Another White Chip

You know how the universe, or the Fate sisters, or some god-like intelligence working the joy-sticks likes to prank us by giving us the impression that everything is going our way? Of course, you do. You're no stranger here. Well, this morning was no exception.

I was up with the larks, the snails, and Bree, three of nature's best who apparently enjoy the early morning. The sky was clear and bright, the sun was at work on the usual corner, and bluebirds were singing the all-clear. In other words, all was right with the world, and no sign of the disaster that was to come.

But we Genomes are not new to this neck of the woods either. We've seen many days begin with this bien-etre outlook only to drop a banana peel in our path before mid-afternoon. 

Just as the honeyed sunshine climbed the garden fence and began creeping toward the snapdragons and clematis, I entered the kitchen to put on the coffee and get breakfast for Uma Maya and Sagi, the two resident felines of the Genome household. 

When Ms. Wonder entered the salon with a sheaf of travel brochures in her hand, I wasn't distracted in the way of lesser men. I naturally recognized the tactic as one of diversion and subterfuge. I knew that the imminent discussion of European river cruises was not the true source of danger.

Still, I'm amazed at the persistence of this Ms. Wonder in pressing the matter of cruises. Her fascination is becoming something that might possibly be defined in the Diagnostics and Statistical Manual V5. I can only assume it's something in her Slavic DNA, possibly something left over from the time her ancestors worked in the Orlov stables so near the Volga River. 

The problem with these luxury cruises, as I've mentioned in previous posts, is that once you get started, you find that you can't stop. You think you can quit any time you like but then the next thing you know, you're throwing a toothbrush and passport into a plastic bag and heading for the sea. First, it's a ship to Ixtapa Zihuatanejo, then it's a river barge down the Rhein, and the next thing you know, you're on a ferry down the Yangtze from Nanjing to Shanghai.

In the matter of cruises, I have taken a firm stand. If I wobble, she will be encouraged and continue to drag in these brightly colored tracts, much like Lucy, the cat, brings dead mice to the doorstep even though I make it clear in word and deed that the market for dead mice is sluggish if any.

Forgive me if the foregoing was a repeat. I sometimes get caught up in the emotions and let them sweep me away. Just stick with me and in the future, I shall remain mindful.

"Poopsie," I said, with confidence that suited me well; probably brought on by having the  home-field advantage, "do you know what today is?"

"Wednesday," she said.

"Today is the day Sagi gets his 90-day chip."

"Wow," she said, and with this one exclamation, I knew that I had sidestepped the talk of ships and ports of call. "Has he been clean for three months? Again?"

"That's right," I said, "our top-ranked caramel-colored tabby has not shredded a single roll of toilet paper since December 2. And you didn't need to add the 'again' to your remark. I'm aware that he's had his slips but let's remain confident."

"Oh, that boy!" she said with warm admiration. "Where is he? I'm going to give him a chin-scratching. He likes that."

Immediately, she was up the stairs and looking for the cat, probably on his favorite cushion in the upstairs window. And I was left in the kitchen alone, bubbling over with joie de vivre resulting from my nimble avoidance of you know what.

I was doing my patented victory dance, a little something that I'm told originated with Alexander, or was it Napoleon? No matter. As I danced my way around the kitchen island, the corner of the counter near the cupboard came into view. A sudden chill around the ankles stopped my dancing. I stared at a roll of paper towels sitting on the counter near the window. 

The subject, Sagi, sat next to the towels and looked toward me with an expression much like the one that native English speakers wear when about to say something in French.

The towels were not the tight wound roll of ephemera that you might expect. They were streaming out across the counter and down onto the floor. We Genomes have quick minds and I instantly discerned what had occurred.

There was Sagi, spirit floating gayly along, 90 days clean and sober. Sitting on the sofa with me watching Weekend Update and then I fell asleep, leaving no one in control. The Met Gala followed WU and all those celebrities parading down a long, flowing pathway must have reminded this champion feline of a roll of paper towels. 

