humor

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Living With A Cat


Notice I entitled this “Living With A Cat” and not “Cats Living With Me.”  The reason is simple, they allow us to be in their lives!  Cats have what I call “cat-atude.”  They have no desire whatsoever to please us.  To the contrary, we find it necessary to please them!

This is what cat-atude looks like.

I have owned a cat for as long as I can remember.  I consider them to be the ideal pet.  They are obsessively clean.  Dog owners have to give their pet a bath lots of times throughout the dog’s life.  Cats, to the contrary, will generally fight you on that point.  The cat will clean herself several times a day.

Cats are extremely independent.  You take the common house cat and a dog and put them both out to fend for themselves, the cat will have no problems.  The dog on the other hand, big problems.  A dog will scavenge but in the wild, they do not do well.  A cat can scavenge but prefers to hunt.  When I was a kid, I remember seeing my cat out in the field behind our house one day.  She came inches from taking down a pheasant.  A pheasant is a big bird and if it were not as quick as it was, it would have been lunch.  Cat owners will tell you of their cat bringing home things like mice, birds, rabbits, and other wildlife it comes across.  Many people do not understand why they do this.  The reason is quite simple, cats are generous.  They share and that is what the are doing when they bring their prey home, they are sharing.  That cat I had when I was a boy brought home many live animals.  Now that takes talent!

This cat decided to have a lizard for lunch.

Cats are environmentalists too!  This cat is about to rid a yard of pesky pigeons.

Cats can tell time.  The cat I have now, Jinxie, knows the times of day we generally feed her.  The only trouble is, she does not differentiate between weekdays, when we feed her at 6AM, and weekends, when we feed her after 8AM.  If I leave the bedroom door open on Saturday or Sunday, she will come in and remind me of my obligation to feed her.  She will meow and pat her paw against my face to get my attention.  And believe me, she is persistent and always gets my attention. Back to when I was a boy, that same cat who caught everything also saw to it I was up in time to get ready to go to school.

A cat does not care whether you pat it, play with it, or not.  Dogs have to have such attention but cats, they can turn it down.  Pick one up who does not want to be picked up, they can take a swipe at you with a single small paw, claws extended, and get their point across.  They do that with dogs too.  Have you ever seen a cat lying on a floor and a dog decides it wants to play with the cat but the cat is not interested?  The cat will continue to lie there while the dog runs around and jumps around the cat, barking the whole time.  The cat, looking quite bored, will make one quick swipe at the dog’s nose, make contact, and rid herself of the dog in an instant.  And this happens with the cat never having moved more than that one paw.

Here is a perfect example of a dog not understanding boundaries.  The cat will set him straight.

Cats totally understand doing their business in a litter box.  You cannot get even a small dog to do that!

The link below is the a video named “Simon’s Cat.”  Now even though it is an animated video, if you do a search on “Simon’s Cat” you can find a real life video the creator made of his cat one night in his bed.  The video is time-lapse and really funny.  Regardless, follow the link below and have a laugh.  Cats really do what is portrayed in the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0ffwDYo00Q

I like dogs, I really do.  Big dogs, dogs you can wrestle with and have the outcome in doubt.  I really dislike those yippy little dogs that are always trying to hump you leg.  A cat would never do that!  I can assure you if a cat is in a room where that sort of dog behavior is going on, the cat will stare at the dog and say, “really?”

There’s another thing.  Which is scarier, a cat’s screech or a dog’s growl?  I am going with the screech.  Dogs growl all the time and many times it does not mean much.  But when a cat screeches it always means the same thing.  The cat is really pissed off and you better get out of its way.

Here is a picture of my cat.  This is where she likes to be when I am on my computer.

This is what she looks like when I “bother” her.  This is her “annoyed” can I help you look.

Well, those are my thoughts on cats, for now anyway.

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Addiction–My Ongoing Struggle With Chocolate


I have no idea when I was first introduced to chocolate but whenever that was, it was love at first bite.  I was probably given chocolate ice cream as an infant which means, of course, it is all my parents fault.  They introduced me to one of the most addictive substances known to man.  I am certain that I inherited this affliction so it is something they had to have known about.

When I was old enough to earn a little spending money, I never had an allowance, my first thought always was to buy some chocolate.  There was a small general store near our house and I was a regular customer at its candy counter.  The thing is, one candy bar was never enough and in those days most candy bars cost five cents, except the Peter Paul brand that cost a dime but they had coconut in them which I have never cared for.

I was a slave to the Chunky bar, the Nestle’s chocolate bar, and when they came out, the Hostess Chocolate Cupcakes.  A mere twenty-five cents meant the ability to buy 5 chocolate bars!  I do not remember ever having a sugar high from all the chocolate I ate but maybe that was because the chocolate high I experienced was more powerful.

Curiously, or maybe not, I have never been a fan of hard candy but that may be because it is never chocolate.  I remember during the Christmas season being disappointed that most candy was something other than chocolate.  As you can imagine, food-wise, Easter was my favorite holiday as chocolate reigns supreme.  Think of it, they make huge chocolate bunnies!  Who would not like that?  Certainly not me.

I was always one of the bigger kids when I was in elementary school, taller but not fatter although I did carry a little extra weight.  But when I became an adult, and my chocolate addiction had not subsided, my weight became a constant problem.  To be fair, chocolate has been far from my only food problem as an adult.  Things like fried chicken, bacon, and just about anything else that it fatty, I find appealing.  Still, if I were to make a list of foods I really like, chocolate would be number one on any such list.

An example of how addictive chocolate is to me came a little more than a week before Thanksgiving this year.  I knew I would be going to my sister’s house for Thanksgiving dinner.  I was bringing a lot of snacking things.  I had bought two bags of M&Ms.  I was home alone with them one day and my addiction was calling out to me.  I desperately needed that taste of a little chocolate.  I opened one of the bags and swore to myself that I would only have one handful and no more.  This one pound bag of M&Ms was finished off by me before the end of the next day.  Once opened, I did not stand a chance against that bag of M&Ms.  I could almost literally smell them from any room in the house.  They called out to me, “Eat me!  Eat me!”  Being the pleaser that I am, I honored their request.

I know there exist 12-step programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Gamblers Anonymous, and others.  But there is not a single 12-step program for those of us thoroughly addicted to chocolate.  I am mired entirely within this addiction and there exists no help!  Like any good addict, when I am feeding my addiction it feels great.  But afterwards, I promise myself that I will get it under control or even swear it off entirely.  I have known success to a limited extent, as much as 2 months one time.  But invariably I find myself doing chocolate’s bidding.

The most embarrassing part of this addiction is when I have to see my doctor.  She does a blood test which always shows my blood/chocolate levels to be well above the acceptable level.  I am serious about this.  That level is more commonly known as your triglycerides.  My triglycerides are frequently off the charts.  It is a heart attack waiting to happen.

I want to start a support group of some sort.  I am certain there are other chocolate addicts out there but I do not know who they are or even how to make contact with them.  I am hoping that this might be just such a vehicle.  I will be impatiently awaiting to hear from other chocoholics now that this is posted.