Category Archives: cats

The Whisker Jar

cats, etc., family, funny things, humor, pets,

Cat whiskers are wonderful things. They’re early warning sensory apparatus that let cats know what’s close by. They sense vibrations that indicate changes in air currents, revealing the size, shape, location, and motion of objects or creatures in the cat’s immediate environment. Other sensory organs at the base of the whiskers keep the cat aware of where its body is in space and what’s around it. They supplement the cat’s eyesight. They help keep small particles away from their eyes as well. And their length corresponds to the cat’s shoulders, indicating the width of spaces that cats can get through.

But we know what’s really important. Cat whiskers are adorable. (So are cat eyebrows. Not as prominent as the whiskers by the nose, the eyebrow hairs are wispier. Their function is probably to help protect the eyes but also to give the cat a variety of darling facial expressions. But I digress. I was talking about whiskers.)

Our cat Toby has brittle whiskers. Just when the white appendages start getting long and magnificent like a respectable cat’s, they simply break off, leaving little inch-long stumps. They do grow back, but for a while, he looks like a pincushion instead of a mighty hunter. I guess Toby is just a little less than respectable. (It wouldn’t surprise me. The little dickens.)

We have had cats with properly impressive whiskers. Shaker, a tuxedo cat, accessorized with thick, long vibrissae (to be correct and pedantic). She was very proud of them and clearly thought they were one of her finest assets. They didn’t break off the way Toby’s do, but every now and then, she’d shed one, leaving a fine, thick, easy-to-spot whisker lying on the carpet. Ordinarily, we’d pick up the whisker and store it in a little ceramic pot we called the Whisker Jar. (No, I don’t know quite why we did this. We didn’t do anything with them, like voodoo spells. They just seemed too magnificent to dispose of, and we wanted to see how many we could accumulate. But I digress again.)

Once, however, we decided to have a little fun with one of the whiskers she had shed. We took one of them from the whisker jar and placed it on her head. It stood straight up, protruding from her sleek, black head like an alien antenna. Inspired, we started making boop-boop noises.

Shaker was deeply offended. She was a cat with a great sense of dignity. (Except when she rolled over and showed her fluffy white belly, inviting a belly rub. Then she looked like a chubby black-and-white kitten, which I suppose she used to be. (We got her as a full-grown cat. But I digress some more.)

Anyway, Shaker clearly objected to having her aplomb assaulted in this fashion. She sensed that we were making fun of her (we were) and she expressed her displeasure—and not by leaving an unpleasant deposit somewhere for us to find unexpectedly when we were barefoot. Instead, she used the power of her remaining whiskers. They turned down in a disapproving manner, rendering her face a veritable mask of scorn.

Then we laughed uproariously, compounding the offense. Shaker retreated in high dudgeon, shaking her head indignantly and dislodging the whisker as she went.

We picked it up and put it back in the Whisker Jar. You never know when you might need another belly laugh.

Fraidy Cat

cats, etc., humor, pets,

I’ve read that if you surreptitiously place a cucumber or zucchini behind your cat, when the cat notices the vegetable, it will jump straight up in alarm (the cat, not the cucumber). I’ve never tested this out because I’ve also read that the cat thinks the cucumber is some kind of fat, short, immobile but threatening green snake and is genuinely terrified. Some people thought it was cruel to put a cat through this unexpected terror. (Though no one seems to care that the whole red dot thing puts a cat through unrelenting frustration. We think it’s funny, so that’s okay. Actually, the whole cucumber thing was supposed to be amusing, too. Go figure. But I digress.)

I’ve never tried the cucumber trick on any of our cats. They have enough things that they’re afraid of already.

Knowing that I’m a cat lover, my friends often give me cat-related gifts—cookie jars, Christmas ornaments, earrings, mugs, and so forth. One year, someone got me a pair of cat house slippers. They were very lifelike, a pair of puffy, furry, black-and-white cats with little pink noses. Basically, they were adorbz. (Yes, I know that “adorbz” is years old and probably as horse-and-buggy as “horse-and-buggy.” But I like it, so it stays. It’s not like a piece of slang that no one can figure out what it means without context (or maybe even with) like “rizz.” But I digress again.)