Seeing that long, flowing streamer leading to the celebrity parade must have been too much for his paper addiction. I can see him now, white-knuckling through the show, hoping for the commercial that never came, until he could take it no longer.

I could clearly see, looking into Sagi's eyes, the familiar kitty lament that says, 'you promised that you'd never subject me to more than I can bear, but this!'

It must have been for him the work of an instant to leap to the counter and begin spinning the roll of towels until they shot across the room and floated to the floor. I can imagine how satisfying the sight must have been to him. But then the remorse of having gone back out inevitably followed, as it always does.

The evidence of his back-sliding is just another example of the trouble caused by Auntie Mabd, the younger of the Fate Sisters, or if you will indulge my own personal theory--Princess Amy. Now there's one of the girls if you want one. Benevolent universe, my left foot. And you can quote me! 

Not all aunts are bad, of course. My Aunt Mary Magdalene and Aunt Arvazine come to mind as the good and deserving types. Still, behind every poor schmuck going down for the third time is an aunt who shoved him into it and it's amazing how often the aunt in question is one of the big three--Mabd (Amy!), Nemain, or Macha.

It's the same for cats.

The situation strongly resembled some great moment in Greek tragedy where the hero is stepping high, wide, and handsome--as I believe the saying goes--completely unaware that Nemesis is following close behind looking for an opportunity to drop a banana peel. This moment was that moment.

I scooped him up and gave him a kiss behind the ear. "Don't worry my old buddy," I said. "We'll get through this; remember, my friend, you fail in the face of rolls of paper, but together we recover and re-roll."

Modern Life and Cats

"Modern life is not a lot of fun if left to its own devices," I said to Ms. Wonder and I felt it to the core.

"You seem low-spirited," she said and I think I've made it pretty clear that it was so. I was as low-spirited as I could stick even though Uma, Queen of Cats and Empress of Chatsford Hall lay at my feet doing an impersonation of an eel out of water in the hope, no doubt, of receiving a treat for the effort.

Empress Uma Maya 

"No, Poopsie, modern life is not much fun at all. Consider how Napoleon must have felt when Nelson sailed the British fleet into Cairo Bay and burned the French navy. Couldn't have been pleasant for him."

Sagi (Sagitarius) M'tesi

"It must have been much the same for Peter II when Catherine the soon to be Great, led the Russian army to the Winter Palace where he was in residence. No," I said, " modern life is just one damned thing after another, just as Shakespeare told us."

She gave me a quizzical look and I realized that she was about to interrupt my soliloquy with some drivel about Shakespeare but I wasn't done yet. I continued.

Beignet Lafayette

"But instead of searching for the silver lining of life's muddle-headedness, do you know what most people do? They get all hotted up and the pressure builds until they start leaking at the seams. You can find them grinding teeth and clenching fists and giving passersby a look that could open oysters at 20 paces. Only makes things worse, if you ask me."

I waited for her response, one that would make me feel that we commiserated if that's the word I'm looking for, but she didn't say anything, just gave me what passes with her as a compassionate look.

Lucy Lucille Lupe 

I remember thinking that brown eyes do a better job of portraying compassion than green eyes, but then it isn't her fault that she has the eyes of an elf, and besides, I knew what she meant. 

"Something really should be done before it's too late," I said.

"Done?" she said. "You mean something to change the general attitude of people you meet? Do you think that's possible?"

"Thank you for asking," I said. "I really would like to see people sweeten up a bit and I think I have the perfect antidote to whatever it is that poisons their outlook."

"Go on," she said.

"P.G. Wodehouse," I said. "It's imperative, the way I see it, that modern man, and woman too if she cares to join us, read Wodehouse to learn the importance of aunts, or rather, the importance of avoiding them."

Abbie (Abracadabra) Hoffman 

"But not cats," she said, always having her finger on the nub. "People must realize the importance of socializing with cats."

"Cats to be sure," I said. "Of what value would life be without cats? I mean, what's the point?"

