Cats Trump Writer's Block

NOTE: A just discovered gem buried in the Drafts folder, dated 8 August 2012, 10:27 AM, Tête de Hergé Super Standard Time.  The "gem" is not the writing, but the cat photography.  I think this blog has been entirely too grim of late, so a CAT POST is just the thing.  And since I don't feel much like posting today, or perhaps ever again, finding something that claims to have broken through "Writer's Block" is terrifically helpful to the me of today, 21 January 2015.  And it's a darned shame that Tante Louise's video cameo appearance didn't make it to the page -- but she is surely getting all things aligned in Heaven (which is, as Townes Van Zandt reminds us, "where you find it.").  And I do also miss the original Crack Whore Organic Pig Farmer Lady, taken down by the Fugitive Squad/Aunt Louise. An unfortunate, but historic, Community Event. Memories are slippery things!

Enjoy this serendipitous break from an Excessively Somber Period of Blogging!

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Dobby

So,  when I made the masterpiece of a video about flushing PICC lines, the astute observer will have noticed that I dropped the recording device into a sink full of nice, hot soapy water.  Cleanliness, godliness!

I don't have much money.  I'm poor, in fact.  Not entitlement poor, more like, receiving 60% of my 2000 salary with no adjustment for cost-of-living or any inflationary trickeroos poor -- and using that money to support a household, pay a caretaker, fork out over $15,000 on health care (with insurance, even the blessed PCIP), and all the usual -- maintaining the sexiness of Ruby the Honda CRV, and keeping her legal, paying the mortgage, and having every animal in our care up to date in shots and vet exams.  Hell, the year of Little Boy (Uncle Kitty Big Balls), because of Fred's deep love for him, we payed close to $5,000 trying to save the dear soul's life.  I have to say, though, that had the vet involved been a better vet. a more honest vet, we might have stopped torturing him several thousand dollars earlier.

Lest you scoff at my "I'm poor" by pointing your pointy finger at my list of financial accomplishments, I should add that I never eat out, haven't been to a movie theatre, much less La Scala, in over a decade, and some claim that "generic" is my middle name.

Also, I make my money grow by playing the market.

That's right.  The socialist owns GOOG [but the rest of her portfolio is so deep in risk that she ain't revealing anything more, lest your mere scoffery turn to disgust].

Anyway, this is my way of explaining that I bought a new video camera.  It was a deal, a steal, and a good choice according to Fred's Bible, Consumer Reports, Tête de Hergé edition.  There was much ado about how easy it is to use, though I admit there was not a specific warranty of ease of use when the photog has one good hand, and a fumbling one, at that.

So far it is defeating me.  I don't get the zillions of icons offered on the LED screen.  Just tap!  It's easy! Without proof that one of those symbols won't launch an ICBM, I cannot willy-nilly start choosing picto-signifiers.  I have a conscience.

But this morning, which came too early, I thought I would at least try to take some still photos.  And then show them, describe them, say things, any things, to help destroy the iron bars behind which I pretend this writer is penned, blocked.

So... like many of my kind, after I inject myself with a few drugs, take 7 pills, go pee,and climb into the wheelchair, my first act of the day is to make coffee.  As you ought to know, we harbor three cats in our wing of Marlinspike Hall -- Captain Haddock issued orders that they no longer are free-ranging throughout the Manor, what with the claw-sharpening activity in the Tapestry Alcoves and all:  Marmy Fluffy Butt, Dobby (her son, the runt), and Buddy the Freakishly Large Kitten (no one told us he was a Maine Coon).
These three insert themselves boldly, and sometimes rudely, into the coffee-making plan by performing intricate death-defying patterns around the wheels of this power chair.  "Feed us, feed us, feed us," they chant.

At which point the absurdity begins.  I manage to get three bowls filled with fresh and tasty kibble and on the floor, in the required layout.  Marmy will only eat out of the red plastic bowl;  Dobby and Buddy prefer the metal bowls, but then purposefully set out to eat from each receptacle.  The two water bowls must frame the three food bowls like parentheses.  Change that and one of them will make the subtle point of their dissatisfaction by, for example, eating with one paw in one water bowl, and filling the other water bowl with half-chewed bits of kibble.

But, finally, coffee.

Oh, here is a picture of my new kettle.  I broke my café press a few weeks ago.  Might have been the same day I killed the video camera.  So I dug out one of our many Melitta drip cones and went back to that most honest form of coffee-making.  In the process, I noticed that my Paul Revere kettle was leaking.  As in, the solder was breaking down, the seams were separating.  So I went online to my new favorite pastime -- FAB -- the rule in force being "no purchases allowed, because you are poor, no matter how well GOOG is doing."

But they had this kettle, and it was cute, and it was on sale, and it is now on my stove (in our private kitchenette, as it is hardly appropriate for the more demanding heat requirements of, say, the Medieval Kitchens).

New red kettle from FAB

If confession is truly good for the soul:  I also bought some stationary.  I have a weakness for good stationary, and may be the last person on Earth to continue to send handwritten letters and cards, delivered to brick-and-mortar, or daub-and-wattle, or hand-chinked stone domiciles.

Okay, so... it's heavy, the kettle.  I have already poured boiling water onto my lap, neatly missing the Melitta cone, because I couldn't hold the lovely shiny red thing up high enough to pour the water in over something not made of my flesh, like the counter.  But I will figure it out.  This morning, I put my coffee-making stuff in the sink, reducing the height requirement of the kettle heft.  [You will either understand that last sentence or you won't.  I can't help you.]

The video camera, when plugged into the limping-along computer, has lovely edit functions for my visual artistry.  Unfortunately, the red of the kettle was lost in the necessity to tone down the severely dominating whiteness of the stove top's enamel, even the whitey glare of the pitcher and old cookie jar that hold my cooking utensils.

The red, the red, it is not right.

Okay, so the cats are fed.  The coffee is made and, if necessary, burn balm applied to my upper thighs.
I turn the wheelchair in the direction of early morning television news, the computer, and a bed into which I can dive when pain spikes.

Dobby always disappears about five minutes before I make my slow journey to the bedroom -- slow because I'll be damned if any more coffee is leaving the mug, unless headed for my caffeine-starved self.

The photo at the top of this post?  That's what I find waiting for me on the bed -- without fail, and thankfully so, for it makes me smile like no body's business.  Dobby, laid out, and ready for his requisite ten minutes of loving.

He wants, first, a fierce belly rub, then a sensual ear massage, easy on the right one.  He then finds the comb and brush dedicated to his use, and his use alone, and knocks them on the floor.  Why we have to go through this particular part of the ritual, I dunno, but I don't change things because he's cute when he tries to get tough.

The grooming begins in earnest, and lasts as long as my right arm can wield the brush and comb.

After ten minutes, usually, of attention, Dobby is faced with three options:

• He can play with Buddy, who has taken his place at the foot of the bed, and is vocalizing like a loon.
• He can curl up and take his first nap of the day.
• He can grab the comb, freshly cleaned of his fine gray hairs, growl, shake it, and run off with it looking like a 19th century train robber who scored gold.

Okay, back to my pitiable photography.  Marmy has sworn me off.  She doesn't come to cuddle any more, she runs, in fact, when I draw near.  Oh, she is conflicted, that is for sure.  She talks at me when we're together in the kitchenette, and lets me pat her head.  She relies on me to clean up her hairball offerings, which have become frequent, because she won't let me help her with her decidedly difficult grooming.  (She's a long-haired beauty.)

