I Can't Hear You

Hello - is this thing on?

Ludwig van Beethoven, many say, was not white. Beethoven had Moorish ancestry dating to the Spanish occupation of the portion of the Netherlands, now part of Belgium, from which his paternal grandfather hailed.

If I understand correctly, this ultimately means Beethoven's grandfather was ethnically Flemish, with some other stuff, maybe or maybe not - but really, why not - mixed in. The main thing I know about Flems and Dutch personages is that they dislike each other so much, SO much, I've read, that even though Flemish and Dutch are technically two dialects of the same language - speakers of each can understand the other - they are classified as separate languages.

A 15-second scan of the Internets does not turn anything up to refute this, so I'm going with it.

Anyway, imagine if we hated the Australians so much that we pretended we couldn't understand a damn thing they said. This is probably a bad analogy, because who could hate Aussies? But if an Aussie weren't keen on Americans, and turned up her nose and pretended not to be able to understand a Texas drawl or a Hollywood vocal fry, that would be roughly equivalent. I think. I'm not sure, I changed my major from Linguistics to Rhetoric and Writing a while ago.

We digress anyway. The point is, Beethoven may or may not have had Black ancestry, evidence in support of which is that he was fairly swarthy for a German, and wrote music with unusual rhythmic sensitivity for his date and time.

I'm good with the first point. The second makes me uneasy. Even the staunchest African-Beethoven theorist is not suggesting that Beethoven spent any of his lifetime whatsoever in Africa. Therefore, any notion of his Black ancestry having an effect on his unique musical expression suggests at best a troubling genetic component to his musical proclivities. Beethoven was raised in Europe - never set foot outside of it, as far as I've read; never knew any but a vanishingly small handful of people who had. To suggest that a style of musical composition is racially based is also to bring up all sorts of other suggestions, hopefully long debunked, of which races are better at certain things than others.

Why the sudden interest? My sister Margie drew this wonderful bust of Beethoven, which an amazing tattoo artist in Queens - Astoria (Body Language Tattoos on Broadway, if anyone's interested) brought to life on my shoulder. I've been hankering after this for a few years. It's amazing, and doesn't really hurt much at all, if you're used to hungry cats at 5 AM.

So now it's personal, you know.

On a generally unrelated note, this morning I got up and went to the kitchen and found Bingo bathing himself on the stove, as is his wont. "Bingo!" I shouted. He ignored me.

Bingo kept on licking himself, his back to me, and I kept on shouting at him, unregarded. "Bingo!" I said. "BINGO!!" I was right behind him. He showed no notice. Finally I touched him and he started almost out of his skin, looked at me reproachfully, meyowled a few times, and jumped off the stove. He had no idea I was there.

Bingo is stone deaf.

He's 16 years old, so I guess this should come as no particular shock, and might have been going on for quite a while, but I had no idea. Poor little guy. He already gets special dispensation for his advanced age, so I gave him more cream when I made coffee, and an extra cup of stinky food, and plenty of extra chest scritchies as he purred on my lap, warty old neck extended. I love that little guy.

There's a lot more I wanted to say about issues of race, social acceptance, and disability - not to mention body art - but this will have to do for tonight. The fall semester has begun, and as usual, when I have writing to do for school or work, interest in doing it for fun dwindles. Which is a shame, because the whole point of a blog (isn't it?) is that there's no actual expectation that it be any good.

So here's a terrible joke from our old friend, the Internet:

When Beethoven passed away, he was buried in a churchyard. A couple of days later, the town drunk was walking through the cemetery and heard some strange noise coming from the area where Beethoven was buried. Terrified, the drunk ran and got the priest to come and listen to it. The priest bent close to the grave and heard some faint, unrecognizable music coming from the grave. Frightened, the priest ran and got the town magistrate.

When the magistrate arrived, he bent his ear to the grave, listened for a moment, and said, "Ah, yes, that's Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, being played backwards."

