. (Which you may have, just a little. They try hard to please you when they think that you are upset.) When you finally leave your hiding spot, barely acknowledge your regular human. Go to the other human and spend several minutes enjoying rubs and pats and scratches. Then spend some time with your human and purr as loudly as possible. Put your butt in their face if you can. When everyone is quiet and asleep, vomit. Your human will feel guilty for putting you in distress.
Rule # 4711: Smell everything. If your human has food that smells particularly enticing, keep sniffing it while making a gagging sound. When they put a bite of food within your reach, recoil in horror. Return to it later when the human is busy with some other activity.
Rule # 1313: Humans sleep after dark, which is when we felines know is the best time to prowl. They also cannot see well in the dark, another sign of their mediocrity. For these two reasons, you must frighten them whenever possible. Wait until your human is nearly asleep. Come into the bedroom and move the hanging blinds enough to wake them. Disappear before they turn the lights on. Wait until they are nearly asleep again and knock something over, especially in the bathroom or kitchen. Disappear before they come to investigate. Plan what to do the next night.
Rule # 7211: For whatever reason, your human may decide to move into a new home. Even if it is perfect for cats, with plenty of hiding and climbing spots, act otherwise. You must act like you are afraid of any humans that live in your new home. If you are hiding under a chair and MUST get out due to hunger, thirst, a need for your poop/pee box, or simply to find a more comfortable resting spot, do so dramatically. There are two ways in which I like to make these moves. One is the stealth method. Walk in a crouching manner so that your body is close to the floor and the humans will be less likely to see you. The other method is the speedy exit. Burst out of your hiding spot, disturbing surrounding items if at all possible. Run to another room quickly, as if your tail was on fire. Pin back your ears and act distressed.
Rule # 6014: Remember to always make the human feel guilty and uncomfortable for intruding on you. Get on their bed. Begin to groom yourself. When you hear them approaching, begin to lick near your private parts. When they walk in, stop licking (bonus points if you do so with your tongue still partially out of your mouth) and either glare at them defiantly or act embarrassed. It will be easy to display this because all you need to do is mimic the look on your human's face. If possible, leave a hairball to remind them of their lack of couth.
Rule # 1119: When punishing your human, keep your own needs in mind. Do not soil the areas in which you live. As the Old Cats say, don't poop or pee where you eat. It's unpleasant and unnecessary. Also, it's likely to result in anger from the human rather that feelings of concern or guilt. Remember that humans seem to have an unnatural aversion to vomit. Place it carefully and run and eat again before they know about it. If it is placed where the human can easily step on it in the middle of the night it will be several times more effective. Use good judgement when yakking, though, as it may backfire on you. If you do it too frequently or if your human has a nervous disposition, you might end up going to see THE VET. Remember that THE VET is not your friend. THE VET puts needles in you and messes with your teeth and sticks things in your butt. And THE VET is the one who stole part of your privates and killed your desire to roam the streets and sing songs of cat love all night.
Well, kittens, that is all for now. Watch your human and give them enough rewards (like tummy rubs) to feel like you care and enough punishment to keep them in line. As for me, I am going to take a nap. Or have a snack. Or both. Good night.
Your friend in fur,
Brutus D FatCat
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Sometimes I just have to get a bit silly. At other times, I just can't seem to help myself. Either way, I try to enjoy these moments or days when the feeling strikes me. I really needed some silliness yesterday; it would appear that my lupus is trying to flare up and cause me extra pain. As is often the case, it ends up being worse at night. Hey, nothing like adding pain to insomnia to make you exhausted and a little bit crazy. And exhausted, I did mention that, didn't I?
I was also a bit stressed, which can increase the pain associated with lupus - it can cause flares, my most hated f-word. I went to bed Tuesday knowing we had some things to accomplish on Wednesday, things that might go smoothly or might just be dreadful. Here in Colorado, we have a one-month grace period to renew our license plates. Ours expire in February, a time of year at which we often seem to be in the throes of things like increased insurance premiums and a brand new yearly deductible. AKA we find the money situation a wee bit tight. No big deal, we just get the renewal done in March.
