Say "Cheesehead"

Ivan is practicing his Superbowl viewing technique.

The Superbowl amuses Ivan.

This year the Superbowl has Ivan positively giddy, as evidenced by the picture above.

You see, Ivan, like my male two legger, is a "Cheesehead".

What is a Cheesehead you ask?

I shall tell you.

From what I have gathered, a Cheesehead is any organism that exhibits any of the following traits:

1. They support the Greenbay Packers Football Team. By support, I of course mean that they eat, live, breath and bleed for the Packers. They will accept someone questioning their ancestry, or insulting their mother, but will instantly turn violent if someone says that the Packers are not the greatest football franchise thingy that ever played the game.

2. They attend football games where the temperature is 200 degrees below zero, completely topless with nothing between them and the elements but green and gold body paint. Though they will don earmuffs if it is snowing.

3. They subsist on a diet of beer, bratwurst, jalapeno poppers and beer on all Sundays between September and February.

4. Their offspring are named Brett, Bart, Aaron or Lombardi.

5. The very thought of a Chicago Bears fan marrying into their family makes them physically ill.

6. They have a sign in their yard that reads "Welcome to Lambeau Field".

7. They have a deep seated belief that anyone that does not support the Packers is either mentally disabled, easily misled, or both. (yet they themselves walk around wearing hats in the shape of a wedge of cheese)

8. They have a shrine to Aaron Rodgers hidden in their closet behind a secret panel that {CENSORED} .......nevermind.

There seems to be no geographic limitations to the spread of this mania. Here in the Great Northwest, the Seattle Seahawks are the nearest professional football team, yet everywhere one turns, it is not silver and blue you see, it is green and gold.

Now, on top of everything else, I have been informed that this coming Sunday, I am to host a "Superbowl party thingy". Will the madness ever end? Although truth be told, I am looking forward to the party thingy since I have been informed that several of my online minions will be attending. This will provide an opportunity for much chaos. My two leggers have been manically cleaning and planning for this event. Given that this party is happening Sunday, I plan on spending Saturday night "rearranging".

My house full of Cheeseheads on Superbowl Sunday. It boggles the mind.

Think I'll make Tiger Lily wear a Pittsburgh Steelers sweater.

Roots

Over the last several weeks, I have received requests for more information about my two leggers. I know not why anyone would be interested in them, but being the ever congenial tyrant that I am, I have decided to comply.

So I present to you, Doug's family history as told by.......Doug.

"My ancestors originally arrived in this great land (America) in 1870. Twenty year-old Daniel Dunn arrived here from Ireland and immediately headed west to seek his fortune. Daniel found gainful employment with General Custer's 7th Cavalry as head poop picker upper. His job was to follow the cavalry and clear the trail so that the infantry would not get their feet dirty with the excrement of the preceding beasts of burden. Danny 'Greenboots' Dunn, as Custer liked to call him, served meritoriously until 1876 when the 7th Cavalry met its' fate at the Little Big Horn. Danny was not present at the battle, however he did arrive the next day and did his duty by clearing the battleground of all fecal matter. For this he was awarded the Brown Star of Valor and summarily discharged from the Army.

"Danny then went into private practice. In 1890, he became rich after inventing the Poop Limiting Undertail Gizmo (P.L.U.G. for short) However, the advent of the automobile and several unfortunate cases of exploding horses limited the success of his invention.

"In 1892, Danny met the love of his life, Doreen. Doreen was a former side show performer and recreational gypsy. She was fired from the side show after losing one of her three eyes in an unfortunate bratwurst making accident. The sideshow already had several two-eyed women and so she was summarily laid off. Danny and Doreen settled in central Texas where they raised their two children, Poolina and Duke. Poolina passed away in infancy.

"Duke, under his loving parents guidance, grew into a strapping young man of 4'11". Nicknamed 'Duke', he left home at three years old to seek his fortune.

"Duke met his bride Eileen in 1952. Ironically, Eileen was a one legged waitress working at IHOP. She and Duke settled on the family farm where they made a living raising canned hams. They also tried raising lean beef, but the cows kept blowing away in the high Texas winds.