He listened a while longer, and said, "There's the Eighth Symphony, and it's backwards, too. Most puzzling." So the magistrate kept listening; "There's the Seventh... the Sixth... the Fifth..."

Suddenly the realization of what was happening dawned on the magistrate; he stood up and announced to the crowd that had gathered in the cemetery, "My fellow citizens, there's nothing to worry about. It's just Beethoven decomposing."

*mic drop*

The Unbearable Sharpness of Cats

The dilemma, when a cat who loves you has jumped up,purring, onto your shoulders, is that if you bend over only enough to provide the cat a gentle slope so that it can climb down without having to dig its claws in and shred you, you are not providing adequate incentive for the cat to climb down in the first place.

"Why," says the cat to itself (cats being fairly introspective creatures), "why would I jump down now, just when things have gotten so comfortable?"

Cats are too fond of comfort to pick nits about whether they are actually comfortable. This may be the most ancient and insoluble paradox of domestic catdom. Unlike, for instance, the most ancient and insoluble paradox of, say, wild honey-badgerdom, which is how to be the most badass thing since Chuck Norris' beard's solo career without actually getting eaten by leopards.

We all make sacrifices.

All Dressed Up and Covered in Cat Hair

An industry acquaintance and Facebook friend called me up at work yesterday. "Hey, a bunch of us girls are coming to Austin this weekend!" she said. "And I thought about you right away. You're still single, right? So, can you recommend some good bars for older people?"

The joke's on her, because I usually just get drunk at home with my cats.

Actually I do know a couple. Donn's Depot is probably my favorite. It's a very, very relaxed place, to the point where I don't think they've dusted the rafters since the Reagan administration. But it's comfortable, it's unpretentious, and it's made of an old train depot (moved down from McNeil) and a couple of train cars and, of course, the famous caboose. The drinks are cheap, and the service is fantastic and Tammy will always remember your usual even if you only show up three or four times a year.

Firehouse Lounge is cool too, or at least the entrance to it is (through a "secret door" bookcase in the hostel lobby). Once you're in there, the bar is a little too artisinal: artisinal cocktails, with artisinal prices. It's hard to get properly buzzed at $10-12 a drink. There's a mathematical formula involved, where the alcohol content per drink must be equal to or greater than the amount of anxiety you feel over your inexorably mounting bar tab.

Our Friday happy hour group has a few regular rotating spots: NXNW and Billy's on Burnet in the "way the hell too far north for me to ride a bike at the end of a long workweek" category; Donn's Depot, of course, which I'll generally try to make; Texas Chili Parlor, Shoal Creek Saloon, and Opal Divine's at Penn Field which are all within easy reach. And then there's Uncle Billy's on Barton Springs Road, which is very conveniently located but has nothing but beer beer beer and the type of barbecue you shouldn't attempt eating without first adjusting your beer goggles to cover your mouth.

My friend listened politely to all my suggestions, thanked me, and said they'd just go dancing at the Broken Spoke. So there you go! They'll have fun.

Maybe it's time to get another kitten.

Keeping the ASS in ChristmASS

Well - half of it, anyway.

It's worth repeating: Cats are not good helpers when it comes to wrapping Christmas presents.

Okay, so it isn't really worth repeating. It wasn't even worth mentioning in the first place, since pretty much anyone who gives half a rat's ass about cats is already fully aware of this fact. But what the hell. For those of you who don't know it, even the most weary, elderly, sedentary cat gets a little sparkle in his eye when the wrapping paper comes out. The crisp rustle of it, the intoxicating aroma of fresh-printed ink sliding out from a cellophane sheath; the glossy snap of Scotch tape being pulled from the reel; the wriggling twirl of the foiled ribbons; the hissing snip of scissors slicing through shiny paper - well, you can hardly expect a cat to contain itself.

Cats neither own horses nor wear pants, which makes it especially tricky for them to hold the one or keep the other on.