My crime?  She has a recurrent eye condition -- herpes, actually -- which requires "gooping" with medication.  She managed to go several years without a problem but a few months back, poor thing, it returned with a vengeance in her left eye.  Now... Fred is a loving pet caretaker but he lacks finesse when it comes to administering pet medications.  As in, he scares the crap out of them because he believes they must be captured for the process to have meaning.  My philosophy is more one of waiting for them to come to me, then faking them out, but following my evil up with a good nuggle, a nice treat, something to confuse their nascent desire to hate me.

Marmy, though, has that incredible ability to read a human's mind.  Before you make a move to pick up the eye ointment, before you even allow yourself to entertain the thought of eye ointment, she's on to you, and she is GONE.

So we had to go with the Fred Method.  For some reason (a phrase I'd love to be able to eliminate from my life, or at least reduce its aptitude), he'd trap her, then carry her to me, and I would get to apply the goop to her eye.  

Now, I don't know, but it is my strong suspicion, having gooped other cats with this same medication, that Marmy is a bit, you know, Castafiore-esque.  She yelps, she cries, she squirms, she gives you the Look Of Death.  Every one else shakes their tiny feline heads, maybe gives a brief glare, and then they're over it.

Marmy Fluffy Butt has yet to forgive me.

This is how I get to see her first thing in the morning.  Peering at me, half-hidden behind the doorway, wondering if I am gonna drop the cherry bomb of a new kettle in order to swoop over, grab her by her Fluffy Tail, and stick some acid-like substance in her eyeball.  It's been months now.  I've decided to ignore her, and that is beginning to work, as, again like The Castafiore, she cannot bear the lack of attention.

Marmy Fluffy Butt, giving me the Evil Eye, and badly in need of grooming

It's unfair not to remind you that Marmy has her reasons -- we took her in when she was heavy with kittens, to the point where her belly almost dragged the floor.  She's tiny -- barely 8 pounds, and she had five little ones inside her.  She was only 8 months old at the time, or so figured the vet.  We figure that she started as someone's pet, and then was abandoned, and had been on the streets for a good bit.  

It's unfair not to note that we "took her in" by following one of Fred's Grab Scenarios, using a yummy bowl of kibble as bait.  Marmy will not eat wet food, something we wish someone would explain to us.  She refuses real chicken, etc.  Anyway, we kidnapped the poor, freezing pregnant soul and so began life with Marmy.  She was essentially feral for almost two years.

In the first few months of her stay, Fred had to CARRY my sweet Sam-I-Am (now deceased) past her to the litter box or she would beat him up.  Sammy weighed about 14 pounds.  It was ridiculous.

We don't know, beyond rape, what she endured out on the street, but it wasn't good.  When she decided we were okay, it was wonderful.  She made up for lost love time.  She domesticated as no cat has domesticated before her.

So when she reverts to her fearful state, it hurts my heart.  She and Fred were never nuggle partners, and he doesn't groom unless brushes are actually thrown at him with loud verbal encouragements, so their relationship is still stable.  

I hope my next photo of my girl is a pose of her purring and stretched out on my belly, all sleek and smooth, with fun, and not fear, in her eyes.  And God forbid that her eyes ever need treatment again.

O Lordy, Lordy!  Good grief.  Moving right along.  Those of you who have followed Buddy's growth, here's how big he is now, and still growing.  The vet says he will continue to grow for another two years, one of those weird bits of Maine Coon trivia.

Buddy the Freakishly Large Kitten

Note Marmy sneaking in behind him, and actually eating out of a metal bowl and not her beloved red plastic thang.  Buddy has become her pal, for which we're very thankful, as he's the only living organism in Marlinspike Hall who can successfully defend against the swift application of her claws, or achieve the speed of light.  The two of them love to vocalize, and they streak by in blurs that even make Dobby look perplexed.

Well, after I conquer the "photo" mode on this bleeping camera, I will give the video mode another try.  

Fred was sorely disappointed in me a couple of days ago, when the Crack Whore Organic Pig Farmer Lady who lives across our country lane was raided by the Tête de Hergé Lone Alp West Fugitive Squad -- you would have bust a gut at the sight of Tante Louise in SWAT gear.  She had managed to move about a yard by the time her team had rushed the Pig Farm Cottage, captured the ne'er-do-well, thrown her into the back seat of the Fugitive Catcher Car, an orange Vega, dodged a few angry free-ranging hogs, wrapped a few muddy acres in yellow cop crime scene tape, and jumped back into the Fugitive Squad station wagon.

I had the camera out but it was just the second time I'd ever had it strapped to my quivering, spazzing right hand.  So we ended up with a lovely montage of light glinting off the moat, close-ups of hog jowls, and lots of footage of Tante Louise stuck in the mire.

It would have gone viral on YouTube.

© 2015 L. Ryan

"No parsnips whatsoever": now with an encouraging update!

Yes, it IS a repost, originally published on 10/2/2013.  It was a time of governmental crisis, if that helps you thumb through your mental calendar.  I drag this post's silliness back into the light due to the reconvening of Congress tomorrow, and the feeling that reunion has provoked in the pit of my stomach since, roughly, November of 2008.

This time around, though, I'm borrowing the strategy of Organizing for [cough::cough] ACTION and promoting this pertinent, uplifting, and helpful video:


We now return you to the original post of 10/2/2013...

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I feel, and I feel strongly, that when faced with such crises as a government shutdown and the likelihood of the US of America defaulting on its debts by not raising, pro forma, the debt ceiling, that stories about cats, food, and the state of the weather are what is called for.

Not that I couldn't join the thousands, millions, more likely, of bloggers who are writing of hostage-taking, perverse manipulation, and the apparent ignorance of the basic process of how laws are passed and changed in this purportedly representative government model.

I am reminded of the stupidity that this country's freedom fighters, back in the eighteenth century, noted on the part of their enemy, the British Redcoats.

First, they wore bright red.
Second, they stood in straight lines, in the open, as it was felt a good British Redcoat should.

And that was how our ragged, dirty troops slipped behind trees and into ditches and picked the suckers off, one by one.

I was sort of hoping that the Democrats and the many, many reasonable Republicans would remember that former stupidity, that adherence to what did not make sense and that led to many young, innocent Brits dying in a ridiculous manner... and that they'd start fighting smart, in a way that might actually preserve lives, that might allow for the passage of a Clean Resolution, with no George III-type addenda, and then move on to raise the debt ceiling because, everyone knows, the debt ceiling must be raised.

This blog either turns now to cats, recipes, health updates (You should see my right leg!  It's a HOOT!) or you and I can weep together over the likelihood of my investments (READ: all I have in the world) circling the drain and being sucked into the vortex of idiocy that defines, at this point, everyone in government from the President (still one of my heroes) to Harry Reid to John "Cry Me A River" Boehner to my congressmen and senators.

We will begin with cats.

Marlinspike Hall cats are, by virtue of living in Marlinspike Hall, spoiled rotten.  They receive attention equal to that offered Queen Elizabeth's weirdo Welsh corgis.  I'm sorry, but those strange little dogs belong on poofy pillows and shouldn't be passed off as "herding dogs." What do they herd, stunted rats?  My very rapid perusal of expert opinions on these bizarro-looking canines explain that their miniature legs serve to allow them to "nip" at the heels of livestock.  Okay.  I was expecting something about digging tunnels and "nipping" at the hind legs of the aforementioned rats.  Or mouses.  Meeces.  Mice.