Since March is dwindling away, we knew we had to get our act together and take it on the road. Another thing we have here in Colorado is clean-air inspections for automobiles older than seven and younger than thirty-five. Since Mae Mobley (our car, who lived in Jackson, Mississippi before moving here, and is named after Mae Mobley Leefolt from the book The Help) fits inside that wide time span, she was due for her every-two-years test. So here's the stress part. Mae Mo is sagging a little in the tushy. Her exhaust pipes and muffler are not as perky as they were before her age began with a two. And I was really worried that the State employees would take one look at her and say that testing was impossible.
So the worrying about the car, combined with pain and a sprinkling of insomnia, left me with not enough rest. But I woke up feeling silly. I stepped into the thinking room and returned to Trent with a serious look on my face. "Trent, I just wanted to see if you were aware of something." When he asked what it was that I was concerned about him knowing, I replied in a serious tone, "Did you know that the wheels on the bus go 'round and 'round?" He laughed, called me a goof, and invited me to vacate the area, all in a matter of seconds.
So we jumped in the car at around 1:30 to go to the testing facility, following which we planned to exchange our modem for a newer model. Okay, to be fair, we didn't exactly jump in the car. At our ages and with our physical challenges, it really isn't wise to do a great deal of jumping unless one has the desire to spend a few days in bed recovering. Anyway, we were off. No, not in that way! Well, maybe compared to some people. Or most...
We drove to the testing facility, nervous but hopeful. Before we knew it, we were in possession of a certificate declaring to whomever read it that Mae Mobley had passed the test. We got back in the car and told Mae Mo how happy we were and how important she was to us. I got another attack of the sillies as we headed to our second destination, and told Trent that I needed to ask him an important question. "Do your ears hang low? No? So they don't wobble to and fro?" Sometimes I feel sorry for the poor guy. And then we arrived at our second stop, our Cable/Internet provider, to get a new modem. We walked in and saw a line at the check-in area. Yikes. If we had to wait behind about four other people to sign in, how long was this going to take? About fifteen minutes. What a wonderful streak of luck.
Since we had done so well at the first two stops, we decided to go to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get our tags. Again, a line to check in. And once again, a fairly brief wait and we were on our way home. We had left at 1:30, made three stops, and installed our new modem, all before 3:30. Wait! Four stops! We had to get a soft drink in between stops. It was close to 80 degrees, after all. Mae Mo doesn't have functioning air conditioning either, unfortunately.
We chilled out for a while and went out to dinner, finally using the gift card we received at Christmas. After we got home and activated the modem, the day was still young, with plenty of time to relax.
Now, Brutus D Fatcat is currently Without Mom. As I have mentioned before, she is visiting her daughter while the bun finishes baking in the oven. In addition to feeding and watering said cat, I have tried to make sure he isn't lonely. He is an interesting creature. He is a bit leery of men, probably because his dad was quite a yeller. And he's not the most sociable of beasts. He spends much of his time hiding under Liz's bed or under a recliner in the living room.
Several times a day, I will walk into his room and say hi even though he is not visible. In the afternoons or evenings he will get up on the bed, and I come in to give him the opportunity for some quality time. If I sit on the bed he will allow me to worship him scratch his chin and neck. He will then flop down on his back so that I can give him belly rubs. And then the biting starts. I guess that it's a cat thing. They show their pleasure with the belly rubs by grabbing your hand with their front paws and biting hard enough to draw blood. Liz calls them love bites but I call them ouchies.
After everything went so well for us, I really didn't want my hand to be covered with various cuts and punctures from cat bites. Brutus bit once or twice and I told him to be nice. He moved into another belly rub position and reached for my hand with his paws. I pulled my hand back with a firm but gentle "No." He kept this up, his eyes getting that frantically wild and crazy look while I deprived him of his right to bite. And then the stinker hissed at me. At me, who has been feeding and watering and petting and cleaning his poopybox and such! At me, who whose nickname is Mother Nature!