But despite the helpful efforts of two furry, diminutive, pointy-ended housemates, I did manage to wrap what I've accumulated so far of Christmas presents.

Katie moved out just a few months ago. She's 21 now, setting off on her first flight of adulthood (sort of). Eric is 23, living with a girl I adore somewhat apprehensively. It's scary, getting attached to your offspring's potential better halves. You don't know where it's going to end up - I mean, sure, she's awesome, and they're happy, and the two of them are so good together.

I've been in that relationship. Many times. Many.

Or not; actually, those two seem stable and calm in a way that I never quite managed, and have been so for a couple of years now. There's a certain unobtrusive purring of the kind of relationship-supporting machinery that keeps running as long as you aren't one to get all excitable and start flinging wrenches in the form of hopeful future partners, unsupportable financial cravings, or just one more kitten.

Anyway, in the wake of Katie's moving-out, I did some empty-nesting, which is to say I went through the toy chest and the depths of the storage areas and the piles of everything in the closets that's never been cleaned out, ever. There were hundreds of stuffed toys, a few of them important and worth hanging onto, most others not. There were children's books that got read once or twice and stuffed into the back of an overcrowded shelf. There were blocks, puzzles, Barbies, beads, teasets and action figures. There were kids' meal toys from pretty much every fast-food place you can think of, and possibly some you'd rather you hadn't.

So all these extraneous things went out - in bags of trash or recyclables, in boxes of items donated to Goodwill. Katie's whole high-school subscription to Vogue got trashed. Now if I could just eradicate the smell of the perfume samples.

All in all there were so many boxes and bags, it's kind of hard to go and buy a bunch of Christmas crap that I know will be fully appreciated for all of two weeks before being relegated to the back of the closets I've just spent so much effort digging out from under years of needless excess.

Keeping to a minimum of what we need and really want is more of a Quixotic struggle than I'd anticipated.

Bingo, overexcited by the myriad sensory excitements of Christmas wrapping, got carried away and tilted at a brown paper shopping bag tonight, and I'm sorry to say that he was very soundly defeated. He jumped into the bag, tipped it over, jumped out, jumped back in, spun around, and got his upper body stuck through one of the string handles. The ensuing ruckus was so noisy and violent that his younger, fatter cohort, Baby Kitty, promptly slunk off to hide behind the encyclopedias in the bookcase.

This is also where she hid from the Christmas tree when I put it up, because apparently in Soviet Russia, CHRISTMAS TREE TERRORIZES CAT.

We put the ass-backwards in Christmas.

What Will They Think of Next?

Sometimes I'm struck by the fact that, though I am not old by any stretch of the imagination - I SAID ANY STRETCH DAMMIT - I clearly remember being around for the introduction of every modern amenity that separates us from savages.

Remember your family's first microwave? Remember how crazy it was to be able to heat up food in a matter of seconds??

Remember when there were three TV stations (well, four, counting PBS, but that one never came in as well and was on the weird little auxiliary dial) and they went off the air after the National Anthem and sat there happily broadcasting static until morning, content in the knowledge that everything anyone could possibly want to see had been seen?

Remember when you got cable? Cable was awesome. Not only did you suddenly have a lot more channels, but because you paid a monthly fee for it, there weren't any commercials.

Around the same time you began to be able to record TV shows on a Betamax cassette (some less visionary people preferred the big clunky VHS tapes) and squiggle right on forward through commercials, too. It became clear that advertising on television was a thing of the past.

Then there were laser discs, big shiny silver phonograph records with movies on them, and then CDs, and then my dad's computer could talk to his coworker's computer across town, and then all hell broke loose.

Today I could ride my bike almost all the way to work in freezing drizzle, miserably cold, teeth chattering, soaked right down to the base layers, realize I'd forgotten my phone at home, and I would turn right around and go back and get it.

Not that it would do me much good. One of the hazards of biking to work in arctic temperatures is that, by the time you get there, you are unable to operate your smartphone because the touchscreen thinks your icy finger is an inanimate object.

