December 2005

Longtime readers will remember the February 2004 entry “extracurricular eating,” which until today stood alone as the oddest event we’ve ever dealt with while attempting to ‘parent’ our very large, very STUPID six-year-old cats.

Have I mentioned lately that they’re STUPID?

Email sent this morning:

domesticat + power tools + "Ballroom Blitz" == VERY SCARED EDMUND

Shortly thereafter, a phone call:

"Um, dear, what power tool are you using?"
"Oh, the drill. The littlest drill bit makes a hole that’s just a little bit smaller than what’s necessary, so it’s perfect."
"Ah. I just wondered what in the world you were using to hang hooks."

After hanging up the phone, and with Edmund safely on the other side of the room, I revved the drill and winked at him. He threw a gangsta-cat look at me that could only be construed as meaning, "I’m gonna cut you, bitch," before remembering that his leg needed washing.

Again, not the brightest cat in the world.

[For Christmas 2008 I have temporarily moved this entry from December 2005 back to the front page of domesticat.net.]

I was asked recently about my Christmas traditions. Most of mine are secular, because this is very much a secular holiday for me, but one in which my cynicism is generally set aside in favor of care. The deceptive simplicity of Joni Mitchell sits side-by-side with the gospel exuberance of Earth Wind & Fire, and I sit at my computer late at night, sipping warm drinks and composing the most ghastly and maudlin of letters. Half of them, thankfully, I never send; the other half, thankfully, I do.