At any rate, the first time I walked down the hall wearing them, our cat Shaker (who was also black and white) saw the pair of mirror-image cats shuffling toward her, she turned tail and ran. (The same thing happened when Dan “walked” a 3 1/2-foot-tall plush rabbit down the hall. (Dan won the rabbit at a carnival. He had fun driving home from Pennsylvania with it. He strapped it in the passenger seat and enjoyed seeing children waving at it. It didn’t go with what we graciously call our “decor,” so we gave it to a friend with a young child. The child appreciated it, but the mother didn’t. Didn’t go with her decor either. But I digress some more. (Embedded. Are you impressed?)))

Another cat we had shared with most other cats a love of plastic bags. (We once met a cat in Dubrovnik who tried to climb into our souvenir bag and come home with us. But I digress even more.) Anyway, Jasper, who was a little skittish anyway, got tangled in a plastic grocery sack, which was enough to alarm him. What he didn’t realize, however, was that the bag contained a CD in its case (CD = a horse-and-buggy item). Startled, Jasper tried to get away from the thing by running upstairs. But the bag was caught on his leg and chased him, thump, thump, thump, all the way up. He couldn’t get away from it. Unlike a cucumber, it wasn’t stationary. Like a cucumber, it terrified him.

Our current cat, Toby, is afraid of water. No, not his water dish. Not rain. Not even the water in the shower (he likes to sit on the shower seat, though not while the water’s running). No, he’s afraid of bottled water. The fizzy kind, anyway. If I crack open a bottle and it makes the fizzy sound (which it always does), Toby does that cat thing where he levitates three feet off the ground like he’s spring-loaded. I don’t know, maybe fizzy water sounds like another cat hissing.

I suppose it’s wrong of me to laugh at the fraidy cats. They don’t laugh at me when I run screaming from bees and wasps. Or at least I don’t hear them. (Maybe they’re polite enough to snicker behind my back.)

El Ka-Bong!

cats, etc., family, humor, , ,

Once again, it all started with a cat, of course. I innocently walked downstairs on my commute to my office, and there he was. Toby. For the purposes of this story, aka Mr. Underfoot.

As you may have guessed by now, he was underfoot. I tripped over the wretched little beast and I tested gravity, landing on my ample, padded ass. (There used to be a photo of me on a zipline titled “My Giant Flying Ass,” due to the fact that the photographer was on the ground beneath me. The photo was quickly deleted. But I digress.) My fall would have been inconsequential, if mildly embarrassing.

Alas, there was a chair interrupting my trajectory. Not a nice, soft, comfy chair, either. A solid wood one. And I didn’t hit it ass-first. No, It intersected my fall on the back of my head. I shouted, and Toby took off.

I didn’t quite see little tweeting birdies fluttering around my brow, but I rapidly acquired one of their eggs on the back of my head. (Hence the title of this post. Extra points if you get the reference without Googling. But I digress again.) (Back in the day we used to call this a pump-knot rather than a goose egg. Why? I don’t know. No pumps seemed to be involved. Added digression.)

Now, the problem with being flat on your back at my age and level of decrepitude is that there isn’t a good way to re-achieve vertical status. In point of fact, there isn’t one.

Added to this indignity is the fact that my phone was in my study. (There was no pocket in my nightshirt. I habitually spend the night without a phone within reach. Weird, I know. But I digress yet again.) In order to summon help, I had to make it to my desk.

What to do? I managed to locomote by a crab-like method, scooting along on the aforementioned ass and hoisting myself as much as possible with my arms. Hoist, scoot, repeat. (With occasional pauses for much-needed rest.) There were obstacles along the way—a coffee table, for example, which didn’t provide enough leverage to get me off the ground, damn it. I maneuvered past the comfy chair, which likewise wasn’t any help at that point.