All these innovations, though, pale by comparison to the greatest invention ever known to man. They've gone and invented - get this - a cat pill that tastes like a kitty treat.

I mean, I'm assuming it tastes like a kitty treat. I just know I have to be careful the fat young one doesn't steal the skinny old one's medicine. This invention alone, unsung though it is (I mean, I just stumbled across the bottle of brewer's yeast pills at the grocery store, read the description, snorted "Yeah, right" and then bought them anyway, because I don't always make smart buying decisions) must have saved countless human lives already.

And really I should go back and spend some more time in the pet aisle at the store. It's entirely possible they've come up with a cat shampoo that makes your cat think it's sprawled out on a sunny patio peaceably licking what's left of its harbles.

So forget flying cars, which were a terrible idea anyway, when you consider how incompetent most people are to handle earthbound ones. Your grandchildren won't even remember a day when you unquestionably paid a blood tribute for the privilege of caring for your furry friends. The future is now.

The Other Side

Pet cats have a pretty good life, with certain caveats. You only live to be 16-20, and you have to eat cat food. I don't think I'd enjoy the litter box that much. Yowling at the neighbors at 3 a.m. is probably less pleasant than keeping an agreeable smile plastered to your face while avoiding eye contact, which is how I generally deal with them. Actually the worst part of being a cat - and I base this on the experience of my own well-treated and (ahem - take the hint, honey) amply-fed Peachy - is that of not really having much of any idea who your children are.

I say this, but I can think of ways in which it would be a distinct advantage. Have you ever watched "My Super Sweet Sixteen"? I admire this show greatly, inasmuch as it serves as a cautionary tale for my own sixteen-year-old, Katie, who otherwise might exhibit tendencies in that direction. But I digress. The point, assuming there was one, was that there are situations where it would be somewhat advantageous, emotionally speaking, to forget after a week or so without any contact that your offspring had ever existed.

The unfortunate corollary to this, and it would be fair in my book to call it a deal-breaker, is that a child (kitten) can be introduced to you, and within a fairly short span of time you've forgotten that it is not actually yours. Witness the kitten my abovementioned Katie brought home at the beginning of spring break this year. "My friend just needs us to watch her this week," Katie told me. "We'll take her back after break. "

If anyone on Earth knows how long break can last, you'd think, it really should be me.

Naturally, the kitten was nursing on Peachy within a few short weeks; naturally, the kitten, now nearly as large as her "mother," routinely knocks Peachy over to demand some nursies, or perhaps a tussle. Peach doesn't care. She purrs, but deep in her eyes is that long-suffering look known to all maternal creatures since time immemorial.

"We could get another kitten," I mentioned to my kids, "and after a week or so, Peachy would never know. She'd just be sitting there, nursing it, thinking, 'Why did I go and do this again?'"

I shouldn't give them ideas. Eric, who lives with his grandmother now, recently adopted a new kitten. She's at least 10 times tinier than our kitten. He brought it over to visit. Our kitten gave it one sniff and promptly dashed off to hide behind the stove. She reacted the same way when my friend Robbie brought his young miniature Dachshund over in a crate so we could have movie night. The puppy was whining. My kitten hid from the sound of whining.

I make fun of it, but I'm pretty much the same way about the dentist.

Being a human ain't bad, but my gosh, you end up having to take care of so many cats.

Kitten Farts: Not So Cute

Noticing a particularly spectacular example and exclaiming "holy chihuahua!" is one thing. Actually hearing the kitten produce the emission is something else altogether, and probably indicates you should buy a different brand of cat food. Check the bean content on the label. And check the fat, because - crowded as my brain may be with generally useless information (a fact which doing a whole book of New York Times Sunday crosswords will tend to point out to you), there are some things that everyone really ought to know - incontrovertible facts, truisms even, pillars which support the very structure of reality as we know it. And high on the list of these is the fact that CATS ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO HAVE BUTT CHEEKS.