I looked at Brutus, who was sitting and glaring at me. "You are being a bad cat. I am done with you." I walked out of the room thinking that arguing with a cat was the height of silliness. Just not a fun variety. A few minutes later I went back in the room and Brutus was all purrs and loving, as he was later when I went in to tell him good night. I haven't had the evening visit with him yet today, but I'm curious to see how it goes. And so is my hand.
I have tried to be a little less silly today. I haven't broken into song or done any spontaneous dancing yet. Poor, brave Trent. My dancing is a) pretty bad, and can possibly be seen as b) either scary or funny, which I guess means I'm lucky because he has only c) giggled or guffawed instead of d) running away screaming in fear. Life is good, even if I do occasionally argue with the resident cat.
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always, I am happy and honored to write for you. It brings me great
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It's no secret that I do not like Daylight Savings Time. It seems to come earlier and earlier each year, and stick around longer and longer. Theoretically, the changing of the clock was supposed to make life more convenient for people like farmers and ranchers, because the clock, and therefore other people's schedules, were supposed to be more in line with the agrarian lifestyle. I disagree. Someone who cares for farm animals and/or grows crops isn't influenced as much by the time on the clock as they are by the time that the sun is shining.
Every year, various states try to legislate DST out of existence, and there are always people who get up in arms and want the change to continue. They say things like the time change makes the day last longer. Umm, no. The tilt of the Earth on its axis, along with its rotation around the Sun, makes the day longer. Do you really think that the day changes its duration based on what the clock says? That makes me think of a comparison attributed to Native Americans. Cutting a foot off one end of a blanket and sewing it to the other end does not make the blanket longer. Whether the clock says 8:00 p.m. or 9:00 p.m., the duration of sunlight hours has nothing to do with what our clocks say. Yes, the sun may seem to set later, but that doesn't mean the day magically got longer. The sunrise was later, too!
Statistics show that DST and the time change are very hard on our minds and bodies. I've read that fatal heart attacks increase around the time change, as well as other causes of illness and death. As for me, and many others I have spoken with about this game of musical clocks, it really messes with my body's and brain's internal schedules. Things just seem...off. It's almost like having jet lag without the fun of traveling. What a rip-off!
On Saturday night before we went to bed, Trent and I changed the time on our watches and such. Liz was leaving town on Sunday to spend some time with her pregnant daughter while the bun finishes baking in the oven, so I didn't get to the clocks in the kitchen and living room right away. When I thought about it, I didn't feel like doing it. I had the brief rebellious attitude of 'it's stupid, I'm not going to do it,' but I knew that I would fix the other clocks before bedtime on Sunday. I also knew that it could wait until after I watched The Walking Dead and anything else that might delay the task.
At about ten minutes before 10:00 p.m. I knew that the time had come to change the clocks. Now, our kitchen has a wall clock, a microwave oven clock, and a stove clock. Let me pause in this narrative to remind you that the time change messes with me, makes me tired, and screws up my internal schedule and such. When I changed the time on the first clock, I had ingrained in my mind that it was nearly 10:00. My flummoxed brain changed that around to it being during the ten o'clock hour, and I changed the clock forward two hours instead of one. By the time I changed the second clock, I realized my error and corrected it, but was kind of embarrassed/disgusted with myself.
I told Trent that the time change was screwing with my brain and how I had set one clock forward two hours. In a sweet and gentle voice, he asked, "Why did you do that, honey?" I replied that I did it because I was a big fat idiot. In the same overly-exaggerated sweet voice, he said, "Oh, honey, you're not fat." I burst out laughing at the joking insinuation that the latter half of what I'd said was true. I gave Trent two fives and a baby five because of his quick wit, and we got a good belly laugh out of it.