"In 1966, Eileen gave birth to me. Duke and Eileen raised me as if I was one of their own. The youngest of one, I was forced to wear my own hand me downs. It was rough country life. Our furniture was made of mud and cactus. I recall waiting by the horse stop, (our school was too poor to afford buses) in the middle of the harsh Texas winter. One year it actually got down to 60 degrees. (Brrrrr) But I never complained. Duke always told me "Remember son, that in other parts of the world, there are kids who are much smarter and handsomer than you". I'm not sure how that helped, but that was his way.

"In 1984, I joined the U.S. Navy. The Navy taught me how to wear shoes that tie and how to open a beer bottle with my teeth. I cannot understate how that experience changed my life.

"I was discharged in 1987 when it was discovered that that I had only one functioning nostril. At loose ends, I wandered around looking for a job wherein which I could cut, burn and mutilate myself and yet still get paid. Goldsmithing was the perfect fit."

The rest is history.

Ghosthunters (Home Edition)

It is the "wee hours" of the night.

I know this because the female two legger just got up and went "wee".

Normally this time of night is very quiet. It is usually the time of darkness during which Ivan and I plot our activities and chaos for the coming day. Tiger Lily is locked in the computer room and unavailable for therapeutic smacking. The two leggers are sleeping soundly in their bed completely unaware of our plotting.

Ivan and I continue to plot. It is becoming increasingly difficult to come up with new forms of mischief. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. We cause chaos, they attempt to restore order into their little world. However, I am confident that chaos will always triumph.

As we sit in the living room plotting, our ears are beset by a most eerie sound. Mere words fail to describe it. If I heard this sound emanating from the talking box thingy while it was tuned to the Sci-fy channel, college students would be running for their lives while an alcoholic priest suddenly finds his true calling again and rushes into the house to exercise the spirit. Why spirits need exercise is beyond me, must be a Richard Simmons thingy, but I digress.

This sound reverberates throughout my house like all the demons of the netherworld thingy trying to once again take over New York. (I am not convinced they have ever been vanquished from New York, but once again, I digress)

If you have ever watched "Ax-Men" on the talking box thingy, and if you have ever heard "Rap" music, take the sounds from those two things, add the sound of a lawn mower thingy, throw in a tuba and a poorly tuned violin, add a teaspoon of Celine Dion and a pinch of "American Idol" tryouts, and you have a small example of the noise.

What can this horrid sound possibly be?

I turn to Ivan seeking his counsel. This to no avail, given that Ivan has been reduced to a quivering puddle of orange dumbdom. He is in the process of imitating a striped peach and apricot Jello mold gone horribly wrong.

As usual, it falls to me to seek out and vanquish the foe. I am not saying that I am the John Wayne of feline society, Ok, maybe I am saying that, but when I confront a mystery, my feline instincts shift to high gear until the mystery is both solved and turned to my advantage.

The sound seems to be emanating from the back of my house. This is where I allow the two leggers to sleep. They call it the "bedroom", I call it the...well, bedroom. It is where the bed is, so though unoriginal, bedroom it is.

I approach the bedroom on full alert. Smack first, and second, and smack a third time before I ask questions is my philosophy. In short order, I realize that this Hell begotten sound is not emanating from a curio that the two leggers brought home from another flea market featuring Gypsies and other sordid folk, that they enjoy visiting on off weekends because it makes them feel "artsy", it is coming from the male two legger's face.

At first glance, I am unable to comprehend what I am seeing. Surely my mild mannered two legger could not be capable of producing such a cacophony of audio torture.

I must test my hypothesis.

Using my entire weekly ration of stealth, I climb upon the bed. Careful not to wake the two leggers, I walk to the to top of the bed covers and observe. The male is sleeping with his mouth wide open and emitting the offending sounds. Very carefully, I place both paws into his mouth effectively cutting off his respiratory passages.

The noise ceases.

I remove my paws.

The noise returns.

I once again place my paws in his mouth.

The noise again ceases.

Mystery solved.

I go back and inform Ivan that I have forced the evil spirit from our house. I also mention that the only way to keep the vanquished from returning, is by giving the vanquisher half of his food from now on.

This will serve the greater good. I will be even more well fed and Ivan will lose some of that gut.

As for the two legger, he is still wondering why he wakes every morning with cat hair on his tongue.

Some mysteries are better left unexplained.

100th Post Contest

My Dear Minions,
I am hereby announcing a contest.

