Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Cats know the snow, and these four aren’t impressed.
Quinn mews at the open door, “I don’t like the snow, please don’t make me go.”
Boo comments from the bed, “I don’t know if it’s snow, but that white stuff really blows.”
Tucker goes, “I know that’s snow, and it’s too cold for my toes.”
While Papi puts his tail down and says, “Snow and I don’t go.”
Have you ever been sitting in your seat on an aircraft and drop something on the floor between your seat and the one in front of you? Man, the moves to pick it up would try a contortionist’s skills. If they ever tell me that we’re going down and I’d better bend over and kiss my ass good-bye, I’d need to decline. No way that I can bend over and kiss my ass in one of their seats. Nope, not going to happen. Somebody else will need to kiss it good-bye.
Ever catch yourself ranting and raving at others for their behavior, like their driving or the speed of their walk, as though they have full and absolute control over themselves, and realize that your ranting and raving is a demonstration of the small measure of control over yourself?
No? Is it just me, then?
Damn.
Ever have one of those people in your life that must tell something about themselves to top whatever is going on? Someone is sick and hospitalized, and they’re sicker, and should be in the hospital. Misfortune falls on another? That’s nothing, you should hear how bad they suffered. It gets to the point that you don’t know what to believe of them. Then, when something bad happens, you feel bad because you didn’t believe them.
It reminds me of that old comedy routine.
“You had a house? We lived in a box on the street.”
“I wish we had a box. We lived in a pile of old newspapers.”
“Newspapers? You were lucky. We held paper towels up around us and pretended they were a house.”
“Pretended? You were lucky. We were only eating once a week. We didn’t have enough energy to pretend anything.”
“You ate once a week? You were lucky. I don’t know what I would have done, eating that many times in a month.”
“Those were the days.”
“Yeah, they sure were.”
Know what I mean?
When you’re vacuuming, you ever notice there’s always one piece, usually lint, but typically a clump of cat fur in our house, that has supernatural powers to resist the vacuum? You run the sweeper over it repeatedly, but it defiantly stays on the floor, sometimes moving around and pretending that it’s been sucked up, only to re-appear a few moments later. Then you’re forced to other courses of action to get it up, even stooping to pick it up and feed it to the vacuum, just to prove who has the power.
Yeah, that’s so annoying.
It’s a way of looking at love and how love is expressed that I never considered.
The radio commercial featured a woman, talking to men. “Hey guys, I know you forgot to buy a Valentine’s Day gift again.”
Pause to consider the stereotype presented.
“But don’t worry. February is the month of love. So all month, you can come to the gun store and buy a gift for the loved one in your life.”
Now my stereotype is showing. When I think of Valentine’s Day gifts, guns don’t leap to mind. Candy, especially chocolates, a night out, jewelry, diamonds, flowers, lingerie…these are the stereotypes of the V.D. (sorry) gifts that come to my mind.
I suppose it’s valid for some cultures to say I love you with a gun. I imagine, outside of my sphere, there’s a whole world of gun-giving as gifts for special occasions. Keeping with paper, first year wedding anniversaries are probably celebrated with gun-range targets. In the fifth year, a nice, compact .22 pistol is given. For the ten year anniversary, give her a 30/30 hunting rifle.
The restaurant moments write themselves. He’s down on one knee, handing her a Sig. Her eyes shine with tears as she gasps and whispers, “It’s beautiful.” Around her, other patrons are gushing with appreciation. Applause breaks out as she accepts the gun and hugs her man. One woman hisses at her husband, “Why don’t you ever buy me a gun?”
I wonder if Hallmark has a range of gun cards for holidays?
Do you ever catch yourself doing something that prompts you to ask yourself, “What is wrong with you?”
Yeah, it happened to me yesterday. I was in Costco, and as I walked along, I started singing Christmas carols to myself. That’s right, Christmas carols, on February 8.
I hope it’s not some harbinger of Christmas starting in February. I mean, what the hell?
I have to say, I’m a little irritated with a lot of the cat videos on the web. Many of them remind me of those commercials that imply, “If you eat this food, wear these clothes, or drink this beverage, you’ll be young, beautiful, and carefree, and have a wonderful, fun life.”
Doesn’t happen in my life, no matter what I eat, drink, or wear.
The cat videos often show a cat taken in as a stray or a kitten, and how the other cats and household pets adopt the new one, and they all start hanging out together, having fun, snuggling and napping together.
Yeah. Doesn’t happen in my house.
I feel like a U.N. Peace-Keeping Force in my house. I’m constantly manning observation points, watching their movements, and issuing warnings. “You. Tucker. Yes, you. I see you. No, it’s too late for you to try to get small or become invisible.”
Because that’s what cats believe. Cats believe, “If I don’t move, he won’t know I’m here.” Or, “If I get small and move real slow, he won’t be able to see what I’m doing.” These cats don’t think I’m very bright.
But like a life-guard at the pool, I persist. “You’re in the no-floof zone. Get back, please. Get back. Get back now. This is your last warning.”
You ever notice how they seem to realize you’re talking to them. But they’ll stall, putting on an act to buy time so they can come up with an excuse for what they’re doing.
“No, no, you misunderstood,” they finally say with their whiskers and other non-verbal communications. “I wasn’t sneaking up on that other cat with the intention of biting their ear off. I was just coming her to sit down in this spot to wash my face.”
Then that’s what they do. They sit down and wash their face, saying, “That’s all. There wasn’t enough light back there, where I had been napping. I wasn’t going to stalk and attack that other cat. I’m completely innocent.
“Trust me.”
Then they give me a look, to assess, is he buying this. Which is essentially a cat con commercial. So what the cats are really asking themselves as they watch me is, “Is this commercial working?”
Michael Seidel, writer 