You are currently browsing the monthly archive for December 2007.
she will NOT fetch if it is a bad throw!
My cat is really a dog.
I need new coping strategies.
Yesterday, my cat got stuck in a tree.
Let me repeat that. Yesterday, my cat got stuck in a tree.
How much more generic and typecast could I possibly get from this point???
I have been trying to leash train Madeleine simply because she enjoys being outside so much. So yesterday we made our second excursion out of doors on the leash . All was going quite well and generally hunky-dory. All of the sudden, kitty breaks into a MAD dash for the large oak tree in front of my apartment. And UP SHE GOES. She completely tore the leash out my hand and scaled in the tree in seconds. I didn’t know she had it in her.
I stood at the base of the tree, starting up at her, and cussing.
After a few minutes I ran inside the apartment and grabbed her favorite toys, and a long, large stick I had in the pile of firewood on the deck. I dangled them in front of her, knowing good and well she wouldn’t actually come down, but she did finally come back down to the lowest branch, which was about 20 feet from the ground.
Thank god the kitty was wearing her leash. I used the long stick to hook the leash and lower it to where I could grab it. Then I instructed kitty: “Brace yourself. I’m going to pull.”
As soon as I started the pressure she started freaking out and trying to get out of her harness. In seconds she had the thing halfway over her head and I had to YANK or she would’ve had it off in two more seconds.
So I yanked. And she fell. But, as stereotypes usually exist because some part of them is true…
… she landed on her feet.
Not to belabor a point, but just this afternoon I caught myself doing it again. Judging, that is.
I overheard a coworker talking about her different kinds of Christmas china. She has more than one. (The same coworker told us before that sometimes her weekly “spend for kicks” budget of $500 a week was just so hard.) Immediately I started cataloging how I would never spend money on something that only got used once a year and how what purpose does china serve?! When there is so much good to be done in the world and so much more that that money could accomplish. I was thinking about the different levels of how we appropriate money… none of us really want to live a lifestyle that is uncomfortable and I know I wouldn’t be willing to do that much myself, but where is the line between “comfortable” and “indulgent”… and even if we DO cross that line, is that any business of the rest of the world? We don’t really have the right to judge one another for how one of us spends her money.
I, for example, really want an ipod and a digital SLR camera. Those are both costly goods that I would justify to myself for the essentialness. Music is essential to my sanity and function as a decent human being. The camera would be essential for expressing myself creatively and no one wants to live in a world without art.
This made me realize that these are essential to me because they are the things that I value. And what if my neighbor places the same kind of “essential” value on shoes or vintage furniture or makeup or gaming equipment.
But Christmas china? Really?
I come from a family of comic strip buffs. My brother and sister collected all of the Calvin and Hobbes books long before the kid started urinating all over the backs of people’s car windshields. All things considered I was probably a little late to the game, but I am now quick to swear by the genius of the funnies section. Aside from Calvin, which is untouchable in its retired and revered state, the best comic strip ever to be written is called Agnes. In a lot of ways Agnes feels like a young, female Calvin. I ADORE this strip with all the adoration I can muster. Everything about it pleases me. As I do with most things I adore, I sent fan mail to Tony Cochran and his response was so quick and gracious that of course it only endeared me further to his genius.
Without further ado, I give you the link to Sunday’s edition. Check it out (for at least a week or more) and if you like it be sure to drop an email to your local newspaper to request that they carry the strip!
P.S. Of course I linked to this one on purpose, but don’t be offended. It’s still funny.