I made it to my desk and nabbed the phone. Did I call 9-1-1? I did not. I called my husband, who works just a mile and a half away. Even though it wasn’t time for his break, he came for me. And helped maneuver me into the comfy chair, where I caught my breath.

“You’re going to the ER,” he announced. I wasn’t inclined to argue. I exchanged my slippers for sturdy shoes and, leaning on Dan, made it to the car. (It seemed ridiculous to call an ambulance. The hospital is also about 1.5 miles from home. But I digress some more.)

At the hospital, I told my tale of woe, leaving out the part about my ass. They solemnly wrote, “tripped over cat” in my chart and wheeled me off for a CT scan (formerly known, ironically, as a CAT scan). Back in my cubicle, waiting for results, the nurse noticed my nightshirt. “How many cats do you have?” she asked.

“Just the one,” I said. “That’s enough.”

“I thought the 12 pictures of cats on your nightshirt might be your own cats. And you’ve got paw prints on your sneakers. You must love cats.”

Not so much at the moment, I thought.

When the CT results came back, they revealed no internal bleeding and only mild scrambling of my white and gray matter, plus some strain on my neck. I hopped into a wheelchair (well, tottered to one) and was on my way home, where I slept for the next 12 hours. Dan poked me regularly to make sure I was still breathing.

So, what did I learn from this experience? First, that maybe I should consider keeping my phone with me at all times. (I suppose I could wear it in a little pouch on a string around my neck. Or convince women’s PJ manufacturers to offer pockets. But I digress for the last time today.) Second, that we ought to move that chair out of the line of passage between the stairs and my study. And finally, that we need to change Toby’s nickname so that maybe it will decrease the time he spends underfoot.

Yeah, right. That’ll work.

My Emotional Support Ambient Noise

cats, etc., family, humor, music, television, ,

I need lots of emotional support. I get it from my husband. I get it from my cat. I get it from my bed, my pillow, and my blankets. I get it from my computer and my writing. I get it from music.

But I also get it from my television.

I need noise—some kind of noise—to keep me functioning until I go to bed. After that, I need no noise at all. Even the fans bother me. (Once I had to tell my husband, “Please don’t use power tools after I’ve gone to bed.” It was something I never thought I’d have to say, but there you are. Or there I was. But I digress.)

You’d think that television would produce the kind of noise that wouldn’t let me write. This is true of music, except for instrumental music. Music with vocals is just too distracting. Half the time I want to sing along. The rest of the time, the vocals are just too intrusive. (My theory, supported by neuroscience, is that my brain uses two areas when I hear vocal music—the part that recognizes language and the part that processes music. Combine the two and I have no brain left over for writing. But I digress again. Pedantically.)

Television, however, provides vocals but not much music, at least not the kind that invades my brain. And I don’t even really listen to the voices either, which I turn down not quite to a subliminal level.

How can I avoid hearing the voices? I put on programs I’ve watched a million times before, like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Inkmaster, Chopped, Mystery Diagnosis, or Forensic Files. They rattle around in the background, but not in my brain. (Occasionally, I glance over at the screen if something really interesting is going on such as the critiques on the episode of Inkmaster when everyone was supposed to tattoo someone’s ass and they all tattooed the flank/hip area. “Doesn’t anyone know where the ass is?” asked Dave Navarro. But I digress some more.)

This may be genetic (the need for ambient noise, not the location of the ass, though come to think of it, that’s genetic too). Anyway, my mother used to crochet a lot, and she often had a baseball game on in the background with the sound turned low. She didn’t even like baseball. I can only assume that it provided her with the kind of comforting background noise that I like. I imagine that football would be too raucous and basketball would be too frenetic. She could have chosen golf, I suppose, but baseball it was, at least during the season.

Anyway, I spend most of my time at home, alone in my study trying to write or edit. When Dan comes home, there’s plenty of noise and it’s attention-grabbing, not ambient. If I’m still writing, he’s quiet, except when he goes in the living room and watches TV there, usually the Screaming and Explosions Channel.