Yesterday I posted my 91st post on the blog. Realizing that the 100th is just around the corner, I decided we should have some fun with it. So here goes:

I am taking suggestions for the topic of the 100th post.
The winning entrant (as judged by a panel of 1, me) will win a framed autographed picture of yours truly and a catnip mousie thingy.
All entries should be submitted to: dougnkatty@yahoo.com
The deadline is midnight of some day I've yet to determine. (hey, I'm a cat and am subject to changing my mind)
Minions in my immediate household are not eligible.
Bribing the judge is not only acceptable, but expected.
Creatures of all leg counts are eligible.
Except Squirrels.
I look forward to seeing your entries.
Sincerely,
Cujo

The Tominator

He's at it again.

For some strange reason that has always escaped me, my male two legger enjoys watching the really bad disaster/monster movies that the Sci-Fi channel shows on the talking box thingy.

Given the fact that both my throne and the firebox thingy are in the living room directly opposite the talking box thingy, I am forced to endure these movies.

It does not amuse me.

This week he is watching something about the energizer bunny of all earthquake thingies that is threatening to destroy the world.

Again.

All these movie thingies seem to have several similarities.
1. Bad acting
2. Bad special effects.
3. A poor misunderstood scientist whose wild theories got him fired from his government job, but whose theories are now being proven by the current crisis.
4. The poor misunderstood scientist's ex-wife who is now in a position of influence with the President.
5. Former child stars in starring roles.
6. Did I mention bad acting?

I do not understand my two legger's fascination with this drivel. For a two legger, he seems to be moderately intelligent. (He can even spell his name correctly five out of seven times) Which is why his interest in bad cinema is so confusing.

Therefore I have decided to write my own disaster/monster movie:

Inside a secret government lab, deep in the woods of Western Washington, a government scientist mistakenly releases a germ thingy that kills all animal life.

Except squirrels.

This germ thingy spreads quickly due to another government program that has for the past 30 years been training pigeons to collect used band aids and drop them in parks near large population centers. The used band aids then stick to the shoes of unsuspecting park users and are tracked throughout the city.

Just when all seems lost, a cat appears from the future. He is, of course, a strikingly handsome tuxedo cat that due to his advanced intelligence has learned to communicate with the two leggers and also developed a cure for the mad squirrel plague. He immediately contacts the nearest divorced/disgraced scientist and teaches him how to smear the cure on dirty band aids and set them around statue thingies to be redistributed by the pigeons.

In an ironic plot twist, the cure for the disease is deadly to squirrels.

The movie ends with our feline hero from the future curing world hunger by teaching the two leggers how to grow genetically enhanced varieties of catnip and tuna. He is then unanimously elected Universal Dictator for life and given his choice of females.

And he lives happily ever after.

Roll credits.

Mutt-erings

I don't understand it.

I am confused.

I am annoyed because I don't understand it and it confuses me.

Why are dogs always so happy?

Between naps, snacks, litter box visits, slapping Tiger Lily and chaos creation, I have been pondering this very question.

What the hell is it that makes dogs so eternally happy?

They are happy when they see a two legger. They are happy when they don't see a two legger. They are happy when they are well fed. They are happy when they are hungry. They are happy when they are thrown a ball. They are happy when you only fake throwing them a ball. They are happy when they go poo, and then they are happy eating the poo that just made them happy when they left it. They are even happy when they are unconscious. They can be completely comatose and that tail will still be wagging.

My first thought was that their happiness stemmed from their lack of mental capacity. However, Ivan disproves this theory. He has the IQ of a mentally challenged dust bunny, yet he is very seldom happy. So obviously stupidity is not the key to a cheerful disposition. (Washington DC. would replace Disneyland as the "Happiest Place on Earth" otherwise.)

My second hypothesis involved a recreational drug that affects only canines. After searching the internet thingy, I failed to find any references to "dognip". I did however find several website thingies that discussed canine fashion, although the pictures seemed to have very little in common with "doggy style" and only confused me more.

My final consideration is that canine anatomy includes a "happy gland". I believe this gland is located in the dog's hindquarters. It is triggered by the dog's nose. Apparently there is a complimentary gland on the dog's nose that triggers the "happy gland" on the dog's butt.

Whenever a dog's nose comes into close contact with either its' own butt or that of another canine, some type of chemical reaction thingy takes place in the doggy brain that makes it incredibly happy. This reaction seems to be very short-lived causing the dog to constantly repeat the process, usually several hundred times per day.

