bugscufle
06-18-2007, 03:46 AM
There are precious few animals in this world that my dog Bonnie has any objection to, and for that matter, there are precious few animals that have an objection to Bonnie. The exceptions would be Johnny Kokernots dog, Shadow, and Mabel Huggins, long haired cat. Don't know the cats name. And for that matter, the cat isn't Mabel Huggins, because Mabel sold her little house and moved to Rule. Mabel told Chuck Forman when she left she couldn't catch the cat. Maybe so. But be it unsupported cats or kids, somebody's got to deal with it.
The cat has long hair and is solid white. Its eyes are the color of mesquite leaves. The cat is lovely. If it could tolerate silly people, it could have a pampered life. Instead, it is the top tom cat in the Valley Ranch community.
This cat pretty regularly whips up on Black Cat's boy that lives at my place. Black Cat's boy is laid back like Bonnie. Fortunately for Black Cat's boy, Bonnie steps in and breaks up the fights. For the white tom, meals are something that often have to be fought for. In this cat's world, survival and ferocity appear to go hand in hand.
Anyway, yesterday I borrowed Chuck's trap and left it in the bed of my truck with the tailgate down. Baited it with dry cat food. This morning the white tom was caught. To make things worse, he had to sit through last night's rain shower in the trap. Man, ain't that the way it is with bad luck. Bad luck shows up in bunches kind of like kin folk at Sunday dinner.
Took the tom to Kirk and Vicky's place over by Lake Buchanan. They have an old camp house where the cat can stay out of bad weather. A missing window pane as well as a hole next to floor will let the tom choose to come or go. Plenty of gophers there. Kirk and Vicky are there a couple of times a week and they will put out food to encourage the tom to stay. The tom has a better chance to survive and even prosper than if he had wound up in the pound.
Speaking of kin folks showing up, my aunts Dixie and Mary Jane, as well as their husbands, Clarence and James, showed up Saturday to see my place They brought my mom with them. Except for Clarence, they had never been here before.
Took off Friday to clean up. None of the local cleaning ladies will come to my place. They say it is too depressing. I guess I have what you call a special needs home.
The lane from the county road was muddy and for them, my place is a nightmare in weeds. Dixie, Mary Jane and James got the creeps before they even got out of Clarence's minivan. Mom didn't get the creeps until she stepped inside the house.
Some people read lips, some people read body language, unfortunately, I got stuck with reading eyes.
The only time I am ever uncomfortable at my place, is when someone else is uncomfortable at my place. So I have a rule that keeps me content, "No girls allowed." The problem is that some people in my life outrank me. And generally, most people, at least in my family, insist on learning the hard way.
For all the women who have been here, my place and my writings are incompatable. Men usually are much less affected. My place is kind of like a mature woman when she gets up in the morning, and my writings are like the same woman all colored and decorated to go out somewhere special in the evening.
I guess that is why married people start running around as soon as they get up, so they don't see so much of each other. After a certain age, neither one is hardly what you call eye candy.
Whatever, the trip, including a missed turn, took a couple of hours, plus they had stopped to eat. They had postponed nature's call at public facilities along the way, anticipating a more private and sanitary toilet at my place. Bad move. There are no interior doors at my place and the partitions that are here are only head high. These mini-walls offer all the privacy of a curtain in a double hosptial room.
I don't think many of my relatives pee outside much. "To each his own," as they say. I had never realized how loud some people pee. They need wider bowls with some kind of target on the side. It seems instinctive to aim in the middle of the ceramic pond. Just glad I didn't get one of those stainless steel toilets.
I took my uncles on a five minute tour of the house and a ten minute tour of the place Most of the women who come here have a diificult time being on the second floor. Going down railless stairs seems terrifying just for that gender. It is as though they see themselves falling into an abyss. There is certainly something about my place that brings forth long hidden fears and insecurities, perhaps it is of the precariousness of life and impending mortality, with women, it is hard to know. It is kind of like this is exactly how they didn't want to wind up.
We tried to talk but it was like talk among condemned prisoners awaiting the guillotine. There are times when the moments are paralizing. Only the eyes talk. All that one can do is wait in silence like a cat in a trap. My crude, unfinished interior was so overwhelming that my aunt Dixie twice lost consciousness. Finally, it came time to say good-bye. The visit had lasted almost 45 minutes. We hurriedly picked a couple dozen peaches and they climbed back into the mini-van picking yarrow seeds off their clothes as though they were leeches. Most people don't drive off so quickly. I suppose they were anxious to get back to the security of asphalt, flat lawns, sheetrock and bathrooms with doors.