So, why do I think of my programs as emotional support? The house is pretty quiet when I’m alone here, except for the faint clicking of my keyboard and the cat, who pussy-foots and busy-noses when he’s not asleep. Ambient noise keeps me from feeling lonely and imagining that any tiny sound is an impending disaster. Loud sounds made by the cat signal actual disasters. My ambient noise grounds me and marks the passage of time. And it’s a whole lot more soothing than power tools.

Lost Kitty Tale

cats, etc., family, ,

Once there was a kitty who chose us as her family. My husband had seen her around the neighborhood, and one day she came trotting through the flowerbed up to our door and asked to be let in.

Dan instantly wanted to keep her. She was a young-ish calico, and he knew how much I love calicos. But I wasn’t sure. Our most recent calico, Julia, who was the most beautiful cat in the world (or so she told us) had died just a little while before, and I didn’t think I was ready to give my heart to another one.

Then fate stepped in. We saw a flyer in our neighborhood for a missing calico cat. The address was very close to us. So we called the people who put up the flyer and invited them over to check out the stray.

At this point, any normal person would have held out the cat and said, “Is this her?”

But I’m not (as you probably have noticed) a normal person. I left the cat in the bathroom, which is where we keep stray cats until they pass a vet check.

I approached the guy, the putative owner. “So you’ve lost your cat.”

“Yes,” he said.

“A calico.”

“Yes.”

“Is she thin or chonky?”

“Medium, I guess.”

“What color are her eyes?”

“Yellow.”

I continued the interrogation.

“What color is her nose?”

“Pink.”

“What’s her chin look like?”

“I don’t know. Nothing special, I guess.”

“What color are her feet?”

“White….” (He was beginning to catch on to the not-normal thing.)

He was batting less than 50 percent. Her nose was pink and her feet were white, which could have been true of any cat. But there were telltales. The stray was slender, not medium. There was a slight gray smudge on her chin. She had one green eye and one yellow, which was a dead giveaway.

At that point, I brought the cat out.

“No,” the neighbor said, disappointed. “That’s not her.” And he sadly left.

That was the moment that I knew that not only had she chosen us, but I had chosen her too.

We named her Dushenka (Russian for “Little Soul”) and she stayed with us for 12 years. She still escaped and went walkabout on occasion, just to keep her hand—er, her paw—in, but she always came back to us. We were hers.

Fur-Babies and the Other Kind

cats, etc., family, pets, , ,

Lots of people refer to their pets as “fur-babies.” Other people think it’s disrespectful to human babies and their parents. I’m here to weigh in on the debate about which kind of baby is better.

I’ve had cats for many years. I almost never refer to them as fur-babies.

I do treat them like babies, however. I babble baby talk at them. I cradle them in my arms like babies (if they let me). I give them cutesie nicknames (like ToTo BooBoo). I’ve never had to bottle-feed a kitten, but you’d better believe I would. And I’ve even zerberted a cat whose belly had been shaved. It made a “foof” noise. (Autocorrect wanted to change “zerberted” to “perverted.” It has a point. But I digress.)

When I married, all I could offer my in-laws were grand-kittens and grand-puppies. It wasn’t that we couldn’t have human babies. We just never did. (Fortunately, Dan’s brother took care of that duty, and his kids have supplied assorted great-grands, four of whom are even close enough to visit Mom Reily. She has cats, too. I don’t know if she calls them fur-babies. But I digress again.)

One thing that people who do call their cats (and maybe their dogs) fur-babies do is dress them up in precious little outfits. I can’t approve of it. I’m with cat guru Jackson Galaxy on that issue. Maybe at Halloween, just for the day, but forget about little Easter outfits. Cats are not known for appreciating bonnets. I think they’re almost guaranteed to shred them, and there goes your investment. Dogs may be more accommodating, but they just look goofy (or Goofy).