Yes, this must be the answer.

Just a note to Cesar Millan.(The Dog Whisperer) If you require any more advice, I am at your service.

Ode to Tiger Lily

I beg to describe her,
She's a large grayish tabby.
She is never joyful.
She's always very crabby.

She's partial to other females,
She never likes us boys.
She'd rather fuss at us.
When we're playing with our toys.

She looks down her nose at us,
In two legger terms she's conceited.
Swing one paw at her,
And you'll find that she's retreated.

She lays all day,
Basking in the sun.
Just a boring lump of fur,
Disdaining any fun.

She does very little,
She'll never chase a mouse.
I've yet to figure out,
Her purpose in my house.

But in one area,
She hasn't any peers.
She makes a sound so annoying,
You'll wish you had no ears.

Yes, she is a master
When it comes to whining.
It annoys all who hear it,
It requires no refining.

She whines in the morning,
She whines all through the day.
She whines so much,
It keeps the mice away.

I've tried to speak to her,
Alas with no success.
I've tried very hard to accept her,
But I fail, I must confess.

So it is not my fault,
If my paw acts of its' own volition.
You'd do the same,
Were you in my position.

You'd smack her too,
I've no doubt you would.
You'd smack her just to shut her up.
You'd smack her because it felt good.

So please don't try to judge me,
I'm not the only one.
Everyone wants to smack her,
Plus it's just so damned fun.

Random Acts of Chaos

Last night I had fun.

I mean I had FUN.

The kind of fun that we felines enjoy the most.

I woke up from my post-afternoon/pre-evening nap feeling.......what's the word?.........ah yes, frisky. Not just frisky, frisky with a capitol F.

The kind of frisky that makes Tiger Lily hide in the clothes hamper and confuses Ivan. (well, most things confuse Ivan, but you get my point)

The kind of frisky that makes the two leggers refill all the water squirty thingies and distribute them all around the house.

The kind of frisky that inspires juvenile delinquents and strikes fear into the hearts of shoe lovers world wide.

After the two leggers arrived home, I decided that all my minions should be graced with spontaneous displays of my friskiness.

All night long.

Act I
I wait until the female two legger is engrossed in the harvesting of her farm thingy on Facebook. Without warning, I jump up on her lap (evicting Tiger Lily in the process) I then walk in tight circles softening said lap with my claws until it is either just right, or I draw blood, whichever happens first. Having properly tenderized her, I realize that I'm not ready to lay down yet and scamper from the room.

Act II
I hide in the darkest shadows of the hallway and boogitate all who pass my way. For those of you unfamiliar with "boogitation" it involves rushing your victim, waving your front paws in a menacing fashion. Properly performed, this can cause cardiac arrest in older two leggers and hypertensive mice.

Act III
By this time, the female has retired to her bedchamber and is attempting to read a book. This is where the fun truly begins. She has her ear-pod on and is unaware of my approach. Ivan and Tiger Lily are asleep on the bed, straddling her legs. Planning my leap to the bed perfectly, I land directly on top of Tiger Lily causing her to let out a whine that causes dogs three blocks away to begin barking. Ivan attempts to flee, but since he is on his back and too relaxed to roll over, he gives up and goes back to sleep. The water squirty thingy rears its' ugly head and I am banished from the bedroom.

Act IV
I run five laps around the living room as loudly as possible and then in full stealth mode, I wait in front of the bedroom door until the female, thinking I have fallen asleep in front of the firebox thingy feels it safe to once again open the door. I sneak between her legs and in one motion leap to the bed and curl up feigning sleep. Her confusion when she spots me laying peacefully next to Ivan is most amusing. Warily, she climbs back into bed and resumes her reading. This is my cue to start a slap fight with Ivan resulting in the return of the water squirty thingy.

Intermission

Act V
The female is soaking in the tub thingy. I rush into the bathroom, slide to a stop and give her my most convincing crackhead look. This, of course startles her. I then let out a deep throated "MROWRR!" poof my tail and bolt from the room. This causes her to jump from the tub in a fruitless search to figure out which priceless possession of hers she assumes I broke. From this point on, I am apparently persona non grata in the female's presence.

Tiger Lily is placed in the computer thingy room. Ivan and I are relegated to the front of the house for the remainder of the night.