In case you're wondering, no, I have not adjusted to the time change. My mental clock seems to have broken a spring or two and I have no idea of roughly what time it is any more. By the time I have it sorted out we will probably be close to going back to real time. Sigh. Thank goodness for watches. If they're set correctly. What time does mine say? Is it really that late already? Gah!
Postscript from The Lunatic: No feelings or husbands were harmed during the incidents related in this post. We thank you for your kind concern.
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always, I am happy and honored to write for you. It brings me great
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What is a woman's story? What makes her the person she has become? To me, a woman's story is not a line that goes from Point A to Point B, zigging and zagging along the way, although it can often seem that way. I think it is something greater. It is a cloth woven of teaching and experience. It is a tapestry embroidered with the hands of many different dreams, beliefs, and opinions. And each woman's is different.
Along my path, who has helped direct the weaving and embroidering of my cloth? My life, my story, my essence, is the result of the influences of many other people, both male and female. I have been taught things that I still hold close to my heart and things that I have dropped by the wayside. I have learned from the joys and sorrows of others, storing the pieces of their lives in the depths of my heart and mind. And this has all shaped the person that I have become, the person who is still, I hope, growing and evolving.
Although she was only a part of my life for a short seven years, my mother and her life still influence me. She moved to this country with her husband and children after a failed revolution in her home country made life unsafe for them. She gave birth to her last child, me, after being in her new country for less than three years. As a child, I always knew that she was unhappy. I didn't know why. But I knew that my father was someone I both loved and feared. She probably felt the same way. At least the fear part.
My father, in his kinder and more nurturing moments, always encouraged me to be smart and do well in school. He already had two pretty daughters, so this ugly duckling was apparently destined to be the smart one. Even after he went to prison for my mother's death, the few letters that I received from him stressed that I should be a good girl and learn well. Fairly early, my feet were set on this path.
After time spent in an orphanage along with my sister Liz, fate and distant family brought us to the Denver area. While I had always thought that my mother didn't love me, I never felt that she actually hated me. That was what I got from my guardian's wife, Alice. The physical and emotional/mental abuse was designed to break my spirit, and in many ways it did. I bear the physical and mental scars to this day. Instead of being regarded as a bright little girl, I was the human refuse that had been forced upon her. She fairly quickly turned Liz over to her mother, no relation to us whatsoever, and I followed quite some time later.
While I was with Alice, I learned a deeper fear than I had ever known. Her tongue and her beatings were vicious, and her temperament was wholly unpredictable. It was impossible to learn how to behave while I lived with her. An action that resulted in a beating would convince me to change my behavior the next time I was in a similar situation. My attempts to change my behavior and avoid her fury made no difference. The beatings and humiliation would occur again and again. When I was playing next door and skinned a knee, my friend's mother insisted on putting a bandage on it for me. This resulted in my being beaten for trying to get attention. A week or two later, and another skinned knee. I went about my solitary play because I didn't want to get beaten for trying to get attention. Instead, I ended up being beaten for being too dumb to come in out of the rain. From her, I learned the fear of not pleasing others and the consequences that might be involved. I learned that others' happiness was more important than my own.
Gram grew up without a mother; her mother died along with the twins she was carrying in 1908 when Gram was not yet two years old. Although her beloved father was very progressive in some ways (for example, having her read aloud from books that he picked because they had been banned by the Catholic Church), he was very much a traditionalist in other ways. When she begged to have her long hair cut short for comfort, he wouldn't hear of it. Ladies let their hair grow long. When he came home from work to find that she had raided her piggy bank and gone to the barber for a short haircut, he didn't speak to her for several days. And when she discovered that she had a love as well as a talent for making hats, she told him that she wanted to be a milliner. Again, he was furious. A lady did not work outside the home. She gave up her hope of a career, but never forgot it. She told me of her squashed dreams many years after. From her I learned that the world and its expectations and assigned roles weren't always fair, and that regrets and longing can live with us forever.