Many comparisons can be made between baby types. Both kinds have their own little personalities, play adorably, and are great to cuddle. Both human babies and fur-babies are endlessly distracting and good for some laughs.

It takes a couple of years to potty-train a human baby and get them to eat people-food. Kittens come practically litter-trained and are able to eat kitten-food as soon as they’re old enough to leave their mama. (They can also eat people-food, though it’s not advisable. But I’ve had cats that have eaten and enjoyed pumpkin, corn, bread (one would tear open a loaf of bread and eat a couple of slices, making croutons of the rest), doughnuts, and chocolate bars (yes, yes, I know, those are bad for pets, but Anjou suffered no ill effects.) But I digress some more.)

Fur-babies are superior to human babies because you don’t have to save for their college or worry about them boosting cars or getting into any drugs other than catnip. Throughout their lives, it’s possible to pick them up and hold them (unless we’re talking St. Bernards).

Human babies are superior to fur-babies because, after a certain amount of time, they can talk and tell you what’s causing them distress. (Until then, they equal fur-babies in yowling and howling.) They do cool things like graduate from high school and college and get married. (Both fur-babies and human babies are eventually capable of producing offspring, of course. I don’t know of any trap-neuter-release strategies for human babies. That would just be wrong. But I digress yet again.)

I must admit to preferring fur-babies. But human babies are superior to fur-babies in one major regard—you can expect them to live a good long time (barring unfortunate circumstances, of course). You’re lucky if your fur-babies live 20 years—most don’t make it that long.

If you have fur-babies, you must prepare yourself for losing a being that you love dearly. I won’t say that you love them as much as you’d love a human baby, but their loss does leave a hole in your heart that even another fur-baby can’t totally fill. You may swear that you’ll never get another one, but somehow you always do, even knowing that that fur-baby’s life is limited too. They’re addictive that way.

We put ourselves through it again and again for the love of fur-babies. Their lives may be limited, but love and sorrow balance out in some equation that’s emotional, not mathematical. Love never is.

The Joy of Napping

cats, etc., funny things, humor, pets, , , , , , , ,

Dibujo de una nia en la cama preparada para dormir, es de noche, se est tapando con una manta mientras sonrie

Robert Fulghum tells us that he learned everything he needed to know in kindergarten. I can’t go all the way with him on #1—Share everything—especially when it comes to Facebook, but I’m a solid believer in #12—Take a nap every afternoon. (Well, and #9—Flush.)

I love naps—the sensual pleasure of snuggling into my bed in a cozy little nest of pillows, sheets, and blankets; the quiet purr of the fan and the cat who perches on my hip; the knowledge that, for a time, I can let go of the cares of the day; the promise of renewed spirit and energy; the satisfaction of turning off my phone.

Two of the best ways that I know of improving my mood are having a meal and taking a nap. The one often follows closely on the other, a phenomenon I am told is called “postprandial torpor.” (I’ve often wished I could call in sick to work and claim that affliction. Or “rhinotillexomania.” They sound so serious. But if anyone at your workplace knows Latin, you’re busted. (Which they actually did at one place I worked.) But I digress.)

Naps, however, are part of the reason that I can no longer work regular hours in a regular office. I find that bosses get upset if you take the phrase “break room” too literally. In the past, I’ve contemplated keeping a sleeping bag under my desk, but that would never work. Let’s face it—I snore. Prodigiously. Someone would be sure to notice, and object. (When I was traveling with my mother, she used to beg me to let her get to sleep before I nodded off. But I digress again.)

Fortunately, I work at home, so breaks and naps are entirely my own choice, except in case of deadlines. The transition from desk chair to bed is easy. I’m usually already wearing my jammies, and the commute is just up the stairs. (I can’t nap on the couch. It’s too uncomfortable. I used to be able to nap face-down on an airline tray table. This was useful because the flight attendant, seeing me, would think I was dead and leave me alone for the rest of the flight for fear of alarming the other passengers. But I digress yet again.)