I don't mind, it's time for my nap anyway.

Mail Pattern Badness

Once again it is time to answer some mail thingies. I apologize for not answering all of my follower's comments and letters, but please rest assured that I do in fact, read each and every one of them. I am greatly amused and flattered by most of them, however, on occasion I receive one that really soils my litter. The following is one of them:

Dear Cujo Cat,
I am a long time reader of your blog thingy, and I have a complaint. After studying your musings in depth, I have reached the conclusion that you detest all non-feline types in general, and two leggers specifically. Being a two legger myself, I take great offense at this casual disregard and bias against us.
Though I will continue to read your blog thingy, I thought you should be aware of my feelings.
Sincerely,
Rufus P. Hummerfink

Mr. Hummerfink,
Thank you so much expressing your concerns. Your letter made me sit and ponder all the ways my blog thingy may have caused hurt feelings and misconceptions. Your words have inspired me to go forth in an attempt to better the world by being a better cat and citizen of the Earth. From this day forward I will love and respect all creatures no matter how many legs they have. I am going to become a bunny hugging, deer kissing, bird loving guru of zoological harmony.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA!!!

Dang, I think I just used up my entire 2011 sarcasm ration.

Be that as it may, allow me to defend myself.

I do not detest two leggers. On the contrary, I love two leggers. I love the fact that they feed me. I love the fact that they clean my litter. I love them in the way that all benevolent dictators love their oppressed citizenry.

Two leggers have such potential. They are capable of creating great works of art, of composing beautiful music, of inventing such incredibly useful technology as the Chia Pet.

They spend much of their time inventing things to simplify their lives only to have those very inventions complicate their lives further.

They watch the talking box thingy to escape the reality of their lives. What do they watch on the talking box thingy? Yup, reality shows.

They teach their young to love one another and never raise a paw in anger. They then give them video game thingies in which the goal is to kill everyone in sight.

They'll spend hours on the computer thingy trying to get other two leggers on other computer thingies to be their "neighbors", but not wave to the two legger that lives next door.

No, I do not detest two leggers at all.

They keep me amused.

Mind Game

What once was an occasional hobby, is quickly becoming a competition.

Us felines have decided that the time has come to stimulate the mental health care industry.

We are on a mission to place the two leggers firmly on the path to insanity and paranoia.

Granted, this shouldn't be that difficult to accomplish. (especially where the male two legger is concerned. The road to the nuthouse is but a very short trip for him)

There are rules for this competition:

1. All ideas must be original, or at least non-copyrighted.
2. Insanity must occur within twenty minutes of attempt.
3. Tag teaming is allowed, but not encouraged.
4. Eight leggers may be used, but only in the bathroom.
5. Only three attempts will be allowed in a twenty-four hour period.
6. Extra points will be awarded if the attempt results in the demise of a squirrel thingy.

I began the competition implementing a "spook strategy" by standing in front of a closet, poofing, with my back arched and hissing at the closed door. This resulted in the closet being cleaned the next day.

Ivan, following the same philosophy, ran laps in the hallway in the wee hours. This had the effect of depriving the two leggers of much desired sleep as well as causing several pictures to shake until they hung crooked. This annoyed the female (she cannot abide a crooked picture) but did little to send them over the edge.

Tiger Lily employed a WWMD. (Whiny Weapon of Mental Destruction) She sat on the entertainment center directly in front of the talking box thingy and, you guessed it, whined. This caused the male two legger to:
A. Make unusual faces at her.
B. Say "Sssshhhhhhhh" numerous times.
C. Stamp his feet.
D. Reach for the water squirty thingy before realizing that his prized talking box thingy lay directly in the line of fire.
E. Finally roar at her that he has buried cats before and has no issues with digging another hole.

Those of you who watch the talking box thingy are aware that whenever some two legger grabs a gun thingy and goes out shooting at other two leggers indiscriminately, it is usually soon discovered that all the perpetrators have two things in common:
"They were quiet and kept pretty much to themselves."
And, they had a whiny cat.

I truly thought we had a winner. However, in a raging fit of self control, the male grabbed a beer and calmed himself.

