Category: State-of-Being

Cat Diary 18

Tonight, the first time ever, I finally understood what the old woman wanted me to do when she said, “Come on! Come on!” in that high voice she uses to encourage me to do something good.

Just recently she started watching Jackson Jupiter, or some such name, to get a few clues about what we were trying to do.

Training she calls it. I don’t see the use yet. But as I said today I played along. I came. I walked beside her and every four or five human paces she gave me a kibble and patted and stroked my back and said, “Good girl! Good girl!”

Whatever, you know? Just keep the kibbles coming. We went twice up and down the house and then I swung into the den, stood waiting for my supper. The other half of the kibbles that means.

How many days has it been that she gave me a kibble just for looking at her? About a month worth of days.

Anyway, the training is worth it from my end. I just picked up 24 more kibbles than if I’d been stubborn and ignored her entreaties.

This is me on a day when it is sweltering outside and we have the aircon going inside.

Skewed in Favor of Who …?

How is it even a fair election when people can choose whether or not to vote?

Everybody of the voting age in Australia is required to turn up to vote. You can of course mess up your ballot papers, but people are far less likely to do that it seems, than in the US where you can just not turn up.

Hope the Republicans have stacked the wings with a few strong influential honest stalwarts. Could be they’ll be needed.

The article below is the most uplifting thing I’ve read so far about the election results …

https://substack.com/home/post/p-151265805

And just a couple of hours later, one of my favorite magazines opened with this article …

On excitable neurons and how we craft our future

The “Ten Cannots”.

I met William J H Boetcker today, by way of my daily Gisnep Puzzle.
Best known for the “Ten Cannots” apparently. As I read them, I saw several that fly in the face of present day public domain discourse.

Example … “You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.”

Aren’t we all wishing the rich would pay more tax, and if they continue to stay recalcitrant on that score, I’ve read that we should just take some of their billions. And, how much good we’d be able to do with XYZ donate just one of his several billions. And, how much can one person spend in a lifetime?

“And you cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves.

“You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.

“You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.

“You cannot help little men by tearing down big men.

“You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.

“You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.

“You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.

“You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.

“You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.

“You cannot build character and courage by destroying men’s initiative and independence.

Mind you, I do like his seven crimes …

  • I don’t think.
  • I don’t know.
  • I don’t care.
  • I am too busy.
  • I leave well enough alone.
  • I have no time to read and find out.
  • I am not interested.

These are the curse of the times and I’ve been guilty myself of a few. I’ve been too busy. I have left well enough alone when I had no more energy to argue an alternative. I have had no time to read and find out when it’s been a thing that didn’t affect me.

But I would like once or twice in my life to be able to say “I am not interested.” I am, what sometimes feels, as though I am cursed with the curiosity of the proverbial cat. I can usually generate enough interest to explore any arcane, cryptic and/or mind-bending field of study. I used to call it all grist for my writing mill and may it grind finely, but since time is narrowing, I have started to limit my explorations.

Any of these “can-nots” that grab you? [Lol, I put the hyphen in because I kept reading “carrots”!]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._H._Boetcker

What Happened Instead …

What happened instead of me getting back on the same day is the usual ‘fall-down’ where I got back from my little jaunt in high spirits but with my ME-generated infirmities taking me down down down.

The sun through cloud

Seems like I got up too early, walked too far, stood around too long, and saved my bones from an awkward fall backward with a sturdy four year old in my arms.

I played horses, explorers, and clambered over a few bits of kindergarten playground equipment merely to prove to myself that I still could. Had fun.

You get the idea. I was flat as a tin lizard all weekend, able only to veg, read, and think about everything else.

I wanted to use a different image, which is stored on my laptop, and I am one-fingeredly typing this on my mobile. The twain meet only in one direction IE the mobile sends stuff to the laptop, never the other way round.

I know. I know. There’s the cloud! Never mind the cloud, it’ll just rain on my parade. The rain of passwords, pins, usernames, you name it, that I don’t have glued to my fingertips.

I steer up over under and around the cloud. There are more than ‘enty-soben’ steps between me and you and the cloud, and plus cooling complexes use too much energy.

Cheers all

Cat Diary 17

Usually I can convince the old woman to turn off the TV by about 8.30, for a game or ten involving me getting kibbles for prizes.

We’ve given up on the eggbox, I’m happy to say. Yesterday she tied that horrible furry snake onto the end of a red wheeled thing that she dragged behind her, trying to get me to follow it and get the kibbles loaded onto the tray.

I soon showed her what I thought about that game …

So that night ended with her, after much cajoling, offering me kibbles by ones and twos first on her bare feet (not so scary) then on her knees, then on her hands (scary!) Though I did manage to eat more than half my bedtime snack.

Today was completely disrupted. The two wild human young came while their owner went shopping. The old woman spread the craft sheet over the floor and everybody cut things, glued, taped, then they went to the sink and floated a boat. All this while I hid under the couch.

After their owner fetched the young humans, the old woman tidied the room and rolled up the craft sheet. She’s always saying things like … Now then Moggy-mine, what mystery will we work on today?

Today she hid seven kibbles in the rolled up craft sheet. And after I found them she put in another lot. I don’t mind this game … I think it can lead to greater things. Imagine if she hid a handful?

(This is 29 seconds of me finding eight or ten kibbles. Ttoo long for you?)

We’re both sitting on the couch now waiting for the bedtime alarm. Well, she shuts me in the den then, whatever she does for the nect hour.

Lego, Set #71819

AKA the Stone Dragon

With Bag 7 and the second arm-and-claw, the build is finally starting to look like a dragon.

Also already present are a tray of teacups and teapot in the half finished teahouse; at the base the koi pond already stocked with the fish, and the roots of the fig tree growing through the ancient stone; while in the foreground the rocking platform where the martial arts school will practice.

Three more bags to go.