Unfortunately, I’m not able to take “cat naps”—a misnomer if I ever heard one. My cats sleep on average 18 hours a day, and invariably right where a human wants to walk or sit. One of my cats even snores—daintily, but audibly. And no, it’s not a purr. (We’ve been thinking of getting a tiny CPAP machine for her, but we think she’d object to the mask. And cats have unpleasant ways of making their objections known. If you have a cat, you know what I mean. But I digress some more.)

Short, 20-minute naps do me no good. They don’t refresh me at all. In fact, they leave me more muddle-headed than ever. But the real reason I can’t take short naps is that it often takes me 20 minutes or more, usually of reading, to fall asleep. Since that’s the case, it’s hardly worth sleeping less than an hour or two.

But some of the time, even two hours of napping doesn’t do the job. Hence I have invented the Mega-Nap, of at least four hours. Mega-Napping doesn’t usually interfere with my nighttime sleep, either. On one memorable occasion, I Mega-Napped for a good six hours, and woke at 9:30 p.m., just in time to go back to bed and sleep for another 10 hours, giving the cats a run for their snoozes. I also suffer from Nap Attacks, when I hit the wall—hard— and simply must nap, collapse into a heap, or bite someone’s head off. Napping is usually the wisest choice.

With apologies to Robert Fulghum, I do see one glaring difference between kindergarten naps and grown-up naps. Children resist them and resent them and get cranky when they have to take one. Adults seek them and savor them and get cranky if they can’t have one.

Chatty Catty

cats, etc., family, humor, language, pets, ,

Yes, I’m one of those crazy ladies who talks to my cats. The thing is, some of them talk back. They’re not often communications that I can understand, but I don’t care. It’s like having the TV on in the background while I write. It’s part of the ambient sound of the house.

(Once one of my cats did communicate something recognizable to me via brain waves. Dushenka was sitting on the arm of the sofa looking at me, and I swear I could hear her thought: “I need a drink of water.” When I checked it out, her water dish, which she couldn’t see from the sofa, was indeed empty. It was a psychic communication, adorable and yet a little creepy. But I digress.)

We had a cat named Shaker who taught a parakeet to speak cat. Shaker went around all day saying r-row (rhymes with now). We’d have little conversations with her. (“Shaker, what’s a kitty say?” “R-row.” “Yes, that’s right.”) Well, Ralphie the parakeet (named after Ralph Waldo Emerson), after hearing all this r-rowing many times a day, began saying it too. (We tried to teach him to say “Pretty bird,” but he only ever picked up the “bird” part. He started saying “Shaker-bird.” He was one confused little guy. But I digress again.)

Some of our cats stuck to the stereotypical “meow,” but they put their own spin on it. Julia, for example, had a little meow that was decidedly bitchy. Her personality wasn’t a bit bitchy, but her meow sure was. Her littermate Laurel had a silent meow, perhaps in self-defense. She would simply open her mouth with her lips forming the word “meow,” but no sound came out. (Do cats have lips, anyway? I’m not sure. Siri claims they do.) Louise would make a darling little sigh when I held her in my arms. I melted every time she did that.

I loved silent Laurel, of course, but I longed for another talkative cat. I went to the shelter and told the helper, “I want a talker.” All the aides looked at each other and then simultaneously pointed at one particular cage. (The kitty in the cage was named Precious Bob. That would never do. We renamed him Jasper. But I digress some more.) Jasper would wait until we were in bed at night, then come bounding up on the bed and meow both incessantly and insistently. We didn’t know what he was saying—just that it seemed terribly important to him. We would ask him what it was all about. “What’s that you say, Jasper? Timmy fell down the well? And Grandpa fell in after him? And all the rescuers sent to get them out fell in too? And then a plane crashed into the well? And caught fire?”