It's also not supposed to be this damn hot in June.

I think I'll just ride my bike back to Syracuse. What's a few hills? I love Austin, but farting kittens and weather from Death Valley? I think I preferred when it was raining frogs.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

Today I got home from work to find all the doors locked and nobody home. Don't you hate that?

I have a key, but there's something wrong with the front door lock. So my key has been stuck there since Monday. It doesn't turn the lock, and you can't get it out of the broken lock to use it on any of the others, so it's not like this is a security issue. Still, at some point, I suppose changing the locks might be in order. Someday.

I can fit through the cat flap, but I hate that. It's right next to the cat food dish and the litter box in the laundry room. And you know that thing is all covered with raccoon germs. Plus it's a fairly tight squirm, and I'm all sunburned. So I figured, what the hell. I'll just sit out here, on the porch, in the heat, and wait till everybody else gets home. That way they'll feel guilty!

Mr. Bingo Kitten, however, had seen me arrive on my bike. So he trotted towards me across the front yard, meowing urgently. He's hungry! He came up next to me on the porch, up to the front door. He pawed at the door. He gazed unhappily at me. He meowed some more. Why are you just sitting there, he was clearly wondering. Can't you see I want in? Haven't you got any heart at all?!

So I went around back, crawled through the cat flap, opened the front door and let him in.

Did Not See This Coming

So apparently we're actually keeping the kitten.

Who knew?

Because Robbie and Kevin Said To

...and because Diane complained that my most recent post was making her want a kitten.

Oh, but she is a darling, sweet little thing (the kitten, that is - not to imply in any way that Diane is anything less than adorable, though I've never tried kissing her nosey, and suspect it would not be that favorably received if I did). Last night I woke up to find her (the kitten) sleeping soundly on my pillow, with her toes wedged up against my nose. I kissed her. She arched, purr-mewed, sighed, and fell back asleep in an even more impossibly adorable pose - taking up even more of my pillow, at that.

Hi, I'm Proto-Crazy-Cat-Lady. I'm almost finished!

But another great thing about the pillow-stealing kitten is that she wakes me up from dreams I really shouldn't be having. Last night I found myself in divorce court - peacefully enough, no problem there - but during a long recess I ended up alone in a waiting room with, with - oh, you know who.

At least in my dream he was willing to speak to me. "Hey!" I said to him, "I'm finally moving forward with my divorce!"

He displayed only polite interest, though, and after a few more minutes said he had to leave to go check his Facebook, and took off.

This isn't what is meant by the term "lucid dreaming," but it probably should be.

Robbie took me out on the town last weekend. We went and watched movies at Tony's. But first, Robbie had some shopping to do, which led to a totally new experience for me.

We went to the mall (you know, that place, with all the stores, where everything costs 800 million dollars and teenagers reach levels of inexcusable density) to buy cologne.

This may be more surreal than it sounds. Department stores have big glass counters, all under lock and key, stocked with every incredibly expensive men's scent you've never heard of, and staffed by young women who are almost, but not quite, entirely unlike Audrey Hepburn. Our sales representative, for example, did not know how to pronounce "euphoria." E-phoria, she kept saying. I think that's the sensation you feel immediately following cybersex.

We tested seven or eight different scents. The sales representative seemed less inclined to consider my opinion once she clarified that Robbie and I were not dating, because what do your stupid friends know? Still, we narrowed the choices down to one, Robbie purchased it, and we left to look at jeans. But there weren't any without aesthetically-placed holes in them.

It gets hard to find basic items of clothing, had you noticed? At work, I needed a blouse for our upcoming April conference. All four of us in our office wear the same one - we're the conference coordinators, so it's important that we can be singled out in the crowd, or so I'm told. This year two of us kicked up a fuss and insisted on blouses that don't have to be tucked in, because what could be more unflattering to your figure than chopping it in half?! Hello?!?!

