Little Hams, Who Made Ye?

      It has been a while since I annoyed people with cat pictures, so I think you're all due.

      Here's Trouble, looking studious, on one of his favourite perches, the breakfast nook, which allows him a clear view of whatever is being made in the kitchen, and whatever is happening in the back room. The telephone you may be able to discern in the foreground is his favourite pillow, which affords him the opportunity to doze off on his self-appointed sentry duties. Trouble's been with me for over 10 years now, and I suspect he's about 14 now. He remains in remarkably good health, and perpetually a Character: gruff, cantankerous, independent, he always seems to be an inch and a half short of giving a damn. Every now and again, though, you can espy the kitten, the little boy, still inside the cat, as in this picture: he can still be transfixed by things he has known forever, which I find unendingly sweet. Old age-- though he bears no physical signs of such-- has demured him a bit, so now he's rather a gentle grump, with the sternest glare I've ever seen on a cat. But that's what I like so much about this pic: it seems, to this admittedly partial observer, to reveal both his intensity and that little glimmer of kittenish wonderment. It's all, as they say, in his eyes. Ah, Trouble, my boy....

      ... and here's Jenny, doing what Jenny does best, save for eating and shitting. As you can see, precious little disturbs Jenny when in sleep mode, not even a cap falling of the top of the futon. Quite the opposite in fact: the cap becomes another thing to nestle in, as if it were a blanket. And, naturally, that cat has to have control of the TV remote, which means I regularly don't have the heart to change channels when Jenny drifts off like an old man listening to a baseball game on the radio. Jenny has now been around here for ten months or so, and almost all of the indicators of being an adopted stray have disappeared: the bêtes-noires are gone, so too the inclinations to dart for the door. The only remnant: the clamorous excitement anytime food might, just maybe maybe might, be available. It's always in contrast with that ruckus that Jenny's periods of repose are so endearing, even if I think Jenny gets more use out of my futon than I do. Oh, to have the stressful life of a cat....

Yesterday's trip to Pork Spew was good but exhausting. The first trip to campus, where the frosh display their na^iuml;veté obliviously and even a bit proudly, is invariably An Experience. Older farts like me, nursing their beers, in the meantime stifle our chuckles and our temptations to mutter things equivalent to "Oh, they're like this now...." Their giddy adventurousness will pass soon enough, and they'll end up like the rest of us, as stale as yesterday's coffee.

BTW, I found myself IDed at one of the main pubs on campus, which is hilarious on its own. The manager then came along, put his hand on my shoulder and said to the 19-if-she's-a-day bartender-in-training, "I don't think there's a way he could be confused for less than 25, don't ya think?" Ah, backhanded compliments, the ways of the tavernal world....