Almost Daily Cat Haiku

It’s Thursday. Garbage goes out. Plants get watered. I will do more than just that, though. I have many things on my list. I feel like “napping” should be on that list, but others disagree. That seems like the kind of negativity I shouldn’t allow in my life…

As I sit here this early morning, my thumbs tapping madly away at the tiny screen in front of my face, I wonder what all these word collections I’ve assembled will amount to. But I also wonder, do they have to “amount” to something? Can they not just exist for their own sake? Can the product be it’s own reward? And I think, “sure!” But I also think, “but I like money…”. And so, now I contemplate the capitalism of creativity.

I don’t really know how to “monetize” bloggy things. I’m sure I can ask the all-knowing interwebz for assistance. But will seeking monetary compensation ruin “the art” of it all? I am also pretty sure the biggest part of internet-based income is advertising, and I really don’t like advertisements. I’m not sure how I’d feel about subjecting my tens of loyal readers to an advertising assault. I suspect columns of click-bait besieging my wordified cat pics would be distracting. So would be those short format flashing vid clips separating every third line of prose with repetitious snake oil sales pitches.

No, I don’t think I want that.

I think what I need is a mysterious benefactor. A nameless philanthropic fiduciary, supporting my worldly needs through financial foundation.  Where do I get one of those? Does anyone know the application process? Is it easier that applying for federal grants? Or social security benefits?  Can I just send a letter to Tony Stark asking for a monthly stipend to support my Cat Haiku endeavors? I don’t need much, really. Somewhere around 10-12k a week should suffice. Just enough to cover the expense of general sustenance and shelter and 17 cats and monthly vacations. I’m not greedy.

So, if you all could drop a line to the billionaires you know, and tell them I’m looking to contract some cash flow, I would appreciate it. Thanks.

And JB, if you’re listening, I’d be more than happy to add that “P” word to the title page, for the right price.

Hi. How are you? Yes. I’m asking you. No, I’m not talking to the cat, the cat is just a picture. No, you’re right, I suppose I could be talking to a picture. But I do not typically talk to pictures. I do frequently talk to cats though. No, I’m not suggesting you are a cat. Are you? A cat. Are you a cat? No, ok. I didn’t think so, but in this conversation I thought it polite to ask. Are you human? No, I suppose it doesn’t matter. But if you were an extraterrestrial being I would find that interesting and I would likely have more questions for you. Well, I might ask about your home world. Oh, I suppose that’s true, I hadn’t thought whether they had a home world or not. You’re right, that could be a touchy subject. Maybe I should ask where you’re from? Cleveland? Why would an extraterrestrial be from Cleveland? Second generation… I see. So could I ask where the Ohio born alien’s parents are from? Oh, that’s impolite, huh? Well, I guess I’ll just go back to the first question. Yeah. How are you? Oh, tired. Yeah. Me too.

Well. We can’t go back to bed. Gotta go to work. Yes. Going to work requires pants.

FlooferNoofer is so cute, and murderous. Noting the general lethality of cats, I am surprised there aren’t more truly villainous villains personified as cats. Sure, there are plenty of cat villains out there, but they never seem to really capture the psychotic blood-lust of our fluffy little furballs. Most of them are secondary characters; sidekicks. Like Azrael to Gargamel, Felicia beside Ratigan, Lucifer at the feet of Lady Tremaine, or that unimaginative and racist Aunt Sarah who named her pair of siamese cats Si & Am. WTF was that about.

There are the Big Cat villains, the lions, and tigers, and (no, bears aren’t cats) oh my. They tend to be true protagonists, like: Scar, Shere Kahn, or Prince John. But they always seem to be the power hungry patriarch trope. The prince who wants to king. And most of the time they have henchmen, (or hench-hyenas?) who do most of the dirty work.

There are special situational cat villains too, that I don’t really count as “cat villains”. Like Cat Woman, who is villain, but also sometimes not a villain, who does villainy type things, but for reasons that are not at all villainy. She’s too dualitous to be labled plainly a villain. Or Yzma, who is definitely a grad-a, world-class villain. And she becomes a cat. But that isn’t the same as a cat who is a villain. Or the film adaptation of the musical Cats, that was so horrifically bad we can consider every single character a villain against common decency. (Except Tay. She gets a pass.) (No, Judy doesn’t get to slide too, she should have known better.)

From memory, the only truly villainous villain cat I could think of was Warren T. Rat, (who, of course, is actually Warren T. Cat in disguise) and he is a ruthless, sadistic, and murderous little fucker. He kidnapps mice and sells them to sweatshops. He starts a war across NY City over 50 cents. And when he realizes he’s lost his edge, he lights a whole goddamned pier on fire in an effort to kill every resident (mouse) in the city. Dude was a monster.