We wanted a basic design: a tailored, button-down shirt, in a few different attractive colors, with a straight hem and three-quarter length sleeves. The four of us went at lunch last week to look. We might as well have gone shopping for emu-feather hats.

Not that this is informative or interesting. I'm only posting because Robbie and Kevin said to. And because Diane doesn't want a kitten. No matter how adorable they are.

Maybe next time I'll post some more pictures.

Practical Cats

It's no coincidence that "kitten" rhymes with "smitten."

Or "bitten," actually, come to think of it.

But this kitten is very considerate: when she's in feisty mode, she holds back a little with the teeth and claws, so she's more tickly than scratchy. And when she is in non-feisty mode? Ooooh! Ooooooooooohhhhhhh!

Actually, I don't know when I've ever seen a young kitten sleep quite so soundly. She definitely prefers to be on or near you; last night I woke up several times to find her settling comfortably down on my face and neck. She stretches in her sleep, gives a subdued little "mew" and purrs for a few moments when you kiss her little nosey.

For a fairly nondescript-looking brown-and-gray kitty with only a stumpy tail, she really is just the most adorable tiny little thing I ever did see. And look! She even does your taxes!

oh noes!

Just look what the kid dragged in:


Katie swears she is only kittensitting for spring break, but I'm pretty sure I've heard that one before. Fortunately I'm very hardhearted and not at all fond of cats. So you can't pull anything over on me.

One of the biggest mistakes you can make as a parent, I've found, is to introduce your seven-year-old to icanhascheezburger.com. Not because it's in any way inappropriate for children - well, maybe, sometimes - but because your child will never let you near the computer again, and will drive you up the wall with her incessant LOLing. Also, she'll insist on reading the captions to you. After five or six of them your brain starts leaking out through your ears.

Today at work I had to send an email out to all our field offices. Normally, our agency is not allowed to accept any gifts, which is unfortunate as the travel industry is prone to bringing us cupcakes, cookies, and other forbidden delights without notice; but there are a few exceptions; our annual conference coming up is one of them. One of our sponsors is giving out something perishable, so they intend to send out their attendee gifts ahead of time instead of handing them out at the conference.

"This is just a heads-up that you'll be receiving something from our sponsor," I wrote. "I just wanted to let you know that it's been reviewed to ensure that it meets our policy and you are allowed to accept it."

"You can has!" I wanted to write (but didn't). "But you can not has cupcake!"

I mentioned the incident ruefully to one of my coworkers. "More road trips," he told me sternly. "Less internet."

This kitten's name is Lola (rhymes with cherry cola), and she's one of five or six small, adorable creatures Katie's friend brought to school today to find only-temporary, just-for-spring-break homes for. Right. Sure. It's embarrassing, what people will resort to, isn't it?

Good thing I'll never fall for it. Ooh! Oooooh! She just yawned! Ooooooooohhhhhh!

Trail's End

You know that path that runs along MoPac just north of the river? I tried to get to that today, but I couldn't find it. How do you get there?

I don't know why I'm asking you. I've got Google Maps same as you have. And I call myself a geographer!

It's fun to enjoy the hike-and bike trail from a different perspective for a change. Normally, of course, I walk on it, along a very specific stretch - as far as I can get from my office and still be back in one hour. My path includes the Statesman, the Congress Avenue Bridge, the South First Bridge; Auditorium Shores, wet dogs, and Stevie; the railroad bridge, pedestrian bridge, and Lamar Bridge; up to Lou Neff Point and back. I scaled it in Arc once - the round trip is about three miles.

On a bike, of course, you can go a lot further, but you have to watch out for obstacles like double-wide strollers, joggers engrossed in their iPods, and dogs - who aren't terribly concerned about whether you run them over or not. The dogs along Auditorium Shores bring down a lot of bikers. But this is perfectly normal, and nothing to be concerned about.

