People, places, and and the uncommonplace telling stories as they travel with Morganica (Cynthia Morgan) in mind and memory; neighbors, friends, and findings
I opened the bedroom door yesterday morning and Lola strolled in, purring ecstatically, wearing my underpants on her head. (Yes, I took pictures and no, you can't see them) I made a mental note to ALSO lock up the dirty laundry basket.
"My wife's Vietnamese, but I love her anyway," he said, so seriously that I couldn't tell if he was joking. The old guy had jogged up to my new house in gymshorts, Nikes and a tank top, skinny as a rail with a shock of white hair that flew anywhere but down. I'd seen him before. "Let me be the first to welcome you to our neighborhood!" he bellowed, so loud that the movers stopped to watch. He said he was an ex-Navy officer--I think an admiral but (as my military relatives will confirm) I can't distinguish admirals from airmen so who knows? He'd retired into a couple of successful businesses, and he and his wife had been two of the original settlers in the neighborhood. He was friendly...but the Vietnamese crack bothered me, even when I saw the twinkle in his eye.
OK, I'm beginning to look like a doting mamma with home videos, but...I kept finding towels on the floor in the guest bath. Wasn't difficult to figure out who was doing it--not with The Princess Lola and Nikki the Tikkimaus around--but all the other towel racks in the house were safe from their depredations. So I hung the towel back on the rack, grabbed Izzy the 'Pad (that iMovie feature is really killer), and settled into the bathtub to wait. It didn't take long:
Strolling the Pearl (a favorite occupation I hardly ever get to do these days), I spied a big cast glass sculpture in the window and stopped in to see who made it. "He's from Israel, really talented artist," said the clerk. "Ahh...and that one?" I pointed to a big blown dinosaur-like piece, reminiscent of Tagliapietra. "Celotto, from Italy." Hmmm. "How about that one?" and I indicated a series of flat, fused (ooops, sorry, Lani) kilnformed panels on the usual powder-coated steel stands. Swedish.
Savannah kittens make wonderful housemates...if you stay two steps ahead of their inventive little minds. Give them enough "legal" stuff to do, the theory goes, and they won't edit your art collection (i.e., break stuff). I gave them a "highly difficult" puzzle, guaranteed to keep dogs occupied for weeks, with small wooden cups that move along a track. The animal is supposed to slide the cups until they can be upended, to reveal treat. The kittens liberated all the treats in about 15 minutes and then, bored, headed for the bathroom to play toilet bowl jacuzzi (they LIKE water). So I made them a cat gym.
OK, just had to brag a bit, although I'm not sure if I'm bragging about what a great cat trainer I am (frankly, if I were, I wouldn't be sweeping up broken sculptures), or the unusually large brains of my cats.
I've got it all over Jane Goodall. To make friends with wildlife, she had to go to the deep, dark jungles full of crocodiles, tsetse flies, tents and very poor room service. All *I* do is go home. My friend Shelby and I trekked down south a few weeks ago to pick up Nikki the Tikimaus and The Princess Lola. We returned with two carrierfuls of terrified kitten yowling to be let O-U-T. We set the carriers on the floor of the cat isolation center (AKA the laundry room), unfastened the doors and stepped back, expecting to see two furry streaks running past.
There's one kitten nibbling my calf as I write this--apparently Savannahs are into lovebites, tiny, soft nibbles that aren't all THAT soft and certainly get your attention--and the other is threatening the bluejays at the back door. Savannah cats are supposed to be as trainable as dogs, i.e., you can persuade them to obey YOUR taboos, such staying out of the glass display cases. Or refraining from climbing into a 4-foot urn to eat the pussywillows. I've accordingly invested in a small bag of the smelliest dried shrimp in the world, and a book, "Train Your Cat in 10 Minutes." It's day 3 of our training regimen. The 10-minute bit is a lie. Trust me on this.
Did the Ikea thing this weekend. Translation: I trudged through an endless, footsore maze of primary colors, particle board and bewildering, actually serious names. I bought weird but uselessly nifty stuff that will be worn out by 2013, and ate Swedish meatballs. Swedish meatballs are the reason you go to Ikea, right? (Besides the fact that you can buy a cheap-but-nifty desk to completely re-engineer into a glass sculpture) Ikea meatballs aren't as good as the ones I used to make when I was a kid, but at some point in an Ikea shopping marathon I will gratefully GRATEFULLY trudge into the Ikea cafeteria and plop a few on my plate. Then I'll sit in the window, munching meatballs and trying to figure out which incomprehensible Ikea components will form the piece of furniture I need.
The salesclerk looked dubious. "Have you gotten one of these in this car before?" he asked. I've never GOTTEN one of these before," I replied, and he started shoving a ginormous cat tree into CherryBaby's back seat and out the window. "Well, I got one of these in a lady's car last week, so I can probably get it in [...]
