No hurt felines

Cats seem to have mastered the art of being content anywhere they find themselves. At the moment, J's cat, K, is stretched out atop the set of four fluorescent lights that I put together as an antidote to J's Seasonal Affective Disorder. Light therapy is common now for this particular problem. But for K it's not the light but rather the heat that matters. It's a considerable leap of faith and feet for a cat of uncertain age to jump the 50 inches from the floor directly onto the top edge of this contraption, but her motivation is undeniable.

Owing to my allergies to all things feline, I had to mount a screen door on the bedroom door frame, to act as a kind of airlock for when we try to get into the bedroom without a cat. Occasionally K or D or B or T will manage to time the entry so well that we find one of them inside the room even though we did not see it happen.

The only reliable method I've found to dislodge a wayward cat from a forbidden venue is to capitalize on her fear. It takes considerable effort, but always works. I head for the cleaning closet across the hall and drag out the vacuum cleaner. In the past, I've had to plug it in and actually start it up, but thanks to the Pavlov effect, the illegal immigrant will now generally seek the nearest exit seconds after hearing the closet door open.

The other intriguing phenomenon is what we call "milling". The cats will sit anywhere they feel good about it, but the second J gets up to head for the bathroom or the kitchen, the tails trans-moggy-fy into question marks and out into the slipstream their owners glide, drawn, no doubt, by the possibility of food or treats.

During meal preparation, the level of milling usually doubles. At the point where we actually sit down to eat, K will occupy the nearest vacant chair, while D will sharpen his claws in preparation for the begging act to follow.

The meal proceeds calmly for a time, when suddenly J lets out a surprised yelp. D has made his point(s) on the side of her legs. K, meanwhile, is much more ladylike in her approach. She merely leans toward the plate that interests her most. When she believes you are not watching, two front feet will delicately ascend to the tabletop. At this point, J barks "Hey!" at her, and she withdraws, knowing full well that a pacifying portion of the evening's entree will be forthcoming.

It is a ritual not to be denied. What have I learned from being allowed to live with cats? Life is best devoted to comfort and leisure, for someone will take care of you if you let them.

I dunno, maybe I'm all wet...

Every morning I take a shower. Not just because I want to be nice to be near, but even more because if I don't, my hair (what there is left) stands out in all directions and flatly refuses to lie flat. This gives me the "gray hedgehog" appearance that reminds me of Dagwood, or even worse, of a porcupine in full fright.

Every morning, I find myself singing little snippets of whatever I can remember of songs from various artists. I have read that the reason we sing in the shower is that as the water droplets are forced through the shower head, they create negative ions much in the way that waves crashing upon a beach result in a freshness that you can feel in the air. You can't help yourself. You feel like singing!

Of course, another reason may be the acoustics. The shower produces white noise, which muffles the whiny overtones in my morning voice, and convinces me that I could have had a career in the music industry if only I could have vanquished the stage fright.

Last week, it was Stompin' Tom Connors. More particularly, it was the lines:
"Tonight I'm due to bushwhack Sue
And take her to the Gumboot Cloggeroo
And do a little gumboot cloggin' (repeat 3)"

This week, Joni Mitchell :
"Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got till it's gone?
You pave paradise, put up a parking lot."

You might think it would more thematically appropriate to sing something like "Singin' in the Rain" or "Gonna wash that man right outta my hair". But you'd be wrong. Why? Because I don't decide consciously what to sing. It just happens, the way dreams happen.

I don't choose what I sing with this in mind. Like dreams, the mental pictures come to me, and I respond to them, not even knowing why I sing what I sing, or even why I sing.

It would be interesting to hear the songs that emanate from other people's shower stalls, if this theory has any substance to it, and then compare their selections with how they coped with their day.

I think the Stompin' Tom song may have been calibrating some purpose or goal that I wanted to accomplish that day, but since I don't remember which day it was, my theory remains unproven.

The Joni Mitchell is different. I had seen her on YouTube a couple of days back, and the lines I quoted above were apparently the ones that stuck with me.

Perhaps it was a reflection that as an Old Guy My Age, I'm not maybe quite as appreciative of people as you might think I should be for an Old Guy My Age. That thought percolated for a couple of days until it suddenly popped out on the Morning Shower Mantra Show.

So if there's anything to it, I plan to listen to my musical selections with a little more intention. Who knows? Someday I might be vocalizing a refrain from the Moody Blues , like:

"I've decided to do what I can and to find the kind of man I really am."

And then maybe that very same day, I'll find me!

Footnote: Do dreams have a purpose?