The cat and I lead solitary and sparse lives. We make illogical trades of comfort and conformity for the unconventional and the insecure that allows us to experience that which gives us greatest life. I hope the cat is not harmed by good intentions and that his life is peaceful.
The cat has long hair and is solid white. Its eyes are the color of mesquite leaves. The cat is lovely. If it could tolerate silly people, it could have a pampered life. Instead, it is the top tom cat in the Valley Ranch community.
This cat pretty regularly whips up on Black Cat's boy that lives at my place. Black Cat's boy is laid back like Bonnie. Fortunately for Black Cat's boy, Bonnie steps in and breaks up the fights. For the white tom, meals are something that often have to be fought for. In this cat's world, survival and ferocity appear to go hand in hand.
Anyway, yesterday I borrowed Chuck's trap and left it in the bed of my truck with the tailgate down. Baited it with dry cat food. This morning the white tom was caught. To make things worse, he had to sit through last night's rain shower in the trap. Man, ain't that the way it is with bad luck. Bad luck shows up in bunches kind of like kin folk at Sunday dinner.
Took the tom to Kirk and Vicky's place over by Lake Buchanan. They have an old camp house where the cat can stay out of bad weather. A missing window pane as well as a hole next to floor will let the tom choose to come or go. Plenty of gophers there. Kirk and Vicky are there a couple of times a week and they will put out food to encourage the tom to stay. The tom has a better chance to survive and even prosper than if he had wound up in the pound.
Speaking of kin folks showing up, my aunts Dixie and Mary Jane, as well as their husbands, Clarence and James, showed up Saturday to see my place They brought my mom with them. Except for Clarence, they had never been here before.
Took off Friday to clean up. None of the local cleaning ladies will come to my place. They say it is too depressing. I guess I have what you call a special needs home.
The lane from the county road was muddy and for them, my place is a nightmare in weeds. Dixie, Mary Jane and James got the creeps before they even got out of Clarence's minivan. Mom didn't get the creeps until she stepped inside the house.
Some people read lips, some people read body language, unfortunately, I got stuck with reading eyes.
The only time I am ever uncomfortable at my place, is when someone else is uncomfortable at my place. So I have a rule that keeps me content, "No girls allowed." The problem is that some people in my life outrank me. And generally, most people, at least in my family, insist on learning the hard way.
For all the women who have been here, my place and my writings are incompatable. Men usually are much less affected. My place is kind of like a mature woman when she gets up in the morning, and my writings are like the same woman all colored and decorated to go out somewhere special in the evening.
I guess that is why married people start running around as soon as they get up, so they don't see so much of each other. After a certain age, neither one is hardly what you call eye candy.
Whatever, the trip, including a missed turn, took a couple of hours, plus they had stopped to eat. They had postponed nature's call at public facilities along the way, anticipating a more private and sanitary toilet at my place. Bad move. There are no interior doors at my place and the partitions that are here are only head high. These mini-walls offer all the privacy of a curtain in a double hosptial room.
I don't think many of my relatives pee outside much. "To each his own," as they say. I had never realized how loud some people pee. They need wider bowls with some kind of target on the side. It seems instinctive to aim in the middle of the ceramic pond. Just glad I didn't get one of those stainless steel toilets.
I took my uncles on a five minute tour of the house and a ten minute tour of the place Most of the women who come here have a diificult time being on the second floor. Going down railless stairs seems terrifying just for that gender. It is as though they see themselves falling into an abyss. There is certainly something about my place that brings forth long hidden fears and insecurities, perhaps it is of the precariousness of life and impending mortality, with women, it is hard to know. It is kind of like this is exactly how they didn't want to wind up.
We tried to talk but it was like talk among condemned prisoners awaiting the guillotine. There are times when the moments are paralizing. Only the eyes talk. All that one can do is wait in silence like a cat in a trap. My crude, unfinished interior was so overwhelming that my aunt Dixie twice lost consciousness. Finally, it came time to say good-bye. The visit had lasted almost 45 minutes. We hurriedly picked a couple dozen peaches and they climbed back into the mini-van picking yarrow seeds off their clothes as though they were leeches. Most people don't drive off so quickly. I suppose they were anxious to get back to the security of asphalt, flat lawns, sheetrock and bathrooms with doors.
The cat and I lead solitary and sparse lives. We make illogical trades of comfort and conformity for the unconventional and the insecure that allows us to experience that which gives us greatest life. I hope the cat is not harmed by good intentions and that his life is peaceful.