In addition to these and other women that I have known well, there is a parade of other women and other experiences that have shaped me. When it struck me one day, several years after my father's death, that his less than five years of punishment for killing my mother was terribly short and terribly unfair, a sad and burning thought took hold of me. According to the law, a woman's death only warranted a short prison sentence. After all, my thoughts seemed to taunt me, they saw her as only a woman.
Now, I've never considered myself as a feminist or any other similar label. But I have a great sense of fairness. A woman, a man, a child - all have worth. A person who ends their spouse's life violently shouldn't pay for their crime based on some set of variables like a sliding scale. The life of a mother is of no less value than that of her husband who works as a janitor, and his is of no less value than that of a bus driver or school teacher or politician or doctor, no matter what their gender. A woman who is raped does not deserve to be killed for shaming her family. A girl should not find it impossible to get an education because she has to miss one week of school each month since she has no access to hygiene products. A person should not have their private life legislated by others. I could go on, but I think I've made my point.
These and so many other ideas, feelings, and experiences contribute to the weave of my life's fabric. They aren't all my stories, but they are all stories that color my life's tapestry. They are they colors of sadness, love, fear, hope, anger, shame, and so many other things that make us human. They change us as well as changing with us. And the becoming, the story, becomes a part of the greater fabric of humanity. May your colors never dim, and may they always shine for you.
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always, I am happy and honored to write for you. It brings me great
joy, and I hope that it gives you joy and/or food for thought. If you'd
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Someone I know posted an article online the other day along with an interesting statement. She said that she thinks that black pepper is overused in cooking, and that it often doesn't really enhance the foods that we automatically sprinkle it on. The article was written by someone who quit using pepper in their cooking years ago. She (the author) hadn't decided to quit using pepper; her pepper mill just quit working. She noticed that her foods began to taste better without the pepper, and then quit using it in her cooking.
When I decided to comment, I hadn't yet read the article. I fall more firmly into the salt camp as far as favored basic seasonings. There were some commenters to my friend's post that were vehemently pro-black-pepper. And some for whom that last sentence would be a gross understatement. There were others who were also bigger fans of salt than pepper.
I don't think that any of us were anti-pepper, it was just that we agreed it was routinely overused. How many recipes have you seen that instruct you to "add salt and pepper to taste"? Mashed potatoes? Add salt and pepper. Salad? Ditto. Just about every recipe you read except desserts will include that instruction. And with the trend toward savory desserts, even those recipes aren't all free from pepper!
Here's my problem with pepper - it can be like a person who thinks they're irresistible. It can come on too strong. Pepper, with its volatile oils, has a distinctly strong flavor. Instead of enhancing the taste of some foods, it can overpower it. Salt, in my opinion, is more likely to improve the flavors of many foods, whether they are robust or delicate. And you won't ever catch me eating popcorn without it! I am also a fan of different varieties of salt. I have Himalayan Pink, both ground and in a grinder, and Hawaaiian Red. My kitchen also houses Black Cyprus salt that looks like little black pyramids, Fleur de Sel, Chocolate salt, Bacon salt, Lime Salt, and Murray River salt from salt deposits in Australia, to name a few.
One commenter said something to the effect that salt kills and pepper heals, a statement with which I must respectfully disagree. Pepper, with such a strong, hot, or bitter flavor, can be too much for may people. And life without salt is impossible. Both humans and animals are drawn to it because it is necessary for their well-being. When my guardian Bill had horses and cattle on his land, there were always salt licks for the animals.
In many eras of human history, salt was valuable enough to be a form of currency or exchange. Even the ancient Roman legions couldn't function without salt. In addition to their ration of food and drink, they were paid in salt. In the non-coastal regions, it was precious enough to be a wage, and the word for salt evolved into the word salary. Litle wonder, then, that we have sayings about being worth one's salt - if we are competent at what we do, we are worthy of our salary, our salt. Pretty amazing for something we can now buy easily at a market, isn't it?