Um, cats.  Right.  I was distracted by the leader of the Republican Party, Rancid Prepubescence, announcing that the RNC was going to pay to keep the WWII memorial open since President Obama shut down the country.  I don't believe that Fred would slip me LSD in my Diet Ginger Ale but these days, whom can one really trust?




You have got to be freaking kidding me?  Bachmann rejoices that the country has been shut down -- literally says that this is what she wanted to happen -- but then arranges herself as a rescuing first responder for a group of elderly veterans who were about to suffer the indignity of her own actions?  I think there is some mental disorder, a personality disorder, that covers this kind of behavior but the label escapes me.  And I've too many labels already handy for Michele Bachmann.  Her label directory is full and the DSM-IV points her to falling under the aegis of BOTH Cluster A and Cluster B in the Axis II Personality Disorder section.  I ain't qualified.

But you know what is coming on the telly?  The 1967 version of Doctor Dolittle, with Rex Harrison! Perfect timing, for you may have noticed I'm having trouble sticking with my resolution to ignore the nutcakes, the wigged-out -- our leaders.  Give me a good honest Pushmi-pullyu any day.

Interesting that Doctor Dolittle came out the same year as The Graduate, In Cold Blood, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, In the Heat of the Night.  Hey, all I said was "interesting." No other commentary.

I actually have never seen the whole movie -- I tried because I was an enormous fan of Hugh Lofting's books.  My thanks, once again, to my stepmom for her guidance toward childhood classics that I surely would never have read without her placing them neatly in my lazy ambulating way.  She did the same with Jane Eyre, Harriet the Spy, Little Women, Little Men, and all the Laura Ingalls Wilder books.  And The Little Prince.  Of course, she also cut pages out of a book I wanted, fearing for my young innocence.  The dangerous book?  The Making of a Surgeon! How do you thank someone for such gifts?

Speaking of Mother-Units, the biological Mom is hopefully having a turn of luck, thanks, as is usually the case, to a group of good people.  Enough said, except... again, how do you thank someone for such gifts?

Okay, cats.  Ahem.

1.  Buddy the Outrageously Large Maine Coon:  forever a kitten.  We continue with the Wire Wars.  After nearly destroying our Xfinity connectivity with his love for a good wire chew, I wrapped the area he was accessing with bubble wrap, studded with little pieces of gauze drenched in Witch Hazel, for which he has great antipathy.  To avoid spending more money on earbuds chewed into little pieces, I took the last pair and encased it in electrical tape -- not thinking, of course, of what a strange impression this would make should I want to listen to music in a public place.  Well, this has worked well for the last three weeks.  Last night, I was tuckered out, set my mp3 player to its usual 90-minute sleep mode, and floated away to my darling Nina Simone.  Somehow, someway, I slept a good, long time, but in the process removed the earbuds and tossed them aside among piles of pillows and bits of quilt (Dobby eats textiles, and has chewed my quilts with great joy... and I often get to extract quilt stitching from deep within his bubbly belly).  Upon waking, of course, Buddy had chewed through the small area that was not wrapped against his sharp teeth.  I fussed and yelled at him, and he looked at me, pleased, clearly hearing "Congratulations, Buddy, Good Boy!" instead of "%(&$##))*&@!"  And then he demanded breakfast.

2.  Dobby, the used-to-be Runt, the Forever Number Two:  Let me clear up a concern I may have caused. I keep the quilts trimmed of loose threads, but he's a devil with those tiny claws.  Dobby is watching Doctor Dolittle intently, at the moment.  Or maybe he is fascinated with Polynesia, the parrot.  No, he's enthralled with the horses and cows, too.  Dobby remains the Peacekeeper of the Manor.  Today, he broke up a near fight between Marmy Fluffy Butt, his mother, and the aforementioned Buddy.  Buddy is huge, tough, and pretty darned strong and quick.  Marmy is tiny, tough, and quicker.  Her strength lies in her perfect technique, not in musculature.  Anyway, back to Dobby.  He also was shut up in the closet again today, a frequent happening.  He doesn't cry, or scratch, or do anything to let you know he's been trapped.  He just curls up and naps, secure in the knowledge that we're not so dumb that we won't figure it out at some point. He clearly has no clue as to how many closets there are in Marlinspike Hall.  Luckily, we know which ones attract him to begin with.  Any closet with fine, museum-quality linens.  Any closet with delicate knits that attract cat hair like nobody's business.  But mostly, Dobby chooses closets that contain my freshly laundered clothing.  Nothing expensive in there, nothing in the least historically significant.  However, they make the perfect spot for shedding, and if one has been ill-behaved in some way, for hiding.  Unfortunately, in Dobby, stress of any sort causes him to denude his small body of all hair... so when I put on clean clothes, I have to put the lint roller to immediate use.  Bless his little bones, Dobby keeps me sane.  He demands what he wants when he wants it, will put up a determined little fight for it, but if he cannot have it just then, will love you anyway.  His clue that it is time to be groomed (his obsession) is my morning keg of coffee.  My notion of what to do, after the careful brewing of my keg of coffee, is to drink it, at leisure, while perusing the latest news about... well, let's not get trapped into talking of the news again!  But to Dobby, it signals the true beginning of the day, and that means the taking care of him.  He has his own (cheap, purple, and plastic) comb and brush set and proceeds to remind me of its existence by knocking them to the floor.  Then he apologizes.  And gets his brushing (the comb is but a pawn in his game), including a finalizing, invigorating belly rub.  Everyone should have a Dobby.  On his inner right thigh, in the tiniest of Cyrillic print, almost invisible, really:  "Dobby: 90% angel, 10% house elf."

3. Marmy Fluffy Butt.  Also known as "my girl." I've told her story many times, but once more won't hurt anyone.  She and her brother, who we also took in but who had suffered so much, he did not make it, were feral street cats.  Somewhere in their short pasts, for they were only 8 months, according to the vet's estimate, they had been indoor pets but were abandoned.  She was, as the Bible might say, sorely pregnant. As tiny then as she remains now, her belly barely cleared the ground.  And she trusted no one.  She fought for every scrap of food, long after the need for fighting was gone.  She tolerated us, and when her "time" to be delivered arrived, she seemed glad enough to have us around.  Fred, especially.  Fred is a wonder with children and with animals.  None of that silly adult pushing, that obnoxious adult knowing-better-than-anyone-else nonsense.  He greets child and animal and then follows suit.  If ignored, he good-naturedly pulls away.  If tolerated, he'll sit nearby with a good book.  If encouraged, he'll offer some sort of smile and a treat.  I kind of push things a bit, not understanding why my love and best intentions don't make child or animal my best friend on an immediate basis.  Go figure.  Anyway, Marmy was not the most maternal of mothers.  "Resentful" might be an appropriate adjective.  Plus, she decided she was done with this "giving birth" nonsense after she had produced four beautiful kittens.  Unfortunately, there was one more -- Dobby
-- waiting in the... wings.  So Fred stepped in and delivered him, deftly, beautifully.  It was touch and go, and then we were in fear that Dobby was a bit touched in the head from lack of oxygen, for he did things like climb to Marmy's head instead of seeking out her life-giving milk.  In fact, all the creature seemed to do for weeks was climb.  Very happy to be at the highest available peak, he didn't seem to notice hunger or thirst, warmth or cold.  Well, obviously, he survived.  Marmy remained feral for almost two more years, terrorized and terrorizing.  Then, for no reason we've ever discovered, she decided we were fine, and became a love bunny.  She's flipped back and forth several times, again, for reasons we cannot divine.  Except for one instance -- after a vet visit that resulted in a tooth-pulling and an overnight stay.  She gave us the silent treatment for a good three months after that.  When she does choose to show affection, she's unbeatable. She nuggles close, she butts her head against a spare hand, and she tells you of her woes in her best "*ack*-*ack*" tones, and bewitches you with her beautiful eyes.  It is best not to be offended when, for no discernible reason, she huffs and puffs and swirls her tremendously fluffy tail end in your face, and stalks off.
Today, I was blessed with having Marmy show up "*ack*-*ack*"ing for a good brushing.  She must have heard about the goings on in Washington.