But. While I was trying to find more info on villain cats, I stumbled into one I had previously not heard of.  From a 1962 Warner Bros film titled “Gay Purr-ee”, Meowrice takes the proverbial cake. This dastardly bastard runs a cat-trafficking enterprise and tries coerce the young and innocent Mewsette into his scheme so he can sell her as a mail order bride to some rich schmuck in East Philly. I mean, jesusshitinabucket, this was an animated kids movie, and it starts off like Liam Nissan’s “Taken”! I’m gonna have to watch this.

But anycheese. I have to go put on pants and go to work. Laters!

(ps: I didn’t go back and proofread this, so sorry if I missed words or anything)

I spent some time yesterday puttering in the vegetable garden. And Chai spent the same time screaming at me from the catio. She seemed to be under the impression that she should be let outside. I do not know why she thinks this. But she was very vocal about it.

I did planted vegetables! I have red tomatoes, and yellow tomatoes, and little tomatoes (thats all the tomatoes), and yellow squash, and zucchini, and basil, and celeriac (haven’t grown that before!), and basil, and marigolds! Always marigolds. I don’t think there’s any real scientific reason for marigolds in the veggie garden, but it’s just always been done that way. And who am I to break with tradition. At least, when we’re talking about a harmless tradition like planting marigolds in the veggie garden. There’s plenty of other “traditions” out there in the world that I am more than willing to break with. But right now I’m just talking about little stinky orange flowers. I got no beef with them. They cool.

But anysnarf, have a Monday everyone! Drink water, be kind, and we’ll all try to get through this together.

Yeah. She is actually that friggin adorable.

Big shocker this morning. I am still tired. And I am sore. And I want to go back to bed. The culprit this time is most likely the yard work I did yesterday, and not an alien portal in my closet.

I would still be in bed right now, but Bruni decide we all needed to be awake and announced his opinion by dancing on me. It is a very effective way to make your opinions known, if you happened to be looking for a way to do so.

Unfortunately, there will be no tales of my intergalactic dance prowess today. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’m going to fall asleep in this chair shortly after scheduling this newest posting.

Good day to you all, my family and followers.  May you be the person your cat thinks you are.

I was going to ramblize about being tired and my sore muscles and wanting to go back to bed, but that seems too whiny. Even for me. I mean, I AM tired, and I have many sore muscles, and I do really want to go back to bed. (and I’m probably a bit whiny) But how often am I not all those things?

Maybe the reason I’m sore and tired and whiny is because I’m not actually in bed all night. Maybe after everyone is asleep, a diminutive alien sneaks out of the closet and drags me out of bed with their litt anti-gravity device, held between tiny arms,  and hovers me through an interdimensional portal at the back of my closet. In a flash, I’m transitted billions and billions of miles across space and time. I arrive on a far distant planet, their two suns rising together along a horizon where fields of blue and black grasses merge with the yellow sky.  Hundreds of thousands of tiny bipedal creatures, their eyestalks waving in unison, are chanting rhythmically in incomprehensible syllables. Their tentacle-like arms fluidly reach towards me from every direction. I don’t feel threatened, there is no malice in their song or actions.

One brave critter shambles forward on serpentine legs, both of which end in a  globulous pseudopodial foot that spreads against the ground with each forward step, and then snaps back with a suction cup sound effect as they bring the leg forward again. He.. she?… it (does it matter?) extends their outreached arms, stretching them longer towards me. The three finger-like extensions on each twitches in corkscrew patterns. 

Almost as if I know what is expected, like I’ve done this before, my own arms close the space between us, and my five fingered hands clasp their’s of three. I turn to my left, dragging them in a circle, their spaghetti legs and gecko feet tangle together for a moment as my momentum turns into a spin. They hover before me now as I twirl around, centripetal force pulling at them as our hands grasp one another’s tighter. Their oddly shaped slit of a mouth is upturned at the corners now, a smile, it seems, is easily interpreted in any dimension. Their eye stalks dangle behind them now fluttering in the cyclonic winds we create, like the ends of a scarf. It has ceased its chanting, even as the crowd grows louder, its voice now shrill and bubbly. If had to guess, it was laughing. Giggling even.

My momentum slows, the little alien’s legs drag along the stone ground we occupy for a moment before we slow enough for them to reengage their cephalopodic legs. I release their hands, and they mine, and as I stand for a moment catching my breath, they plod off in an erratic winding path, still “giggling”.

The whole scene makes me smile, I laugh quietly myself. I feel a nudge-like tapping on the side of my leg, looking down I see another one of them. Like their friend previously, their slender wobbling arms reach for me, their mouth already smiling, their  ommatophoric and beady eyes opened wide. Again, I grasp their hands. Again, we begin our dance.

After about a half dozen of them get spun around, and dizzily stagger off, the crowd grows eerily silent. They seem to be watching me still, but their eyes droop down along the sides of their bulbous heads. The smiles all returned to a stoic slit. I try to ask them why they look so sad, knowing my words likely mean nothing to them. But one of them points to spot to my left. I turn, and just behind me sits an orbulating disc of shimmering light. The portal, my doorway home, has returned. I turn back and wave, they emphatically respond in like. And then I step into the fuzzy iridescent haze, and dissappear back into my closet.

