Ivan's Thought

I am amused.

Today the two leggers went outside to work in my yard. As they left, they neglected to turn off the talking box thingy. 

The channel that it was tuned to featured a two legger yelling about how we could improve our lot by simply "thinking" our way to happiness. I was beyond bored and decided to supervise the two leggers from the sliding door.

However, I found it increasingly difficult to maintain my vigil with the constant drone of the two legger touting the "Power of Positive Thinking".  I quickly grew annoyed and turned to give the talking box thingy a proper tongue lashing when I noticed that Ivan was enraptured by whatever snake oil this two legger was attempting to peddle. 

Intrigued, I began paying attention.

It was his theory that by imagining good fortune, good fortune would naturally ensue. If one wishes to become rich, one need only imagine that they have money. If one wishes to be healthy, imagine it and you will never be sick again.

Rubbish. I have often imagined the squirrel's demise, and yet he still breathes. I have plotted, planned and even solicited his murder, and his mangy little heart beats on.

Yet Ivan was hooked.

I found this ironic because I was "positive" that Ivan was incapable of "thinking". Ivan is now convinced that if he thinks hard enough, he will become one of the world's great thinkers. 

I asked Ivan for a demonstration of his new technique. 

After five minutes of "thinking", Ivan's whiskers began to twitch. He developed a tic in his left ear. His right eye leaked a tear and a small rivulet of drool escaped his mouth. Without warning, his body went rigid and he fell over on his right side where he lay unmoving for five minutes. Just as I was about to start dividing up his toys, he sat up and yelled "I'VE DONE IT!"

"What have you done oh floofy one?" I asked.

"I had a thought!", he replied.

"And???"

"I think I'm hungry!"

I stand corrected.

Let The Games Begin

I have discovered that every four years, two leggers from every nation migrate to a preordained location and compete with each other in various athletic events. In two legger society, this seems to be a big honkin deal.

I have been observing the pre-olympic fooforah and find myself completely, totally and thoroughly unimpressed.

The two leggers run in circles, run in straight lines, jump into water, swim, jump over bars, swing on bars, dance and prance, throw things, jump over things, shoot stuff, ride horse thingies and a myriad of other activities. They do all this in the hope that they will be awarded a shiny thingy thereby earning the esteem of all the other two leggers.

For the most part, I find most of these competitions tedious and boring. However there are a few that pique my interest.

The one that features a pair of two leggers standing in a square enclosure (oddly called a ring) and punching each other repeatedly amuses me greatly. The event in which they attempt to poke each other with long, pointy, metal sticks showed promise until I realized that after 30 minutes not one of the competitors had bled. I considered this false advertising and bad form.

I now realize that the two leggers who are charged with organizing these competitions are in dire need of my counsel.

By adopting a few rule changes, the Olympics can be made truly entertaining:

1. Any event in which running is required, all runners should be encouraged to greater speed by the implement of either a lion or a bear or both.

2. All gymnastics should be performed over a burning lake of gasoline. This will discourage the competitors from falling.

3. Use of performance enhancing herbs such as catnip will increase the frisky factor and possibly cause slap fights and wrestling during all events.

4. Any two legger whose name contains more vowels than consonants should be instantly disqualified due to pronunciation issues.

5. New events such as "Javelin Catch", "Full Contact Dressage" and "The 100 Meter Smack and Scurry" should be introduced.

6. Any celebrity performing at the opening ceremony must be younger than the original Olympic Games.

7. In each event, there will be one "secret spoiler competitor" whose sole aim will be to screw up the performance of all the other competitors. (I would recommend the French for this role)

8. Reality television stars and politicians will be ridden in place of horses during all equestrian events.

9. Judges will be chosen from an undiscovered tribe of natives that reportedly live somewhere in the Amazon.

10. Athletes who fail to survive these games will be excluded from subsequent games.

I am confident that by implementing these minor changes, we can save the Olympics and make them popular again.

2nd Blogoversary Post Thingy

First of all allow me to thank everyone that was kind enough to send "Happy Blogoversary" wishes. To tell the truth, I had completely forgotten that it was on this day two years ago that I began my epic quest for world domination.

Looking back on two years of sharing my life and philosophy, there are a few things that stand out in my mind:
1. There seem to be a lot folks out there looking for the answers to all of life's mysteries.
2. There are a lot of folks out there who believe that I may provide the answers to all of life's  mysteries.
3. There are a lot of folks out there still in need of my answers to all of life's mysteries
4. There are a lot of folks who will benefit from my answers to all of life's mysteries.
5. There are still too damn many squirrel thingies.