When I ride my bike at lunch, I turn around at the pedestrian bridge under MoPac; but I've always wondered where the trail goes from there. It turns out it doesn't go far, petering out altogether at Eilers Park. What a pity - what I was really hoping for was to find that trail along MoPac and maybe hop up to Camp Hubba Hubba and drop in on Tony and Pinche Robert, who actually went in to work on Texas Independence Day. And they call themselves geographers!

Patriots, I meant to say patriots.

No luck there, but it was still a good day for me. I bought a new pair of shoes - flats, I'm sorry to say, but my jogging shoes were wearing out and there are some things even I won't do in heels. Then I had to go on a nice long walk around the neighborhood to break them in. Keep moving... keep moving...

And I did in fact move all the plants in the world back out front to their summer headquarters, so I hope the weather won't let me down, unlike old blind Romeo, who I can't help noticing is pooping in a potted basil as I type this. You probably don't want to eat pesto at my house.

Happy, happy spring - if it is spring! Here's to new beginnings.

Be Smarter

Early experiments in the field of external mental supplementation were unsuccessful, as the prosthesis tended to become dislodged during the course of routine social activities engaged in by the subject.

It is to be hoped that more sophisticated techniques in attaching, protecting, or possibly even implating the prosthesis will lead to better results. This researcher believes that the potential benefits of an extra brain far outweigh the risks, and could greatly enhance the quality of life for large segments of the human population.

At least I could sure use one.

Why Cats Shouldn't Be on the Table

Not necessarily because they will eat your food.

He isn't eating.

La Vie en Noir

The French might make you cringe a little, but it's cute, and oh! so apropos.

This Is My Brain off Coffee

Hey, do you ever wonder if your cat is actually a highly sophisticated robot spy device?

Then again, I don’t know if you would really call Slappy White “highly sophisticated.” Also, robots probably smell better. Still, you kind of have to wonder. Why does he always insist on being in the bathroom while I take a shower? It makes me a little uncomfortable, but I have to make sure I let him in before I start, or he’ll scratch all the paint off the door. Then he jumps up onto the sink and watches me intently through the curtain. Afterwards as I’m putting in my contacts and brushing my teeth, he sometimes reaches out a paw, sinks his claws into my towel, and tries to pull it off. Why would a cat do this?

Or perhaps he was a dirty old man in his last life, and just retains some of those tendencies. This theory has good and bad points. On the plus side, this would be consistent with much of his other behavior. And it’s always nice to believe that death is not the end. On the minus side, what if you had to come back as a dung beetle, or a marketing executive?

Whereas if Slappy were a remote-controlled spy robot, that could also explain the purposeful bustling noises coming from underneath the bathroom floor every morning, which I’ve been attributing to Dave the raccoon.

I’ve seen Dave down there, or at least I’ve seen him go in. One evening as I was pulling into my driveway after a visit to Grady and Margie’s, I noticed one of the cats lumbering, in typical, disdainfully leisurely fashion, out of the way. But then I realized what I was seeing was much too big to be a cat. As he neared the house and my headlights shone full on him, Dave turned and gave me a reproachful glance, then pulled the crawlspace hatch open, with his little raccoon hand, and went inside.

You couldn’t pay me enough to crawl into there. But then, I think Dave is counting on that.

So when I take a shower in the morning, there’s nothing but a quarter inch of cast iron between the soles of my feet and the cold crawlspace air, and Dave – or someone, or something, that sounds very busy down there. What could be going on?!

I think it’s a spy, operating the remote control that makes Slappy White force his way into the bathroom and try to get my towel off. Anything is possible!

Or else Dave is also a robot. I’ve never gotten close enough to smell him.

Pamper Your Cats

Now that Romeo's blind, I find I tolerate behavior from him that used to be strictly forbidden.

He always loved sleeping on the kitchen table, but I used to speak sharply to him and push him off. Who'd have the heart to do that now? Poor old kitty. We just pet him and croon to him, and when he wants down, and starts teetering uncertainly on the edge of the table, someone will pick him up slowly and place him gently on the floor.