Oh, no!  They are throwing Dr. Dolittle into an asylum.  You know who needs to be in an asylum, don't you? Those animals in D.C.!

I tried.  I would keep trying, and regale you with stories of the dinner I concocted tonight, except that I didn't concoct a darned thing.  Two Nathan's hot dogs on whole wheat bread, with yellow mustard.  My legs are hurting, my shoulders blah blah blah blah blah.  And blah!

Hooray... the monkey stole the keys to the carriage, the horses took off without the guards and drivers, and the bloodhounds refused to hunt, the Doctor is saved!  And now everyone has set sail to the North Pole... which Dr. Dolittle carefully points out "has not been discovered yet," so they're keeping that bit of knowledge to themselves.  Actually, they're looking for the giant pink Sea Snail but don't know where it is.

This is altogether too realistic for my taste, suddenly.

Have a good night, everyone.  And thank you, Hugh Lofton!

"Then Jip went up to the front of the ship and smelt the wind; and he

started muttering to himself,

'Tar; Spanish onions; kerosene oil; wet raincoats; crushed

laurel-leaves; rubber burning; lace-curtains being washed--No, my

mistake, lace-curtains hanging out to dry; and foxes--hundreds of

'em--cubs; and--'

'Can you really smell all those different things in this one wind?'

asked the Doctor.

'Why, of course!' said Jip. 'And those are only a few of the easy

smells--the strong ones. Any mongrel could smell those with a cold in

the head. Wait now, and I'll tell you some of the harder scents that

are coming on this wind--a few of the dainty ones.'

Then the dog shut his eyes tight, poked his nose straight up in the air

and sniffed hard with his mouth half-open.

For a long time he said nothing. He kept as still as a stone. He

hardly seemed to be breathing at all. When at last he began to speak,

it sounded almost as though he were singing, sadly, in a dream.

'Bricks,' he whispered, very low--'old yellow bricks, crumbling with

age in a garden-wall; the sweet breath of young cows standing in a

mountain-stream; the lead roof of a dove-cote--or perhaps a

granary--with the mid-day sun on it; black kid gloves lying in a

bureau-drawer of walnut-wood; a dusty road with a horses'

drinking-trough beneath the sycamores; little mushrooms bursting

through the rotting leaves; and--and--and--'

'Any parsnips?' asked Gub-Gub.

'No," said Jip. "You always think of things to eat. No parsnips

whatever.'

[illustration and quote from lofting brazenly stolen from the blog Basic North]






© 2013 L. Ryan

Marmy Fluffy Butt, Elongated

Those attentive readers who are familiars of Marmy Fluffy Butt will gasp at the virtuosity she allowed the camera to witness, and then, without the usual *ack*::*ack* contrarian fanfare, capture.

Since her feline version of IBS has been brought under control, she's in love bug stage, and can often be found attached to my left hip.  She challenges Buddy the Outrageously Large Maine Coon for Manor leadership about every other day, and has inflicted several warning slashes upon little Dobby's face when he moved in for an innocent traditional DNA check.

She's full of herself, in other words.

We like this version of a long, slinky Marmy Fluffy Butt -- she is not hiding out with abdominal pain, she is, in fact, stretching to new lengths, she winks at me and cracks the worst kind of jokes, then *ack*::*ack*s to her heart's content!

Should Marmy enthrall you, these two old posts describe how she got her and her reign since:
Wednesday's CatCam -- Full of Woe and Wednesday Morning Blahs.






Please allow me to share my etymological discovery of the day!  One cannot observe the magnificence that is Marmy without eventually entertaining the term "hoity-toity."  Most often, her attitudinal fluffiness causes a mental stutter, leaving you psychically mumbling, "hoity, hoity, hoiteeee!"  Ah, but... anyway! The term "hoity-toity" actually made snopes.com!

"Hoity-toity" begs for a hoity-toity origin.  And so was born an etymology with an accent, from an older world with smaller cobbled streets, and where the habit of looking down on people whilst sipping on a thick, caramelly espresso from the comfy vantage point of a limestone or bluestone or concrete tile perch:  "The term "hoity-toity" comes from the French words haut toit, meaning 'high roof.'"

Berlitz called it this way:  "The expression 'hoity-toity,' for ; pretentious,;  comes from the French haut toit — high roof — from which the pretentious looked down on the literally 'lower' classes."

In swoops snope to do what snope does:

Origins:   In common English speech, "hoity-toity" is an adjective used with disdain to refer to the pretentious, those who put on a show of pretending to possess refinement and sophistication (similar to "highfalutin"). So, some people naturally assume that such an unusual expression, referring to the cultured, must itself have a cultured origin — in this case a French-language reference to the (literal) upper class, people who looked down upon others from atop their high roofs (i.e., haut toit). 

"Hoity-toity" has nothing to do with French (or the French), however. The expression comes from our penchant for creating rhyming phrases such as "loosey-goosey" or "helter-skelter," and in this case its base is "hoit," an obsolete 16th century verb whose meaning is "to play the fool" or "to indulge in riotous and noisy mirth." ("Hoity-toity" was more commonly used to describe those who engaged in thoughtlessly silly or frivolous behavior before it became more of a synonym for "pretentious.") Attempts to find the word "haughty" to be an ancestor of "hoity-toity" are equally specious. 

I thought of mourning the loss of a lovely etymology.

Then, thinking of the Queen who prompted the whole half-arsed search, I realized how much closer she is to silliness -- *ack*::*ack* and a wink, followed by a seductive, round-bellied flop and presentation of one white-fuzzed, pink-skinned abdomen in need of rubbing -- than to serious haughtiness.








© 2013 L. Ryan

Love in the Time of Dobby

Dobby is obsessed with grooming.  Rather, Dobby is obsessed with being brushed.  We have, at least, five different brush sets -- some meant for humans, which he prefers, and the more expensive, less effective ones designed specifically for cats.

He immediately separates the comb from the brush.  The comb means that I am going after the trouble spot at the base of his tail -- dandruff -- and he does not enjoy that.  Usually, he knocks it to the floor.  Today, he just made off with it.

All the cats are bothered by recording, except Buddy, whose arrival coincided with my first video camera.  So I was very surprised that Dobby behaved fairly normally, except that he didn't flop and  "give me the belly" with his usual alacrity.  His belly produces a prodigious amount of hair that I'd rather brush off at the source than breathe in off a pillow...

He is also extremely paranoid about the other cats seeing him groomed.  He heard Buddy in another room at some point and his head barely swiveled away from that point on...

We do this at least three times a day -- this was clearly more play than a dedicated effort to get at his shedding hair.  This is Dobby Time.

A Pictorial Review of Saturday Morning

Saturday morning routine.