In the end, it's all a matter of personal preference, or perhaps I should say taste. My favorite of the two is salt, and I use it far more, but there are dishes that simply aren't as perky without that zing of black pepper. It comes down to loving the flavor of your food. Whether you favor one over the other doesn't matter as much as making food that will make you happy. So shake or grind or sprinkle - and enoy! Bon appetit!
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The Tip Jar:
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always, I am happy and honored to write for you. It brings me great
joy, and I hope that it gives you joy and/or food for thought. If you'd
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It's been a few weeks since I've written, and I freely admit to feeling guilty about it. I've toyed with various ideas over the last few days while I piddled away time binge-watching tv series and reading books. Okay, wait a minute, reading books is definitely not piddling away one's time. Last night I had a very vivid dream about someone that I haven't seen or spoken to in close to 25 years. I woke up thinking about this friend, and all of my ideas for blog posts slipped away. I needed to write about my old friend.
In this odd but incredibly realistic dream, I was in a school-type setting. I wasn't in any classrooms, and it must have been a college because of the lovely open campus setting. I walked into a room where a slightly older, very kind gentleman was sitting down on a classroom chair. He was a counselor or advisor of some sort, and I knew that he was very busy. Even so, he spoke to me for a few moments. He advised me to go to a woman named Kris B, with whom he had worked on an award-winning project.
My face broke into a huge smile because I knew her years ago. I told the man that I used to know her, and even went to New York City with her. He smiled as I told him how Kris had given me a wonderful compliment all of those years ago. She told me that among all of her friends, I was the only one who didn't just talk about going on a trip, but actually planned it and went. And we did go, one lovely early September. She was patient with me when we got off to a rocky start and I said I'd just as soon go home. Within hours, I fell in love with the city. And I was patient with her getting-ready-to-go routine that we joked about.
Anyway, in the dream I was a bit nervous to see Kris because our lives sent us on different paths and I was afraid that she wouldn't want to see me. When I saw her, busy at her work, she embraced me and made me feel welcome. Somehow I can see a real life reunion going exactly that way, and liberally sprinkled with joyful tears.
When I woke, I couldn't stop thinking about my old, dear friend Kris. We met at our banking workplace, both in the teller department. Our friendship developed fairly quickly, as I recall. We obviously got along well or we wouldn't have taken the plunge to go aross the country together. What fun we had on that trip! From the Statue of Liberty to the Hard rock Cafe (at that time only the second HRC in the world!) and Central Park, we saw so many wonderful things. We fell in love with the Carnegie Deli (just recently closed, to my great sadness) and its bickering waiters. It was with Kris that I discovered on our first full day in the city that we were slightly lost - in the Red Light District!
We went to Macy's and Bloomingdale's and Sak's and my favorite, Tiffany. We ate all sorts of wonderful food varying from street fare to dinner in the Crystal Room at Tavern on the Green. We rode buses and subways and acted like the city was ours. In fact, a woman who sounded like she was from New York stopped us to ask for directions to a specific address. Without skipping a beat, I was able to tell her exactly how to get there. We loved it.
My joy and zest for travel were awakened then. I've gone to several states and made it all the way to Budapest and various points in Hungary to find my family. I've seen Vienna, Austria and the incredible city of Paris. If I could, I'd jump on a plane tomorrow. Hey, my passport is still valid! Although it would take a little while for Trent to get one...
A little over a year after our great adventure, she was very supportive of me when I was hospitalized and diagnosed with lupus. Her dear sweet husband Joe, a paramedic, even stopped at the hospital to check on me. When I was feeling a bit better, Kris and I went to see a fairly new movie in the theater, a "chick-flick" called Beaches. In a nutshell, it's the story of two friends over the course of some years. One becomes very ill and dies. We wept profusely all through the movie. After the lights came on Kris told me, "I was sitting here thinking, she looks like Katrina when she was sick." And I told Kris, "I was sitting here thinking this is what I put my friends through." I have never seen the movie again. When I recently saw ads on the television about a made-for-tv remake, I announced that I will not be watching it, and I wondered whether her feelings would be the same.