Over the past 24 months,  I have disseminated my wisdom to minions all over the world. I have minions on all seven continents. Yes, even Antartica where a technologically savvy penguin named "Ralph" assures me that he has eradicated the entire Antartic squirrel population. (I encourage all followers to emulate Ralph's example.)

I have met and communicated with two and four leggers from New York to Brisbane. I have even corresponded with dog thingies. (Unfortunately sarcasm does not work well in a text based medium thereby rendering my scathing responses to the dog thingies useless.)

I have published one book thingy and will be publishing a second this year.

I have made many friends and no enemies. (Unless you count squirrels, eight leggers, dust bunnies, moths, grammar teachers, Democrats, Republicans, historians, literature professors, animal rights activists, bunnies, clergy, atheists, veterinarians, politicians, farmers, plumbers, members of the Royal Family, bird thingies, and a housewife in Nova Scotia who is in desperate need of both a spell checker and a laxative.)

In closing, I would like to thank each and every one of my loyal minions for making these last two years the most amusing time of my life.

You guys are why I do this.

Now get out there and slay some squirrels.

Clouded Thoughts

The last few days have been interesting.

Weather here in the Pacific Northwest is predictably unpredictable. Consistently inconsistent.

I have it on good authority that our most accurate weather forecast teams use a method in which they study all the radar maps, trends and satellite photos, compile all this information, figure out exactly what the data is telling them is going to happen, and then play a game of full-contact "Rock, Paper, Scissors" to finalize their decision before telling the TV weatherman their predictions.

They also employ a strategy where all the local meteorologists meet once per day to drink coffee and bourbon and verify that they are all going to give completely different forecasts on the evening news. This ensures that on any given day at least one of them will be accurate.

This week, Mother Nature threw them a curveball that no amount of caffeine and alcohol lubricated guesswork could predict.

Thunderboomers.

We get hailstorms, windstorms, firestorms, snowstorms and the exceedingly rare brainstorms.

But we never get thunderstorms.

Well, maybe "never" is too strong a word thingy. Once or twice a year, a vagrant thunderboomer may sneak across the Cascade Mountains and strike terror into the hearts of the six elk, four marmots and three cult members that live in the mountains East of here.

According to the two legger scientific types, it has something to do with the geographipsychomitrology of Western Washington. These two leggers are obviously paid by the amount of letter thingies appearing after their names and the size of words that they employ in their reports.

So Friday after having watched thunderboomer after thunderboomer roll past my kingdom, I decided that in the interest of keeping my readers informed, I should educate myself on all thingies weather related. I looked at the National Weather Service website thingy and slept through an episode of "Storm Chasers".

I now consider myself the world's leading geographipsychomitrologist.

Stand by for some learnin':

First of all, let's talk about rain.
Here in my kingdom, we are accustomed to rain. I have counted over 432 different types of rain.
Drizzle rain.
Sprinkle rain.
Misty rain.
Gusty rain.
Pouring rain.
Spitty rain.
Fluffy rain.
Sparkly rain.
Sideways rain.
Dinky rain.
Spotty rain.
etc........

Rain comes from cloud thingies. Cloud thingies are big and poofy and not very smart.

If Ivan could fly, he would likely be a cloud thingy.

For the most part, they float around, minding their own business, drifting serenely across the sky. But once in a while, they gather together and begin throwing themselves at each other like goat thingies. When they collide, it produces a loud booming sound called "thunder". The effort exerted by the cloud thingies causes them to sweat and the sweat they produce falls in the form of rain.

Now you know the truth. Rain is cloud sweat.

Now to explain lightning:

Lightning is bright. I could tell you more, but I choose not to.

This report brought to you by Cujo Cat PHD of Geographipsychomitrology, DHEO, WKCFUF, PWVNM, PDQ, XYZ.

Leaper Colony

Okay, this is just ridiculous.

My two leggers are out of control.

Those of you familiar with my two leggers are well aware that they are a couple of "nature loving, do no harm, all creatures are sacred, granola munching, tree hugging hippy types".  But things are getting out of hand. (paw)

They are disrupting the natural order of things.

When they first started feeding the bird thingies, I assumed that they were attempting to lure the bird thingies to my yard and lull them into a false sense of security until the day that I would escape my house, wreak sweet carnage and leave the yard covered in a carpet of colored feathers and blood.

Soon, squirrel thingies arrived and my anticipation grew with each passing day. I began having dreams of slaying the nasty little tree rats and often awoke in the act of cleaning imaginary blood from my forepaws.

Then the deer thingies showed up. Though too massive to be brought down easily, Ivan and I working in conjunction should be able to take one of the smaller offspring.

It has been four years now, and I am still kept within the confines of my house.