BEFORE:

 "cats, drugs, msnbc, oy!"

uploaded to YouTube by skilled videographer profderien

"the number of medication bottles is misleading, as there are many duplicates. i kind of wish i could say the same thing about the cats, as they are being annoying and i don't like them around the pharmaceuticals. *my* drugs, *my* drugs!  and sometimes msnbc needs to check itself. good morning!"

AFTER:

all the poetry in the world cain't halp iffen you was raised in a barn

Last night, I entertained you with my dalliances at a "poetry" site, where it is mostly all gush and gore but mostly good intentioned and lighthearted.

illustrator: abrakadabra

I forgot that just labeling a place "poetry" doesn't keep out the troglodytes. 

And that joining such a club doesn't wring the last drips of troglodyte-me out of moi.

You gotta wrack up the points to be worth your salt as a salty poet over there, and a part of that sodium content is achieved by weeping praise in comments left your brother and sister writers.

Can I escape my academic background?  Yes, of course, I can.  Do I want to, having invested blood, sweat, tears, and more money than most medical specialists in my advanced education?  No way in hell.  Besides, it is a mantle I can wear when I've no idea who the heck I really am, and it provides good words.  Lots and lots of words.

[Will the echo of Brother-Unit Grader Boob, admonishing me about "too many words," ever echo it's damned self into the canyon's oblivion?]

What many people don't know, though more know than I suspect know, is that The Academic is as raunchy and ill-mannered and whatever-other-synonym for "raised in a barn" you'd like to add... as is anyone you're likely to meet in the produce aisle.

[Unless you're talented and self-sufficient and raise your own produce!  Big wave to TW, whose bounteous box of booty arrived yesterday!  Such stews and soups and sauces I dreamt of, and what wonderful Brother-Units, too. OKAY, GRADER BOOB, YOU CAN SHUT THE FUCK UP NOW WITH THE TOO MANY WORDS CRAP... jeez.]

Hmmm.  What is actually emerging in me are some things, some ones, that I've been missing -- The Editor, The Translator.  I love those guys, I love that they hang out in me.  Usually, they're kicked back doing crossword puzzles and anagrams, and singing dirty ditties.  But lately, since this poetry site has been insisting on commentary, I've had to consult them.  "Psst, you two:  Do I do this like I'd do an undergrad's first essay in the second week of the term?  Or do it I lay it out there like the 5 pm seminar where everyone around the table looking wise was at my apartment the night before, puking tequila in my toilet?"

They usually split the difference -- they're big on Solomon as Wisdom Guide -- and advise:  "Aw, make it like it's a Junior repeating the class and it's a rewrite -- after peer-editing -- that way you know they were puking last night, but probably beer, so you can be sure it wasn't in your apartment, and then you can't be held responsible for anything you say."

The whole sordid affair... You knew this was about a Sordid Affair, didn't you?  That's why you're still here, admit it!  

The whole sordid affair began a few days ago, when I left my second comment ever on a poem that had been posted a couple of years ago.  I did not choose the poem to read, the magic computer poetry site smushed it in my face and said, "Comment or remain -- forevermore -- a wannabe poetess." So I gave it the laser intense focus of my best attention, and wrote, with sincerity, about some confusion of protagonists and my profound appreciation of a well-placed comma.  *You* know me, and you know the power of a well-placed comma.  Well, in my world.  I gave what I thought was a good representation of my level of appreciation -- two clapping hands out of three. And, really, given that I have but one shoulder and my other arm is flaky as all get out, well, two hands clapping is a barely achievable thang, anyways...

You gotta admit they're playing to the lowest common denominator of self-interest when the higher you rate (by means of iconic clapping hands) a poem, the more points YOU get.  So if I work really hard, and practice every day, and pray to the Lord above?  Maybe I can honestly come up with three hands clapping!  The orthopods would love to design such a prosthesis...

Raven on a Hill

So the poet in question took great offense.  

From the poem, I envisioned a 16 or 17 year old girl.  Not 15, not 18, my age-dar is incredibly accurate after years of teaching 18-22+ year olds, and then the Hell of a few years with the 15-18 crowd.

If the poet isn't lying, he claims to be 32.

He wrote:

I'm not certain about many of the things you have said in this comment. Why is enjoy the "wrong verb choice?" Why do you "struggle with the people peopling this poem?" What does that mean? Are you referring to the many people who "enjoyed" it? Are you saying you require me to argue my choice of words used herein?
I'm happy you enjoyed the comma.
Perhaps you could clarify. Is English your first language?

I apologized (my comments have been erased, "somehow," while his remain.  Kind of ass-backwards but, there you go...), explained that I was a rusty academic and tried, again, to convince him that the "comma" comment was from the heart, though drifting more and more toward the gut.

To which he wizzed back:

Yes... an academic.  No, not at all. Calling yourself an academic in order to excuse yourself from incoherence. That's not going to fly here.
As to your comment on confusion, you seem to be the only one confused.
"party of one"
I'm not, as you can plainly see arguing anything you ignoramus. You just come across as pompous, confused and incoherent. However, I was uncertain, I turned to a couple trusty readers, and it's safe to say, your comment is obscure at best.
Thanks wierdo.
~M

Ah.  I guess this is supposed to be... sport?  So I thought best to bow out.  I did throw myself a pity party, feeling maligned by what was a rude welcome to the site, but understanding that I can be dense (in any way you'd like to define "dense"), and closed with a request for mutual compassion.

As fast as fast can be in electronic time, he rallied:

I could certainly show compassion. However, upon my first visit to your page and reading what you've posted there, I suppose I got a really bad impression. Perhaps the community would welcome you a bit more, if the first thing you did upon joining was something other than posting an insult to to the same community you wish to be a part of on your user page.

BOING!  Arrow to the heart.  This is what I had written on my "user page," though I blushed now at the thought of a 32-year old poet reading such nonsense:  

I admit that this place scares me. Many levels of talent.  Many people married to their words.  I cannot speak to the passion, purportedly what binds the community? (Is that right?  Did I get that right?) 

If so, Isn't it a bit on the masturbatory side of things? And remember -- whether you are for masturbation or all in a lather against it -- it is you who bring any weighty value to the word, much less the act! 

"Pay up and buy your word concoctions some love?"
(As You Like It, of course -- carrying the risk of "too much of a good thing," and the potential need for potent antibiotics.) 

But there is an innate rightness in that: Poetry should be a commodity, bought and sold. And maybe here, it's reached the thin air where ditties are bartered?  And again, don't weigh down my word choice with judgment. 

Just sit with it.  Masturbatory, Community, Dripping Love Infectious Concoctions, A Commodities Exchange (What three applauding marauding hands can get you!), Bartered Ditties. 

Hey, that's probably the most profound BrainBlurb I've had on poetics, ever!
Were I blessed to be in a band, "Bartered Ditties" might be a top twenty name choice.

I had to put SOMETHING.  And, I swear, I just decided to be honest.  After all, I was not a "gold member," had put nothing on the head of the barrel, and was not out to delude anyone.  Oh, no, not pretending to be my dead cat Monaghan and an -- ach mein gott! -- academic!

So I let the matter go.  Really.

Then, two days ago, or yesterday, I receive this message from said poet:

I don't give a fuck what you do. lol

Without referential background... I think I ignored it.  Not sure.  I may have inquired as to what the fuck the asshole was pulling out of his butt now... but I don't think so.

Then, today, again without the courtesy of a point of origin:

hey, guess what...
fuck you!

One hour post that "fuck you," I got another!

hey, guess what...
fuck you!