Another stratagem we have been working on is our patented "cat herding chaos" plan. This is a team effort we use as the two leggers are preparing to retire. Each of us runs and hides in separate rooms. The rooms we hide in are, of course, the only rooms we are not allowed to be in while the two leggers sleep. The two leggers are then forced to waste precious sleepy time searching us out and attempting to redistribute us into the rooms in which we are supposed to spend the remaining night time hours.

We have yet to accomplish our goal, but the sudden onset of tremors in the male's hands and the female's newfound facial tic is encouraging.

Rumblebum: The RUMBLE gate keeper

Rumblebum: The RUMBLE gate keeper

Bad Ad-vice

Wanna know what really gets my hairballs in a bunch?

Ok, once again I speak too generically. I'll try again.

Wanna know what's got my hairballs in a bunch today?

Cat food commercial thingies.

Why should cat food commercial thingies annoy me?

They are written by imbeciles who obviously have no experience with cats.

These clueless individuals apparently live in a fantasy world where cats come running at the two leggers request. The felines in this magical land wait patiently while the two legger enters the room, takes off her coat, sniffs the fresh roses on the counter top, strokes the cat affectionately and then opens a can of Fancy Feast and places it on the table on an expensive china saucer with a sprig of parsley on the top.

Now I understand that this IS the talking box thingy and one shouldn't believe everything one sees portrayed on it, (The Dog Whisperer comes to mind) but this is so far beyond belief that it must be scoffed at.

If these ads were written by two leggers that have actually had interaction with felines, the commercials would be somewhat different:

The two legger enters the house as silently as possible in a futile attempt to escape the notice of the resident feline. Having failed, the two legger attempts to remove the feline from her legs while stepping over the broken vase and mutilated roses on the entryway floor.

Having negotiated the carnage between the foyer and the kitchen, all the while being serenaded by the constant yowling of a starving yet strangely obese feline, she manages to open the cupboard door, remove a can of cat food, close the cupboard door, re-open the cupboard door, remove the feline from the cupboard, re-close the cupboard door, re-re-open the cupboard door, remove the can opener, re-re-close the cupboard door, re-re-open the cupboard door, re-re-remove the feline, say "screw it" and leave the cupboard door open.

She then takes a dirty bowl out of the sink, opens the can of cat food and plops a roughly hockey puck shaped gelatinous mass into the bowl and drops it on the floor where it is promptly ignored by the feline who leaves the room to lay down and nap on the two legger's cashmere coat that was carelessly tossed on the couch.

This my friends is reality TV.

Litter Laws

I find myself in the unenviable state of confusion.

There has been much chaos and upheaval within my kingdom of late.

As a rule, I generally enjoy chaos and upheaval. However, this chaos and upheaval has not been of my creation. Therefore it annoys and confuses me.

From what I have been able to gather, one of my two legger's offspring had been bred last year and was expecting to give birth. Why this is such a cause for both concern and joy among the two leggers is beyond me.

Two leggers seem to dote on their progeny. No, "dote" is understating the case. They obsess over their progeny. Even after their offspring have moved out or been sent to a shelter, they concern themselves with all the whereabouts and activities of their young. They worry incessantly over the choices that they are making.

Triggered by the thought of a third generation of my two legger's being brought into existence, I have pondered much these last two days. I have drawn some conclusions.

First of all, I believe that two leggers obsess over their young because their litters are so small. They usually bear only one at a time. Occasionally two and on rare occasions three. (If a two legger gives birth to more than three at once, they are required to have a talking box thingy program made about them.)

Two legger offspring also grow at an incredibly slow pace. I consider this to be a sign of recessed evolution. They do not even begin to wean until they are nearly a year old. In fact, there are a lot of things that they start doing only after a full year of development.

Walking
Talking
Using the litter box without assistance.

However, to give the newborn two leggers credit, there are several things that they seem to know instinctively from birth:

Gurgling
Slobbering
Sticking things (fingers as well as foreign objects) into their noses.
Plus, they have the most amazing capacity for creating odors that put even Ivan to shame.

They are totally dependent on their parents for at least the first ten years of their lives. In many cases they remain dependent on them until well into their thirties.

As in all things, the two leggers should learn from their feline betters:

The first week after birth, teach your young to walk.
Wean them at twelve weeks.
Kick them out at six months.
Have more than one litter per year.

And above all, have larger litters. That way when one turns out odd or touched in the head, you've got some "normal" ones to continue your bloodline.