We began to discuss the Wodehouse cannon and the relative importance of aunts and cats but somewhere along the way, and I'm not sure exactly where it occurred, I began talking about my own writing, and my hope that perhaps I could help supply some relief to pedestrians as they navigate life's potholes.

Eddy Spaghetti 

"I've paid my dues, the way many writers do, and I feel it's time I give back some of what I've learned," I said. "I shall stick to writing about what I know, which is normal life, or in the words of George Costanza, nothing at all, because that's what I know best. 

I'm as apolitical as an oyster but I'm not naive, at least I don't think so. I hope that I can follow in the great man's footsteps--I allude again to P.G.--and produce quality work in my latter years, just as he produced in his. Neither he nor I peaked early."

"I hope you consider offering spiritual guidance to your readers," she said.

"Not as such," I said. "My stories will be in the context of my own spiritual outlook but I will not be explicitly spiritual. I don't care to be preached at and I don't intend to engage in the practice. I have some knowledge of the Bible due simply to the age in which I grew up. We memorized and quoted Bible versus in primary school and I can nail down an allusion as quickly as Jael, the wife of Heber, who was always driving spikes into the coconuts of overnight guests.

"The plots I prefer are much the same as those of Shakespeare's comedies. The foibles of love and the antics of those trying to win or escape from love's embrace. There will be a scarcity of mothers and fathers, only because of my own upbringing, but a pile of aunts, uncles, and cousins, of which I had so many that laid end to end would stretch from here to the next presidential election."

"And cats," she said as Abbie Hoffman, who had just wandered into the room, and apparently decided that the number of felines in attendance exceeded the fire marshal's recommendations. He left the way he came.

"Absolutely cats," I said. "Cats add value to any subject and the absence of cats wounds even the best literature."

We both mused on this concept for several minutes, cats being a deep subject and a wide one too.

"I shall attempt to apply what I have learned from the master," I continued, "and use metaphor to the fullest extent. From bees fooling about in the flowers to the stars being God's daisy chain. I hope I can do it. I've certainly marinated myself in his works--not God's but Wodehouse's. I do hope so. These are truly troubling times we live in and we must battle the powers of darkness before we are undone."

"Excellent plan," she said. "I can't wait to see where this new path leads."

"Me too," I said and I meant it like the dickens!

Cats Annonymous

"Good morning," said a lump of bedclothes from Ms Wonder's side of the bed. "Back already?"

"Yes back from a sublime meditation and ready for whatever life wants to bung my way," I said.

"Well, take a look in the bathroom," she said ignoring my embellishments to the conversation. "Sagi's gone off his nut again."

"Much?" I asked with keen interest for this Sagi M'Tesi interests me strangely. We have done more than one intervention to catapult this feline into recovery but he continues to have problems with the first step.

"He's spent the morning decorating the bathroom in toilet tissue confetti," she said.

"And do you have a suggestion for action that I should take or would you prefer to allow him to finish with his work?"

"I thought you might get him back on the wagon--in the Chang Mai room."

"A sound suggestion," I said. "I think I can manage that armed only with a pure and compassionate heart. I have always found this Sagi to be a reasonable cat when not under the influence of double-ply tissue. I have no doubt that even in his delirium we can reach some arrangement."

"Whatever," she said.

I adjusted the waist of my Thai fisherman's pants, before entering the salle de bain, for one should always strive to appear natty when entering the presence of a Sagi. I entered stealthily and found a sanguine cat resting his head on a bath mat, eyes closed, paws drawn up to his chin in quiet repose. A quick glance around and I put it all together for we Genomes are quick to build the story from the clues. Sherlock Holmes was much the same.

Finding himself in a room that is normally off-limits to him, his first thought was to get to the highest observation station. The space chosen was occupied by a largish paper shopping bag filled with toilet tissue and so something had to give.  Sagi enjoys a 14-pound advantage over the bag so it was no mystery that all 12 rolls of tissue had spilled out over the floor even to the far corners.