So I guess it's on some sort of bot timer and I'll be receiving these forever. 

Oh, wait!  Here is my last comment, somehow not yet erased!  

and wayyyyy up yours.  man, you class up the joint.

Ravens Corner Pharmacy

In other news, I wrote a new poem.  Honest to God, I cannot read that -- "I wrote a new poem" -- without requiring medication for seizures!  Anyway, I *did* -- in defense of poor Poe's raven.  They have it scattered everywhere other there, and you'll note I made recent use of a poor crow, too -- but whose wings were battered, frayed.  I think I'm getting too old for all this.  After all, I'm not a 32 year old.  From California.  

{giggling at the memory of the drive-bys on our oakland avenue, at walking from berkeley to sausalito in cotton chinese mary janes, at getting drunk just before the defense of my thesis, at the china bowl express in lalaland, in awe of the people i loved and admired there...}

Sniff. Pinky in air.  Ready for the poem?

Madness makes an easy exit

by Monaghan

my heart bleeds

(a good thing)

for poe's poor raven.

raped all over the damned place,

placed wittily on the extended lyric limn of capital letters --

limbic, but not near enough obscure

that anyone could fail to make

the connection.

i mean, the raven is a one-word

bird and the narrator descending, as narrators

so often do, into

messy madness -- because madness makes

an easy exit from a poem.

Okay, well, this concludes today's soap opera digest of what's going on in the pay-your-way poetry world!  Fred and Ruby just tore off down the road toward the vet again -- no, Bodacious Buddy is fine.  He decided to take Dobby and Marmy in for their annual exams, and we had all kinds of fun getting Marmy into the pet carrier... because Fred does know that those two lose in the car might land him in Tante Louise's jail for Funky Driving.  Besides, being Mother and Son, they comfort each other.  And Marmy gets to piss all over Dobby, the highlight of her year.  The poor thing is terrified of the vet, source, she knows, of that accursed eye goop.

I'm outta here... Buddy is crying, never having been separated from his feline friends before.  Maybe this is where, and how, I am supposed to be.

Buddy is no Maru and I survived another birthday

I don't know that I've ever tried to write with such a headache before.  This may prove interesting. It's not awful, just awfully concentrated behind my left eye, so I'm squinting, and being already afflicted with interesting vision -- well, writing just got more interesting!  [Note to self:  Spare your readers.  Do NOT revise post by substituting accurate adjectives for "interesting." Sometimes "vague," like "fun," is good.]

My mother and I share a birthday, and I am glad to say that we did it again, day before yesterday.  Especially glad am I because she was, and may still be, in her small town ICU.  I spoke with her, not because I dutifully or joyfully hit ICU speed-dial so that we could gush about getting older together, right on cue, no.  Rather, my bone-weary half-sister Lale, a true force of nature, pulled one of those tricks.

You know what I'm talking about.  I mean, how many years did you fall for the old "pull my finger" gag?  Admittedly, I am probably the world's most gullible person, still -- I should have had my guard up.  But Lale feels strongly that she knows what is right and then, well, there is that "force of nature" thing going on.

So I'm semi-awake and chatting with her, getting the update on the Mother-Unit's health when Lale says, in one breath, words-in-a-taut-string: "Ask her yourself, here she is..." and BAM!  There she is, mother of moi, me, her 29th birthday present, languishing on the other end of what has to be one of those genius phones.

My phone?  Bottom of the bottom of the barrel.  I have to push certain plastic parts in different directions to be able to half-hear the person or (most often) the automated bill collector on the other end.

But we had a nice chat, we did.  She's cogent -- Lale told me that she remembered her husband was dead (it's been a few years) after only one reminder -- and that's an accomplishment for any hospitalized person these days, much less an elderly woman in an intensive care unit.  I should remember to tell her, and Lale, that I promptly lose my mind whenever the elevator doors even open onto a critical care unit.  I have what is known as "ICU psychosis," engendered, I'm told, by the constant noise and light, drugs, etc.  But I know the underlying truth:  It's just like giving a Permanent Hall Pass to my natural craziness.  I see and hear things, experience the darnedest adventures -- last time, I spent an entire day attempting to help three Archangels successfully blow my head off with legally obtained and properly permitted shotguns.  They were lousy shots.  Apparently, I kept taking one arm to use for pointing to my big bedhead head, which I kept raising off the pillow -- trying to make the target easier to hit.  The good thing is that my nurses and doctors, despite repeated interrogations ["What the hell are you trying to do?"], never did understand that I was attempting to assist in my own assassination by God's Blessèd Assassins.  Good thing, too, that I never pointed them out -- all three Archangels were slumped in ratty old outdoor aluminum-framed chairs -- the old-fashioned woven plastic kind, plaid.  One of them being terribly overweight, his butt was hanging a bare half-inch from the ICU floor.  Off to the side was an equally old tiny television set, perched on a TV dinner tray table, rabbit ears accented with twists of foil.  The three holy ones would watch a few minutes of infomercials, then load up and fire off shots at my head, then curse when their projectiles just busted out another window, or ripped through a beeping IVAC pump.

Other ICU psychosis experiences?  Most involved schemes of escaping the unit.  I once even called my Brother-Unit Grader Boob, thanking him profusely for having landed a helicopter on the hospital roof, then belaying down with a team of White Hat Black Ops to rescue me from my false imprisonment beneath a respirator.  It still astonishes me that anyone gave me a phone to make the call.  Apparently -- they had just extubated me -- my babbling about my brother was construed as a need to call and express my love for him, and my gratitude for having survived near death.  Instead, I regaled him with praise, saying "I didn't even know you knew how to fly a helicopter!"

So my mother did great -- she was, in fact, sitting there eating a slice of birthday cake that the food service folk had specially prepared for her.  If they can stabilize her blood pressure, I think she's headed home soon.

But you gotta be on your toes around that Lale girl... She thinks my phone phobia is a made-up thing, something I invented to avoid talking to that wing of my Fucked-Up Family.  But no, it's real as can be.  I dislike phones, always have.  But that dislike has blossomed into what I think is a real technical phobia -- I mean, I probably need psychiatric treatment to get over it.  It's not so bad when there is business to conduct.  I could, at this point, yell at Walmart pharmacists all the livelong day.  But chat with a person about... life... and "stuff"?  God help me, I start hoping to see my slouching, crabby Archangels taking aim.

No offense to TW, whom I've only spoken with a couple of times, and each time hung up with a smile from ear-to-ear, but the best phone person, for me, is the oft-mentioned Grader Boob.  I think because we both profess to be teachers and promptly enter the Twilight Zone of Student Stories.  It takes about 30 seconds for the both of us to be reduced to tears from laughter.  Both TW and Grader Boob, however, can also piss moi off to no end with what must be a genetic tendency to refuse to directly answer Important Questions.  You know, of the "How Are You, **Really**?" sort.  These tend to be asked after I've been informed that they've taken dives down stairwells or slipped on ice and broken their beloved shoulders, or lost a long loved love.  Then, I guess I become, once again, that annoying chubby little sister who just wouldn't get it, anyway.

Harrumph.

So, yeah, I had a birthday!  It was great.  Coffee in bed, and not just once, but twice.  Music of all sorts.  And a card from the ambulance-chaser lawyer who got me a check for $1,000 15 years ago after I was injured in a car accident.  He always encloses a very useful calendar, too, that we promptly affix to the fridge.