Our present cat, Toby, doesn’t bug us for food (mostly, that is), but when we say the magic words, “Toby, do you want to EAT?” he says mm-weep. He makes other cute noises like mm-wow and mm-woo, but mm-weep is saved for breakfast and dinner. He occasionally snores. (We briefly considered whether he needed a little kitty CPAP, but then we considered trying to put one on him and rapidly changed our minds. But I digress some more.)

But that’s just how our cats communicate with us. There’s also the ways we communicate with them. These vary from babytalk that makes us sound like babbling idiots: “Toto-boo-boo, does you want your noms? Num, num, num—om-nom” to pleading: “Toby, get off my lap. I need to pee” or “Move! You’re standing on my boob. You weigh like a brick!” It doesn’t matter. He ignores both babble and pleading. Just like a cat.

Cat Songs

cats, etc., fun and games, funny things, humor, music, pets, , , ,

My husband and I have some silly traditions, some of which I’ve mentioned in the blog. There was naked cooking with Julia Child impressions, for instance. And we make up little nonsense songs. Well, Dan makes up most of them, mostly about me. (My nickname, which no one else may use, is Bunny, so they often have titles like “When Bunny Comes Driving Home Again.” They’re silly, as mentioned, but infinitely better than the NSFW song an ex-boyfriend once wrote describing my physical charms. But I digress.)

But this post is about cat songs. Not songs the cats sing, of course — their repertoire is pretty limited. Not songs about cats either (“Year of the Cat,” “Cat Scratch Fever,” “Stray Cat Strut,” “Honky Cat,” “Nashville Cats”). No, these are songs that we’ve made up about cats we’ve owned over the years.

Shaker’s song was really more of a poem or a chant than a song. It went:

Shaker in the park

Shaker in the pool

Shaker for dessert

Shaker after school.

Shake, shake, Shaker puddin’

Puddin’, puddin’, Shaker puddin’.

(Shaker was a very dignified tuxedo cat. She didn’t approve.)

The song will make no sense unless you remember a product from the 60s and its jingle (indeed, it doesn’t really make any sense at all, whether you remember it or not). The product was called Shake-a-Pudding. It was a brown plastic cup with a lighter brown plastic lid. If you put milk in the cup and added powder, then shook vigorously, hoping the top didn’t come off, what you got was something that at least resembled pudding. An interactive dessert. At the time, we thought it was neat-o.

Toby also has a song based somewhat on a commercial. It goes like this:

His name was Toby.

He used a Flowbee.

Obviously, this requires some explanation. First of all, it’s sung to the tune of Bary Manilow’s “Copacabana.” So far, so good. The Flowbee mentioned in the second line was one of those products you used to see on after-midnight infomercials from companies like Popeil or Ronco. Exercise equipment. Beauty products. That sort of thing.

Technically, I suppose you could call the Flowbee a beauty product. It was an attachment that you put on the end of your vacuum cleaner hose. It would make your hair stand on end so you could lop an inch or two off the end. I think it was mostly used on children who were too young to know any better and was responsible for the infamous bowl cut. It’s described by the company (yes, you can still buy them) as a “Vacuum Haircut System.” Need I tell you that we’ve never used one on ourselves, much less on Toby?

Louise had a song of a sort, or at least one line of one:

Every little breeze seems to whisper: LOUISE!

Naturally, the name was shouted.

Julia, the most beautiful cat in the world (she told me so) had a whole verse. Obviously, it was ttto “Julia” by John Lennon, which was written about his mother. Our Julia’s version went:

Julia, pinky nose

Pretty fur, naughty lips.

So I sing my song of love for Julia.

(No, I don’t know how the “naughty lips” part got in there. Cats barely have lips at all, and I don’t know how they could be naughty. That’s just the way the song went. So sue me. But I digress again.)

Dushenka had a tune that should be familiar to TV cartoon aficionados:

Shenka-Shenka-Doo

Where are you?

On your little kitty adventure.

Laurel’s song was melancholy.

Pooska-wooska-pooska

Pooska-wooska-pie

Pooska-wooska-pooska

It’s Laurel’s lullaby.

