A Few Random Notes From The Life of Doctor J, or Pussy and the Grass

Writing that leader, I realized yet again how pompous the name 'Doctor J' seems on its own, divorced from the context(s) that brought it to being. Ugh. But there it is, and there it stays. Anyway....

Revamping the blog design today was exhausting, mostly because my own machine seems, like me, to be cursed; not only is it antiquated in many ways, but it keeps shutting down on me and what I see on my screen tends to be very different than what others tend to see on theirs. If I had known how badly off-kilter the colours were before, I'd probably have done something sooner, but on my monitor it didn't look nearly as bad. It was only when, in my frustration with dealing with my own machine, I moved to another that I discovered how much of visual eyesore it was. Hopefully it's better now, but I am frankly too damned tired at this point to really care too much.

Curses and all, I am blessed by two small things: first, the pending departure of the parental units (they leave later this afternoon to go camping for the weekend), and, second, the joy of discovering something very surprising about my eight year-old cat, Trouble. Trouble, you should know, is a character-- the cat who thinks he's John Wayne, sauntering about the house with a misanthropy strong even for a cat. Given his tough-guy, don't-give-a-shit mentality 95% of the time, and his general tendency to ignore and or to sneer at toys or treats or anything of the ilk, I have managed to discover something new.

The little fucker is absolutely ga-ga for grass. No, not pot. Plain, everyday grass.

Now I'm sure you're thinking, Yeah, but lots of cats love grass and plants... I could tell you stories..... And you'd be right of course.

But this is my feline, and that's the difference: this otherwise very stoic cat has been turning into an easily excited 'little boy' of a cat, meowing at me each time I go out the door, and following me as a dog would follow someone with a steak in his/her hand, whether or not I actually have bothered to pick up any grass from the lawn. He follows me, he meows at me constantly, he jumps to the ready at every turn I make, he sits next to me like a child waiting for candy as I parcel out the slivers of grass; he's even reached the stage of 'sitting pretty' as dogs might do for bones or biscuits, and doing so on the couch or on my lap or whatever.

I tell you, the cat has gone crazy, absolutely bonkers. He doesn't do this for cat food, wet or dry, and he doesn't do this for toys, or even catnip. And, even more ironically, he tends to leave the very few plants we have within his reach about the house quite alone. So, go figure.

Of course, once the grass is gone he more or less returns to his cantankerous state. And that's the joy of it, really, that one little gesture on my part (or even not done on my part, just his thinking that I've done it), and the grump becomes a boy-- giddy, excited, happy. That's a particular kind of joy most of us thrive on when we find it, when we know that doing just one little thing will make someone's day, or make them change their behaviour for the better, or whatever. And it's a greater joy when you discover that after a long time; it reminds you that there's always more to discover, whether with another person, or even a sour-puss of a pet. The further irony is this, that it's almost always such a little thing, so little we tend not to stumble upon it even over an extended period of knowing.

And if a sot as miserable as Trouble can turn on a dime-- or, should I say, a few blades of grass-- so can the rest of us. Food for thought, and indeed hope.