For my birthday repast, I insisted on Indian take-out.  My beloved favorite restaurant had moved to a location so far away I had not the heart to make Fred and Ruby drive the distance, so intense research turned up a very funky nearby place that provided us with beaucoup, beaucoup delicious fare.

Normally, I ask for cherry pie in lieu of birthday cake.  The restaurant menu, however, lured me toward one of their two desserts, a sort of pudding that was pure heaven, while Fred went into ecstacy with pistachio ice cream.

Then we lay in bed and moaned.

I had hoped to also watch a movie, but alas, Xfinity On Demand tricked me, and the free flicks I had picked out turned out not to be so free.  Yes, I do refuse to pay... even on my birthday.  I think that, too, is genetic.

But I had fun watching "Chopped" with Fred.  He's a hoot.  And a very good cook.  Bless his bones forever, though, he got upset over an idea I've long been considering.  I thought it would be great fun for all the people who do the cooking for Fred's Wednesday Night Suppers (you know, with the Militant Lesbian Existentialist Feminists) to have a "Chopped" competition.  We could choose someone to put together "mystery baskets" of odd ingredients and see what resulted.  But sweet Fred actually got teary-eyed over the potential hurt involved in "competition." My heart swells, right now, just remembering:  "I don't like competitions.  People get hurt."

Okay, honestly?

I felt like saying, "Oh, come on, we're talking more like a theme party than a serious competition... and the Mystery Baskets can be engineered as more 'easy as pie' than real gourmet challenges!"

But then I saw that he actually had tears in his eyes.  No shit.

Fred's waters run deep.

I had forgotten that he won't even play board games, or cards.  That he eschews most sporting events due to their tendency to insist on scoring, and winners, and losers.

I love Fred. What he stands for.  Still... c'mon.  Anyone wanna do a Chopped Challenge with me?

So... that was my birthday.  It was fun, my mother didn't die, the food was fantastic, and the company, perfect.  La Bonne et Belle Bianca Castafiore, however, ate THREE entrée-sized servings of saag paneer and was running back-and-forth most of the night, so I ended up awake the whole night-after-the-birthday.

Which takes this narrative quite easily into yesterday, when I was exhausted and highly feverish, rather peevish, and in a shitload of pain.  Some people with chronic pain believe that if you have a good day, the following few days will be spent "paying the piper."

I am one of them!

I am still paying that talented piper today, but at least my mood is good, Fred seems to have recovered from the suggestion of the cooking contest, and Bianca is no longer racing for the loo, screaming insults against the Indian sub-continent.  [Oh, she and Sven are on the outs.  Kind of a good thing, really, because we'd have had to order four times as much food.  I think they'll get back together.  I don't believe in "soul mates" nonsense, but those two are cut from the same cloth.  Now, Cabana Boy has been nosing around, and that may spice things up a bit -- but, God, I hope not.  It may well be that the Adult Faction of Marlinspike Hall is ready for an extended period of Bland Times.]

The Walmart Wars continue, but now are in the hands of three investigatory bodies -- one regional Board of Pharmacy, the Tête de Hergé Department of Health & Human Services Office of Inspector General's Office of Investigations... and my insurance company.

But there's always a fuck-up, correct?  I emailed my Go-To-Guy and his Super Nurse on the advice of the insurance company, asking that they call the company directly to get the prior authorization thang taken care of, and submitting directly to them a new prescription.

Oh, dear Lord.  Wham, bam, I got three responses within an hour from my intrepid medical team.  Their reaction was pure outrage that Walmart had claimed their office had failed to respond to two requests for prior-authorization schtuff, and they were going to, by Jove, set those people straight.

I felt my brain explode a little.  I did not respond, for two reasons.  One, it was then late Friday afternoon, and nothing goes right in the "business" world on late Friday afternoons.  Two, explaining in detail the steps I had already taken to exact justice for us all would only have made the water so very, very muddy.  There is also a three.  Three, my dear doc is a devout person, and I hate to put something annoying on his mind at the approach of Sabbath.

But please, please, hope along with me that they did NOT call this particular Walmart Pharmacy, now under investigation, and try to submit ANOTHER Rx.

In other news:  I was thrilled at Panetta's announcement of the reversal of policy regarding women in combat.  Somehow, I kind of doubt that you know why I was thrilled.  But in proof certain that Fred and I are, like Sven and The Castafiore, cut from the same cloth, we shared the rationale of gladness.  If Hawks, usually of the TeaBagger sort, truly are outraged at the thought of Cindy Lou in a body bag, maybe they will temper their Hawkishness.  Maybe, probably at a subconscious level, they will avoid armed conflict and war, the better to avoid Cindy Lou sloshing around in black plastic and a pine coffin.

Yes, we all know women have been involved in "front line" combat for a long while now, particularly since the "front line" so rarely exists any longer.  Cindy Lou driving a Maintenance Vehicle in support of a fighting outfit is at much on the "front line" as the men she is following.  And, as Rep. Tammy Duckworth hilariously pointed out, she did not lose her legs in "a bar fight."

There is another side to me (at least one other!), though, that also concurs with Duckworth and other career military women -- their career advancement has been diverted and denied because of a failure to recognize their actual battle experience, or through denying them that "opportunity." Honestly, we are talking less about hand-to-hand, muzzle-to-muzzle nonsense than we are more strategic jobs.  And man, do I wish the machomacho men spewing idiocies would calm down and read the provision more closely -- the physical requirements for any combat positions are not going to be changed.  Anorexic and weak-kneed Cindy Lous are not going to attempt lugging Big Bad Linebacker Lou to safety after he's been hit by enemy fire.

I'd have to go check my facts and I don't feel like it at the moment (ahh, the integrity of my blogging), but I believe the Israelis chose to remove women from front line positions after a study revealed that male soldiers' attention became all addlepated when faced with decisions such as choosing which fallen soldier to attend to first, as a medic, when one was a woman, and the other a man.  Yeah, well.  There are many fogs to war.

What else?  Oh, I will miss Tom Harkin.  He did good work.

Oh, and I like the bangs.

I disagree with the ruling about Presidential appointments during congressional recesses.  Did I hear it would be appealed to the good brothers and sisters of the Supreme Court?

I thought Hillary was masterful in her hearings.  I still am using my "Hillary for President" water bottle but doubt it will still be in use by 2016.  I also found think we will never know the truth of what happened that day in Benghazi, not if Hillary can help it.

The thought of the many Syrian refugees makes me want to cry, a not very useful response. And my brain is befuddled by Egypt.

I tepidly applaud Iraq's parliament in trying to prevent Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki from another term.

Okay, the truth is... I am trying to fake myself out.  Do a sleight of hand against my own hands. What is really weighing on my mind... drones.  Drones and Obama's hit list.  I have a hit list of my own.  It started as a joke.  Then one day, I thought about it.  Given the chance, the right circumstance, yes, I would pull the trigger to take out one of those who made my list.  And I'd accept the consequences, which I imagine would occur faster than I could blink.  I like, too, the idea of taking someone out without the loss of so many military pawns, foot-soldiers, kids, fighting under some ridiculous cover story.  And "collateral damage" makes me weep and want to hide for shame.

Some folks need killing in the worst way.

All right, yes.  I also have the vague suspicion of a suggestion of a soupçon that killing of any sort is wrong.  That killing without the courtesy of a look-in-the-eye is cowardly. (Oh, scratch that last sentence.  I don't believe that.  I made it up.  I lied.)

These are the types of issues that send me back to White's Book of Merlyn.

There are so many things about which we all think, about which we do not speak.

