Well, I’m off, out of the office today. I’m going points north. First to Albuquerque to visit my pal Sal. Amy Downs, hat designer extraordinare is visiting and having trunk shows. Saturday, it’s up to Santa Fe for a reception in her honor (you’re invited, 1-3 PM, RSVP) after which I’ll be swinging due east to Las Vegas NM to visit the boy who’s in the hospital there. I’ll be driving back on Sunday afternoon.
Last night in the mad dash to prepare for exit, I was watering my recent lame agriculture experiments. I used to garden but got out of the habit. These are a selection of mint plants. Idly, sadly, with winter approaching, I thought I’d unload one on Sally. Sadly because I realize the one I give her is likely to be the only one that survives the pending winter. She won’t kill it. I have less confidence in myself. How do you pick which of your children to survive?
These weren’t the only mint plants I grew this year. Below is a sad sample. Guess what kind of mint this is? I’ll give you a hint. It’s a plant the cats found.
Being such efficacious defoliants, we should have named them all Agent Orange. One name for five cats, easier to remember that way. Below is a plant the little dears didn’t find.
Yes, it’s catnip.
Cats are funny creatures. Here are six things I don’t like about cats.
- They’re show offs. They love to run ahead of you, up stairs, happily galloping along full bore, and look back at you -still on the second stair- as if to say, why are you so slow? I could run that fast too if I had four legs.
- They ride the short bus, minimally described as developmentally delayed. All of them well past the age of four yet nary a word out of them.
- They’re non-compliant and refuse to take responsibility for their own care. Take them to the vet who invariably asks if they’ve eaten that day and we say we don’t know. Asked point blank, cats won’t answer. They ignore our repeated requests to keep a journal.
- They’re lazy. Just try asking for one small favor, to clean their cat box or get a cup of coffee. They won’t even feed themselves.
- They’re terrible employees. We only keep cats to keep the mice at bay; they don’t do enough work to justify the kibble.
- They’re punitive. Everything is bad and deserving of punishment, particularly iPod ear buds and shoelaces. Why else would they bite and viciously attack innocuous items?
Have a good weekend.
Cats also have terribly delicate constitutions and express digestive incompatibilities by hurling only on heavily trafficked, carpeted areas. Tile would be too discrete.
Anyone turning into a dog person? :)
PS
(All the best to the boy- and his mom:)
Another possible naming convention to ponder: one of my friends & her DH have had the same breed of dog for many years. They first one they had they named Corky. When Corky passed on to the big doggie park in the sky, they got another pup and named it… Corky (#2). They’re now on Corky (#5). I suppose it means you only have to invest once in dog tags and personalized dog things. (It’s the George Foreman approach, applied in serial instead of in parallel.)
This would obviously only work with dogs. Cats are easily offended and they hold grudges for years. They wouldn’t put up with such nomenclature nonsense.
Heh heh heh. Yes, they ride the short bus, but they’re smart enough to find out that they *can* bite holes in the non-metal screen on the screen door and once they find that out, they find out that they *can* bite a big enough hole to jump through to get in and out. Of course they’re not smart enough to just meow when they want in or out.
I have 2 cats, an 8-y-o male that I’ve had for the last 4 or 5 years and a very young female that’s about to have kittens that I’ve only had for not even 3 months. They both found me. The funny thing is they both have blue eyes, pink noses, dark brown ears and tail and light brown and white on the rest of them. But the female looks like a chocolate lynx point Siamese cat but for the white on her nose and paws.
Just this morning it seemed like a good idea to trade in the 10 year old whiney-puss barf-a-matic on a younger, quieter model. Nah, I’ve had it this long, I’m stuck with it until the end. It only likes ME and is not adaptable.
There’s a book in my daughter’s special education study room: _All Cats Have Asperger’s_. I haven’t looked at it, but it sounds amusing.