He gets stinky food every morning now. I wait till the other cats aren't around to give it to him. And when Mr. Bingo Kitten gets a bug up his butt, I toss him outside. I figure Romeo has enough problems without Mr. Crazy leaping unexpectedly onto him from across the room.

But the things you have to put up with! This morning, stepping into the shower, I put my foot smack down in the middle of an unexpected puddle next to the tub - ah, unexpected, but not by any means unidentifiable. Romeo got in the habit of having a wee in the middle of the bathmat, I'm sorry to say, before I sighed and gave up on the idea of keeping a bathmat at all. Apparently the spot where the bathmat used to be does just as well.

Last week, Katie left her laundry sitting in the open dryer for several days. Guess what happened to it?

So I sighed again, and wiped up the mess with an old towel, and petted Moe on the head and told him he's a good old kitty. But a friend suggested kitty diapers to me today, and the idea is not without some appeal.

It's not without precedent, either. I used to make and sell cloth diapers online, when Anna was a baby, and I came up with a one-size-fits-all model - to demonstrate the efficacy of which, I took pictures of it on Anna, about 25 pounds at the time, and on Slappy White, about 10.



So I'd just need to dig out my old patterns, find some scraps of fabric, oil and air-blast the sewing machine and snap press, and get to sewing. I might as well get started now. Romeo wants the computer.

The Day Off

Could this weather be any more perfect?

Well, if you're not in Austin, you wouldn't know. So no, it couldn't.

My boss gave me the day off today. I was already planning to meet a good friend and former coworker for lunch; we get together maybe once a month or so, but an hour is never long enough, is it?

Two hours is much, much better. More than twice as good. I know that doesn't make mathematical sense, but it's true.

The rest of the day is given to sweeping up and rearranging the plants in what is becoming a really lovely little front porch garden. I'm so happy with it. Isn't this nice?


I have several new additions, courtesy of my ex-mother-in-law (listen, I don't turn down plants from anybody). I now have a big pot full of rather scraggly bromeliads, a scragglier fern (hanging from the mailbox, for the moment; it needs to be repotted not because it's rootbound, but because the pot it's in is plastic and green and very ugly), a pineapple plant, and a climbing spinach plant - very handy if I happen to feel peckish and don't want to make the grueling fifteen-foot trek to the kitchen.

And what cozy porch garden would be complete without a snoozing Romeo?

What a perfect day off.

Learned Behavior

Every morning when I make coffee, the cats gather around in anticipation. The smell of the coffee and the gurgling of the coffeemaker are what call them, but what they're actually waiting for is the saucer of half-and-half I always pour for them when I'm getting my coffee ready.

Similarly, they're learning to hide whenever they see Katie anywhere in the vicinity of any cleaning products. Katie is not the tidiest person on Earth - in fact, on a scale of one to ten, with ten being my mother-in-law, and one being, well, me - Katie is about a -367,485,946.2.

But every so often she gets a major cleaning bug up her butt and scrubs sinks, tubs and toilets, washes the car, does the dishes, does laundry, wipes down the countertops, sweeps and vacuums the floors, and generally makes a complete angel out of herself. You can't beg, threaten, or bribe her to do this. But if she's in the zone, she'll clean the hell out of the place, which is awesome.

The next day, she's back to stashing banana peels under the sofa.

Unfortunately for them, when she's in this mood, her eye invariably falls on the cats. "Romeo's fur looks a little messy," she'll say in a speculative tone, and from that point it's all over. They get bathed. Romeo complains loudly, but endures it the best he can; Bingo struggles madly to escape; Peachy - sweet, cute, adorable, fluffy, good-natured, fat little Peachy - bares teeth and claws and goes straight for the jugular; and Slappy White, who may after all be the brightest of the bunch, is nowhere to be found.

At least they have a nice clean floor to lie on while they lick all the nasty water off. And Katie gave them a nice dish of cream.