An amazing segue, on par, even with "anyway..."!

Cat stories, that's what we need!  Here is an update and a FAIL cat video, starring The One, The Only BUDDY -- all in an effort to save this headache of a blog post!

Okay, whom shall we update first.  Marmy FluffyButt?  Yes.  Why not?  She is beginning to warm up to me again, although at the rate she's warming, I'll be stiff and cold by the time this feline decides I'm worth giving another chance.  Ever since I was put in charge of treating her chronically infected and leaky eyeball, she has cast me into the outer reaches of Hell.  And I don't think Marmy's Hell is the more accessible "circle" or ring.  She spurns Dante.  "Nine circles of suffering? For having put stinging goop into mein eyeball?  The outer atomic layer of the ninth circle does not approach sufficiency of suffering, although the theme is correct, since daring to touch mein eyeball does line up well with Judecca, the hooman Alighieri's spot for flaming Iscariots..." When I heard her say *that*, well, shivers went up my spine.  Her geometrical preference is less for spheres and more for one e-t-e-r-n-a-l line.

But she remains sweet, in spite of the damning obsession 'n all.  Especially after the sun goes down, at which time she has had a good 12-hour nap, and greets her humans as if they were long lost pals.  She will let me rub her beautiful head, scratch her silky chin, and lightly pull on her magnificent poofy tail.  She thinks Fred, Bianca, Sven, the Cabana Boy, and all of the Manor Domestic Staff are the greatest.  Whether she will ever cuddle next to moi again is doubtful.  {sniff}

Dobby!  He continues to bring a smile to the face of all he meets and greets.  If he failes to meet and greet you, it is because, being a very small animal, he is frightened and is hiding in my closet, where stress is making him shed profusely on all of my clean clothes.

We've always been able to hear The Dobster approach, even from as far away as the Over-Sized Pink Opalescent Gala Ballroom.  His toenails made a pleasant tap-tap-tap and he could never figure out his continual failure in sneakiness.  Suddenly, one day last week, I watched him pass by me and realized that I heard... nothing.  Thinking that the Good Lord had decided I needed deafness added to the Affliction List, I consulted with Fred (whom I could hear, O Hosanna!) and he could no longer hear the tap-tap-tap of Dobby, either.

Putting the little guy under surveillance, it turned out that he is assiduously pulling off the ends of his not so talon-like talons.

All the better to tippy-toe behind his frequent attacker, the huge Buddy Boy, and enjoy the thrills of jumping on his head for a change.  Last night, I even saw him tear by the overgrown kitten, who, hearing not a sound, never even knew he'd been bested.

Dobby continues his late night howling, and we've narrowed the causes down to two:  a continual mourning for our beloved Sammy and/or an annoying demand that we break out the laser dot toy.
Both are a bit distressing.  It's time for him to simply think fondly on Sweet Sammy, and when we do break out the laser dot toy, he no longer wishes to chase it, but settles down in an old-fart-in-a-raggedy-barcalounger pose so as to better enjoy the light show.  He leaves the chasing to Buddy, who is thrilled to do it and chases with abandon, albeit also with some confusion, and to Marmy, who has but one plan of attack -- to eat that damned red dot.  She gulps enough air in the chase to cause hours of entertaining burping.

As for updating Buddy's growing fan base on the Maine Coon's progress?  Lordy, lordy.  EVERYTHING is a game.  Therefore, we are often thankful to have undertaken the "soft paw" training when he was truly a baby.  Otherwise, we'd have even deeper and many more scratches from all the "play."

It turns out he suffers a bit from separation anxiety. Because of his constant desire to "play," and this desire's inappropriateness around all the Haddock antique treasure in the Manor, he is restricted to our Private Quarters. Most of the time, it is Fred who takes off in Ruby, and since I'm typically ensconced in bed, he's okay -- though he does visibly perk up upon Fred's return.  But should the both of us leave for a bit, we return to find the neediest cat west of the Lone Alp.  It is very sweet but makes me sad that he is upset, ever.  He's such a happy guy, you see.

His latest Life Adventure is, unfortunately, his first ailment.  Thankfully, it is but a runny and irritated eye.  I am guessing that the newly self-declawed Dobby may have whacked him in the face, though you can never rule out lightening-fast Marmy FluffyButt.  In any event, Fred is gently putting medication in his eye -- and Buddy seems cognizant of this as help and not attack.  As we say so often around here, and to almost anyone, cat or human:  "What a good boy!"

So, let me close this potpourri of a post with a FAIL video of Buddy the Outrageously Large Kitten, and his refusal to stuff himself in a box.  As the YouTube title explains, "Buddy is no Maru."

FAIL: Buddy is no Maru

If you've never watched Maru... you should!

i need Marmy

so i think i may lose my right leg.  good morning!

it's not imminent, nor eminent.  as a leg, it achieved some fame in my teens and twenties, primarily on the tennis court.  and while i have several meltdowns a day and repeatedly schedule its amputation out in the Paisley Sheep pen (lots of clean straw and that fresh, cold air to make that outdoorsy party atmosphere -- we can pile pumpkins around and serve hot chocolate), i'm trying to get over some bronchitis.  you gotta prioritize.

i keep rediscovering that people are pretty nice, that most everyone is doing their damnedest.  some could use a little *focus* but everyone is trying.

ms. marmy fluffy butt (a cat) is, however, breaking my heart.  it's been months now that she'll have nothing to do with me.  i can take such treatment from human family, but my marmy dear?  i miss her.

[i'm sure you want to refresh yourself on my few and far between cat posts (yawn!) but this one does a good job of summarizing the topic, though it lacks details on our beloved Monaghan and Ms. Pruddy Prudence. I stole the video of Marmy from it, in fact, as she is notoriously hard to capture on film: Wednesday Morning Blahs. ]

it started out understandably enough:  i was dubbed the human who was to "goop" her eyes because she had a nasty ocular infection.  i would hate me, too, but i would get over it, i think.

then it got complicated.  somehow, territorial rivalry set in, with Dobby the Runt and Buddy the Freakishly Large Kitten, boys both, claiming me in the name of... well, Creature Comforts.  i am the source of greenies and belly rubs, grooming with kisses on the nose, and gourmet-grade bonito flakes.

Marmy Fluffy Butt has not reverted to the feral gal we first knew her to be, but she is more and more hiding
-- i look behind furniture for her, often missing her petite self staring sullenly my way just a few feet off.

the boys won't let her on the bed.  the boys won't let her eat until they're done.  sometimes -- lately -- she and i lock eyes, then do a simultaneous eye roll.

i've taken to rolling the wheelchair just to the edge of the Permissible Zone and just talking to her.  world events, politics, the local hullabaloo over proposed speed humps.  i am pretty sure she and i are on the same side on the speed hump thing.  we have a prototype set up -- thank you, Tante Louise! -- and already, three Cistercian monks have taken ungainly headers over the handlebars of their pre-WWII bikes.

sometimes Marmy gifts me with a squint of affection that will carry me through the day on a cloud of alrightness.  i make sure she has a clean warm blanket on the best chair in our living quarters here in the manor -- i change it twice a week under her watchful eyes, her infection-free eyes.

Dobby is her son.  Buddy spent his entire babyhood hiding from her.  we must return to filial fealty, we must return to respect for her speedy, speedy claws.

and we must return to Marmy glommed to my side, beautiful, warm, well-groomed, and opinionated.

i need Marmy.  happy thanksgiving, my dear.

   Ms. Marmy Fluffy Butt