I even sang it at her funeral.

Of course, all the songs are doggerel (catterel?) and make us seem like idiots. But the cats don’t care. They’re used to us talking like idiots. (Does Toby want his noms? Pet, pet, pet, the incredible pettable pet. Mama loves kitty. Does kitty love mama? Ribbit.)

The Mystic Rules of Life

cats, etc., food, humor, , , , ,

I don’t have a corner on wisdom. Indeed, I barely have a corner on learning, around the corner and down the dusty path from wisdom.

I have, however, lived mumble-murfle years, and in that time, I have learned a thing or two. Maybe three, tops. Nonetheless, I have formulated what I like to call The Mystic Rules of Life. (Actually, I didn’t so much formulate them as accumulate them. I can’t claim that any of them had their origin with me. I sort of found them under the bed, communing with the dust bunnies, and claimed them for my own. But I digress.)

Anyway, for what it’s worth, here they are.

Everything should come with too much cheese. The corollary to this is that there is no such thing as too much cheese. My husband and I are the sort who, when we’re in an Italian restaurant and a server with a Parmesan cheese grater shows up and says, “Tell me when” reply, “Just crank that thing until your arm falls off.”

This rule applies to our own cooking. I’ve known us to use Parmesan, Asiago, and five cheese Italian blend in the same recipe. (Yes, I know cheese is binding. We have prunes for dessert. Or prunes and Metamucil. But I digress again.) Speaking of five cheese blend, that’s my favorite kind of pizza, although I also like pepperoni and mushrooms. I never get it, though, as Dan insists on all the meats and veggies the crust will hold. Five cheeses would probably cause catastrophic structural failure.

(By the way, this mystic rule applies to gravy, too. With mashed potatoes, not pizza. Pizza with gravy would be messy as well as unappealing. Until someone invents a mashed potato pizza, that is. I suppose this is another digression.)

It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. You may not get permission if you ask first. Of course, there’s no guarantee that you’ll get forgiveness after you do whatever-it-is, and that means the whatever-it-is will be an even bigger deal. But, as Kris Kristofferson noted, “I’d rather be sorry for something I’ve done than for something that I didn’t do.” (It’s amazing how often Kris is right about things. “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.” “The going up was worth the coming down.” “Jesus was a Capricorn.” “Everybody’s got to have somebody to look down on.” “If you don’t like Hank Williams, you can kiss my ass.” (A musical digression.))

Pee first. No matter what the next thing is, pee first. Going to bed? Pee first. Running an errand? Pee first. Seeing a movie? Pee first. Taking a shower? Pee first. Walking the dog? Pee first. It’s always best to pee before you commit yourself to any other action. You may end up in a place where peeing is difficult or, worse, impossible. Or one where you simply don’t want to pee. I have those dreams all the time where I’m looking for a bathroom but can’t find one, or at least not one I can use. It’s disgustingly filthy, has no doors, or is just a pipe in the floor without even an outhouse around it. (I usually wake up having to pee, but (so far) I haven’t woken up to find that I’ve wet the bed. I suppose that’s one circumstance when it isn’t better to pee first. Get out of bed? Pee after. But I digress some more.)

Gravity is not our friend. Sure, gravity keeps us firmly attached to the Earth. But when you consider the many ways gravity makes us fall down, it becomes more of a hindrance than a help. And I’ve experienced most of them. This Mystic Rule only applies on Earth, however. If you can make it to the moon, the gravity is only one-sixth that of Earth. That’s a lot more friendly. (Speaking of friendly, author Mary Roach once said, “Gravitation is the lust of the cosmos.” I have nothing against lust, but really, gravitation is the vacuum cleaner of the cosmos. Last digression for this week.)

You’d think that as I get older and (supposedly) wiser, I’d encounter more Mystic Rules of Life, but I haven’t found any lately. Guess I should look under the bed again, but I suspect that the dust bunnies (or, more likely by now, dust gorillas) have rules of their own that don’t apply to people.