The first little dude is still there. It smiles at me, its head tilted inquisitively to one side. I thought it might want a spin-me-round too, but as I reach out to take their hands I see it carries a small tool. A short metallic rod, silver and gleaming in the pale sunrise light coming in the windows of my bedroom. They touch it to my hand and I feel the cold of it for half a second, a buzz across my skin, there and gone again, and I know I’m sleeping now.

I’ll awake soon enough. The morning light, and the cats, will make slumber difficult to say the least. And when I do rise, I will still be tired. And I’ll be sore. And there will be whining.

And maybe I’ll remember why…

Collette is not a fan of the camera. Or, more likely, she is not a fan of me approaching her with unclear objectives.  Most humans might understand the intentions of a person when they reduce their distance while holding their phone before them in a two handed picture-taking manner. But Collette is a cat, and as such has little (or more likely no) understanding of mobile phones and their photographic capabilities. Which is a shame, because she is friggin adorable. So this is the best picture I could get of her this morning.

But why must it have been her? Well, I was aiming for her or Pepita. And I found her first. And I was looking to feature either of them because I haven’t recently. Neither one of them likes to hold their pose long enough for pictures. And that results in a shortage of Haikuable Pepita or Collette pictures. And that makes me sad. Not sad like I just watched the first seven minutes of “Up” – sad. More of a sad like the Star Wars franchise has been irreparably damaged and all future efforts will just make things worse – sad.

There were only two cures for this malady, and I didn’t have a cowbell, so I forced the photographizations for something Collettish to Haiku. I hope my tens of fans find it adequate.

I think today is Friday, and that would mean most of you are avoiding the middle management and shirking responsibility until the clock releases you for the weekend. May your meetings have pastries, and your lunch breaks get extended.

Until next time…

We are featuring a guest cat this morning, but I don’t remember their name. So for right now this little furball is Soggy Socks III. Say hello to Soggy, everyone! According to their bio, Soggy Socks III dreams of being a professional Lucadora when they grow up. She enjoys head scritches and snacks, and spends their free time knocking things off the table, and sprinting around the house at 2am.

A special thanks to Soggy’s human for providing this wonderful picture. The “superman nap” is one of my favorite cat napping poses. Right up there with The Gargoyle and that one where they’re kinda half rolled onto their side but they twist their head so their chin is pointed up and their paws do that little dangle like a bunny rabbit. You know the one.

Soggy Socks III wants to wish you all a happy Thursday (garbage goes out) and she hopes you find something that makes you smile today.

Shortly after taking this picture, once I sat down to begin writing, Marmalade sauntered over for some lap-time, chin scritches, and an opportunity to shed half a pound of fur onto my clothes and face before hopping off to examine the pitiable contents of the dry-food dishes. (The bowls are half full…)  Could that have been commentary on the caffeine centric nature of my morning priorities? Perhaps. Will that change my substance dependencies? No.

Well, I can’t hang around too long today.  The construction of yesterday’s blurble took up too much time and I was late to work. Can’t disturb the fragile support structure of cannibalistic capitalism, now can we. And it’s Wednesday! And that means, by lunchtime we’ll be halfway through the workweek as defined by the needs of our economic confines.

Have a day, everyone.

Betcha didn’t know Figgs spoke French, did ya? Well, now you know. And knowing is half the battle. The other half of the battle is croissants and cheese. Because we’re talking about French stuff here.

Why does Mr Figgs speak French? Because Figgs is short for Figaro, and Figaro was Pinocchio’s cat. And while Pinoccio was set in Tuscany Italy, it came out in theaters in February of 1940, which as everyone knows was when the rise of Europen fascism spread into Italy. Figaro started as Geppetto’s cat, and “Geppetto” is short for “Giuseppe” which translates as “Joseph”, which is Hebrew in origin. So once Pinoccio finishes his adventures, and he, Geppetto, Figaro, and Cleo are reunited, they have to flee Italy or face Mussolini’s OVRA. Heading north and west into the Maritime Alps, they find themselves amongst a group of French youths patrolling the mountainous borderlands. By the fall their band of travelers had grown, led now by François de Menthon, they had established a network of observation points across the Alps. When François took a core group of leadership back to Lyons to coordinate with other factions of the resistance, Geppetto and Cleo accompanied him, there they met up with other refugees bound for Spain and eventually the Americas. Pinocchio and Figaro stayed, and fought alongside the Vérité Combat from one end of the Maginot Line to the other.

And that’s why Figaro speaks French.

See you kids tomorrow!

(ps: This was late. It shouldn’t have been late. I scheduled it for the same bat-time I always do. Granted, I only had a minute and a half of leeway, but it still should have posted on time. I’m not taking the hit for this one.  We can blame the universe.)