Frankly, My Deer

I was sitting in the kitchen window today. I wasn't really doing much, just surveying my backyard. Just one of those "nothing to do, nothing to ponder, nothing to destroy at the moment" kind of days.

At some point in my reverie, I came to the realization that something had entered my yard. Well, actually a pair of somethings. Deer to be exact. Once again, Animal Planet on the talking box thingy provided me with the identity of the strangely graceful creatures.

I sat watching them, eerily mesmerized by their silent progress as they traversed the yard on their way to the place where the two leggers put out the bird thingy baiting station. The deer seem to enjoy eating the bird thingy bait and soon emptied all the seed that the two leggers had used to attract the bird thingies. They then moved to the back of the property and vanished into the woods like wraiths in the misty afternoon.

Once they had left, it occurred to me that according to Animal Planet, deer fall under the heading of "prey". My predatory instincts should have kicked into high gear and provided me with fresh meat for dinner. I see it all the time on the talking box thingy. Felines in the wild, stalking and pouncing and generally causing havoc among the grass munchers. They chase the deer down, kill it, and then dine upon it.

Pondering this, I came upon a conundrum.

The deer in my backyard are freaking huge.

On the talking box thingy the deer to cat relative mass ratio is approximately 1 to 1.

In my backyard, the ratio is closer to 30 to 1.

This begs the questions:
Are the cats on the talking box thingy abnormally large?
Are the deer abnormally small?
Or, are the deer in my backyard simply mutants?

I decided to call a meeting to discuss this among my fellow felines. This of course was a huge waste of time that provided absolutely no useful information. Ivan, after realizing there would be no food served at this meeting simply looked confused and proceeded to lick himself. Tiger Lily contributed a high pitched whine to the discussion, for which she was promptly smacked and summarily dismissed. This amused me, but brought me no closer to enlightenment.

I realized that once again, I would have to rely on my own intellectual prowess to solve this mystery.

After much pondering, I have reached a conclusion:

I will allow the giant mutant deer in my backyard to live.

However, if you are a deer weighing less than ten pounds, and standing less than eighteen inches at the shoulder, and you happen to wander into my yard, and if I can figure out how to open the the door thingy, and if the two leggers are not watching, and if it isn't raining, and if the wind isn't blowing too hard, and if it isn't dark yet, prepare to die.

Consider yourself warned.

Resolution Revolution

Two leggers have an incredibly annoying habit.

Ok, that's a little too non-specific.

AMONG the two legger's incredibly annoying habits, is one that they perform once a year like clockwork. Once a year, every year, right after Christmas, they engage in the most annoying behavior of all.

They dwell in self analysis. They look back on the previous twelve months and try to figure out what they have been doing wrong. They look at all the things that have gone awry in their lives. They forensically examine all the minutiae that make up the crime scene of their psyche.

Then in a burst of ill advised self-improvement, they set out to change EVERYTHING.

Yup, everything.

At once.

They do not emulate Mother Nature with her slow, patient and eternally wise method of slowly sculpting the landscape, one pebble at a time. Turning a creek into a stream, a stream into a river, a river into a torrent over an expanse of time.

They jump right on their bulldozer thingy and start figuratively breaking mountains and scalping forests.

They have to quit nasty habits, lose weight and start giving more to charity. They must get more organized, clean the uncleanable closet and start going to church again.

Before February.

All two leggers have in their genetic makeup an annual alarm clock thingy. This alarm clock thingy goes off without exception on the Second of February every year. It signals the demise of every promise that the two leggers make on the First of January. If the goal has not been met when the alarm thingy goes off, the two leggers mutter a collective "screw it" and await their next bout of self analysis.

Silly and self-defeating if you ask me.

Two leggers should (as always) take a lesson from us feline types.

Say "Screw it" on the First of January.

We do not dwell on what is wrong in our world. We dwell on what is RIGHT in our world.

"I've put on a coupla pounds this year" This means I was well fed.

"I didn't go to Church this Sunday" I said my prayers Saturday and slept in on Sunday.

"I didn't eat healthy food" I ate food that tasted good.

Now I'm not saying two leggers should not give more to charity, this is an activity that I happen to agree with.

Please have your two leggers send their donations to:

www.cujoneedsmorecatnip.com

Thank you for your support.

I guarantee it will go to a good cause.