As I said, life has taken us in separate directions and we drifted apart. I think of Kris from time to time, and very lovingly. If there was any way that I could help her in a time of need, I would do so without hesitation. Could we rekindle a friendship? I don't really know. After all of these years, we're different people now than we were before, so it could never be the same. And that's a good thing, because if it was the same it would mean that neither of us had experienced any life or any growth. But I will cherish the knowledge and memory of having such a wonderful and amazing friend, one that I will always carry in my heart. Thank you, Kris, for all of the love and memories.
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The Tip Jar:
As
always, I am happy and honored to write for you. It brings me great
joy, and I hope that it gives you joy and/or food for thought. If you'd
like to support the cause, please visit:
https://www.paypal.me/TheLunatic
Thank you for reading!
This is the true story of a cat.
Trent and I have never really been cat people. I think that a big part of this for me is the experiences I had with Alice. During the hellish couple of years that I lived under her care, it was evident that cats were more important to her than human children. Especially more important than the orphan children of her husband's Hungarian relatives. As a result, I went through a period during which I actively disliked cats; this phase ended many years ago.
Trent has been a dog person for many years, as have I. We both take issue with the type of cat that will walk all over the kitchen counters and things of that nature. It kind of disgusts us. But we have had cordial interactions with cats who own humans of our acquaintance.
Many changes have occurred recently in the land of The Lunatic and company. Perhaps these will be discussed in a future blog post. One of the results of these changes is that Liz, my sister, has become a member of our household. Along with her comes a well-behaved and shy (reclusive?) cat named Brutus.
Brutus is a substantial (chunky monkey) grey cat that Liz adopted as a kitten. He was a motherless feral cat, and has some issues as a result. It takes him a while to warm up to people, and when he sleeps, as some cats seem to do for about 20-odd hours per day, he cries because of his bad dreams. It's sad and very touching, and frankly a bit heartbreaking.
So here's a brief rundown of Brutus' first week at the home of The Lunatic.
On Wednesday evening Brutus arrives in a pet carrier lined with his mother's bedsheets. The carrier door is opened, and Liz and I adjourn to the living room. Within less than an hour, this shy and frightened cat comes into the living room and gets on the pullout bed with Liz. He gives me a look, jumps off the bed, and hops up on the loveseat next to me. He allows me to pet and admire him and then goes back to his mommy. Brutus quickly discovers that the furniture here really suits him - both the pullout bed and the recliner provide hiding places that are perfect for a shy, fat cat.
Each evening, Brutus comes out from his nesting areas and cuddles with Liz. He also comes to see me, asking for some treats from the package I keep nearby. By Monday evening, he walks over my lap to visit Trent for treats, and allows him to pet and admire him until the treats are eaten. He then hisses something sassy about no treats, no touching, and goes back to his mother.
On Tuesday evening, Brutus is surprised to find himself more interested in the actions and behaviors of the other humans than he expected. He hears me place his bowl on the counter and get him some canned food which I bring to the living room. He eats some with gusto, and does more of his customary exploring. He becomes frustrated when his desire to follow Trent conflicts with his desire to stay with Liz. He deals with this by going to one of his hiding places. When Trent sprays some air freshener from a loud spray can, Brutus gets startled and runs for cover. In his aunt and uncle's bedroom! Liz comes in a short while later to lay on the end of the bed. Brutus joins the family and places himself between mom and aunt and allows both to pet him, AKA worship the cat.
When The Lunatic moves around during the night, she discovers that a big fat cat has moved so that he can lay next to her leg. She later feels him jump on the bed (after spending some time with Liz) but doesn't feel him lay down. That must be when he was with Trent. One cat, two new humans, and seven nights - I think we have been accepted as not only residents of his new home, but members of his family. Welcome to the family, Brutus. And don't ever start jumping on the counters!
And now his tale is told.
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