Well, I'd better take care of first things first...........I am thrilled and grateful to report that my vision is coming back! Those blurry white smudges on the keyboard of my computer seem to be letters and the same goes for the blurry black spots on the white page of this blog. Damn.....I guess that means I am going to have to start correcting my typos again. That's OK.....I'll accept that task for the blessing of being able to see them.
Not all of the fuzzies are gone, but I am hoping that they will sharpen up in the next few days. They'd better. After all, tomorrow is 12 hour Sunday football day and there is hardly anything worse than staring at a TV screen that is supposed to be showing 3 football games in a row when, obviously, what is really going on is that some blurry red and blue or black and white spots keep bouncing around aimlessly on a green pool table. I have no idea what the hell sport that is, but it ain't football and, take my word for it, it'll never catch on.......worse than Curling even. Only a blithering idiot would watch THAT for 12 hours......and speaking of the mentally disadvantaged........
I certainly hope that none of you other people out there have the misfortune of being owned by a mentally challenged cat. I have often spoken about my dear orange tabby, Baskin, who doesn't have enough sense to come in out of the rain...... As it happens, today it is raining in Southern California, a thing that occurs far too infrequently. However, for some of us it presents some unusual problems.
For instance, Baskin has decided that, no matter how luxurious the accommodations are in my Elite Cathouse, he would much prefer to sleep in the dirt under a tree. This despite the fact that I have created a nice cosy "camping out" environment for him in the shed in the back yard since he refuses to come inside to sleep. So one early morning chore is to rush to the back door where he is usually waiting stoically to be let in to have his breakfast. (Can't leave it outside for him because the raccoons gobble up everything both front and back when they visit). I say "stoically" but the truth is I have no idea what goes on inside that little orange head.......he could be furious, bored, plotting revenge, fantasizing about a bird or a mouse, reviewing his stock portfolio or "to do" list for the day or, as I suspect, thinking of absolutely nothing.. I can sometimes guess what one of the other cats may be thinking, but with Baskin....never.
So, when I pry open my eyes and see that it is raining I picture a soggy, bedraggled Baskin and rearrange my schedule to make letting him in priority #1. The hummers will just have to wait. And so it was today. I flung open the door and he waited the prescribed number of moments for me to retreat be3fore daring to enter the house and munch his kibble. By the way.....this cat gets offered the finest of canned gourmet catfoods but spurns them all in favor of dry kibble. Then I watched him leap the puddle outside the door and stroll casually toward the back of the garden. Sob. However, when I went out later with the birdseed and nuts for Squirrel I discovered, wonder of wonders, there was Baskin lurking in the nice dry garden shed and I thought for a moment I might have misjudged him. I left a bowl of kibble for him inside the shed thinking that perhaps he had a bit a smarts after all. Sadly, I think not, because after I was back in the house I looked out and saw him hunching himself up under the oleander bushes which used to provide him fair shelter before I had them and all the heavily foliaged (is that a word?) trees and bushes pruned for the winter. Sigh.
Damn, damn, damn.......no, I am not cursing over Baskin's IQ, I am desolate because I had another large paragraph typed and ready to go and I must have hit the key marked "disappear" "cause it is gone. I have just decided that perhaps I am tempting fate by blogging on without my breakfast so I will just hit "post" and continue this ramble later. Raisin Bran, here I come.
The New Yorker covers: September 26, 2011
3 hours ago