The veritable smorgasbord just outside my window continues to grow.

I am beginning to believe that the two leggers may no longer be luring these creatures for my sake alone. I am beginning to suspect that they may have ulterior motives. It is entirely possible that they have developed a fondness for wild critters. They seem to consider them a source of entertainment as opposed to a source of nutrition.

To recap: I have watched as beast after beast have discovered that there is free food to be found in my yard. All they have to do is show up, act cute for a minute or two, and the two leggers rush out with a bucket full of seed, grain or fruit to lay upon the stumps in my backyard.

Now to the point of this post.

I awoke this morning to the sound of giggling outside my window. Looking out, I beheld a most disturbing sight.

Bunnies.

Lots and lots of bunnies.

Apparently word has reached the land of the hoppers and now they have all taken up residence in my yard. Bouncing around MY yard. Eating MY dandelions. Laying little bunny-berries in MY grass.

And giggling.

That's the most annoying part. Bunnies giggle.

Cats meow, Ivan grunts, Jaq squeaks, Tiger Lily whines, dog thingies bark, goat thingies baa, bird thingies chirp and eight leggers snicker. These are all natural and fairly tolerable. (Except whining, but I'll smack her later)

But giggling?

I voiced my great displeasure to the two leggers regarding the infestation. They immediately ran outside and laid some carrots on the grass. Soon the word had spread and my yard was filled with happy, hopping, giggling little nose twitchers.

Even the squirrel was annoyed and sat in a tree with a look of great disdain on his mangy little face.

So once again, I find myself trying to be patient.

All it will take is a loose window screen or a door carelessly left ajar and Ivan and I will spend a fun-filled day splitting hares.

Flight of The Intruder

Today sweet chaos reigned.

The day started out peacefully enough. The sun was shining, the two leggers were going about their two legged business, (cleaning and rearranging furniture) Ivan was menacing a day old potato chip that had annoyed him by not running when he hissed at it. Tiger Lily was sleeping in a most irritating manner. Jaq was on two legger supervisory duty.

Very little was happening, so I decided that the sunbeam in the bay window required my attention and I lay down for an afternoon nap.

I awoke a short time later to the sound of two leggers screaming and the scrabble of scurrying paws in the hallway.

All three of my fellow felines were in a tizzy.

Not wanting to miss out on any potential mayhem, I decided to investigate. I surmised from Ivan's constant chittering, Jaq's squeaky "mowr mowr mowr" and Tiger Lily's signature Whompin Whine that they were in pursuit of something. Just as I rounded the corner leading to the hallway I was bowled over by the orange tubbiness known as Ivan. He didn't see me owing to the fact that he was totally focused on his prey.

What prey could have Ivan so oblivious that he didn't notice me approaching?

A fly thingy.

Not just any fly thingy.

THE fly thingy

A fly thingy so incredibly huge that it requires a flight plan.

In the feline brain, there are a few things that will override every iota of sanity that a cat may possess and drive them into a murderous frenzy. They are as follows:

1. String. Or anything that appears stringy, string-like, stringish or even slightly stringesque.
2. Anything that is small, hairy and emits squeaking sounds. (Especially teacup poodles)
3. Wads of paper. (I don't know why, I just accept it.)
4. Anything with feathers. This includes everything from hummingbirds to Las Vegas showgirls.
5. Red dots of light that move erratically.
6. Flying six leggers.

And most of all, fly thingies.

I decided to grant my minions the courtesy of attempting to slay the intruder first. It was only fair, they had discovered it, they get first shot.

Ivan attempted to perform a "flying shark thingy maneuver". This feat is accomplished by launching oneself through the air with jaws wide open and ears laid back catching the prey in one's open maw. However, Ivan has an intimate relationship with gravity and was only able to "launch" about seven inches.

The fly thingy actually chortled

Tiger Lily took several swings at the fly thingy until she remembered that she has no claws and settled for whining to the two leggers to swat the cursed thing.

Jaq attempted an ambush by concealing herself in the drapes and waiting for the prey to come to her. She was subverted  by the sunbeam and thrown into an instant power coma.

As usual, the slaying of the fly thingy fell to me.

I chased it for several minutes. From room to room, window to window, knocking over three picture frames, four glasses and something that I couldn't identify even when it was whole. Finally the fly flew into the bathroom and out the hole in the bathroom window screen from whence it had obviously entered my house in the first place.

I turned to find myself alone. The other three had tired of the chase long before.

Fortunately, there was still an old wing left from a fly I dispatched last week. I sauntered from the bathroom and made a great show of picking the wing out of my teeth. The others gazed at me in awe of my prowess.

Sometimes you gotta fake it when your fly is down.