When the bag spilled toilet tissue across the tile, the limbic system of this Sagi was strongly stirred and he, no doubt, experienced a strong desire to sink his teeth into something soft and pliable. The emotional struggle would have been intense. He tried his best, I am sure, but eventually his will power was no match for the primal urge. I believe the Irish hero, Chuhulain suffered from these battle frenzies.

Before he knew it, he'd set to work with fang and claw to shred each and every roll of tissue and then throw the bits around in an intoxicated frenzy. The emotional energy was quickly drained, leaving him with only enough strength to soak the last few rolls in kitty drool. And here was the end result, his eyes closed in sleep, oblivious to the carnage he'd wrought. When I arrived, he'd just begun to snore.

Mine is a kindly soul and I saw no reason to leave him lying here on the floor. I picked him up and as consciousness returned the look on his face told me that a deep remorse for his actions had arisen. He licked my hand to ask forgiveness--just one more time.

Then to let him know that we love him even when we don't approve his ways, I spoke in a soft voice, "Awake, beloved! Awake, for morning in the bowl of night has flung the stone that stirs the stars to flight; and lo! the hunter of the East has caught the Sultan's turret in a noose of light."

Switching to a fatherly tone I said, "If I were you, Sagi,  and I offer the suggestion in the most cordial spirit of goodwill. I would use every effort to prevent this passion from growing upon me. I know you will say you can take it or leave it alone; that just one roll won't hurt, but can you stop at one? Isn't it the first roll that does all the damage?

You suffer I believe from a Napoleon complex, one that convinces you to think that will-power alone is enough to defeat demon tissue. You must rely on your allies. We are here to help you.

After tucking him into his favorite koozie, I returned to the bedroom where Ms Wonder was now up and about, moving like a Spanish galleon under full sail.

"Thank you," she said.

"Not at all," I said. "I feel a profound sense of peace somehow and this morning has brought inspiration. You know how we writers are. I think I'll push off and put a few words together to make a sentence. Who knows, by the end of the day, I may have a paragraph or two.

Still Anonymous After All This Time

"What's that noise?" asked a voice from somewhere in the darkness. I opened my eyes thinking I was in the slot canyon I told you about--the one in Escalante in Utah. You remember that I saw the puma's paw print in the dust there. 

But I wasn't in the canyon this morning. I was in my bedroom and the voice belonged to Feldspar, the rock troll, or perhaps I was dreaming that he was sleeping on the bedroom floor waiting to be reunited with his native dimension.

"That's just Sagi," I said. "Sagi M'Tesi, one of the two magical wonder cats who live with us.

"Sagi?"

"He's shredding a roll of toilet paper," I said.

"Shredding toilet tissue?" he said.

"Tissue or paper," I said, "both are correct."

"Why?" he said.

"There you have me in deep waters, I'm afraid, but it's a favorite pastime," I said.

"Habitual?" he said.

"He finds it hard to resist but he swears he can stop anytime he chooses," I said.

"That's what they all say," he said.

"Well, nothing to do about it but wait for him to hit bottom," I said.

The conversation led from one topic to another as conversations do in the hours leading up to dawn. These desultory talks are dangerous places for me when my brain is just starting and the spark plugs are firing in random order. 

I felt the need to be outside so I hastily pulled on the outer crust and hied for the crepe myrtle glen. A bit of mindfulness hits the spot when the entire week has been nothing but one damn thing after another.

In the early morning stillness beneath the morning star and buoyed up by aromatic pine straw, I was serenaded by a mockingbird singing a selection of Frank Sinatra melodies. 

In the middle of "I've Got You Under My Skin," the dawn bloomed in all her South Durham rosiness and soon the sun was visible, hot-dogging in the heavens. His antics gave an iridescent glow to the edges of the leaves on the crepe myrtles. It was a mood lifter.

You may have read accounts of near-death experiences. If you have, then you're familiar with the reports of being surrounded and possibly buoyed up by a light of indescribable beauty. That's how I felt. 

Had Ms. Wonder been with me at the time, not that she is ever with me before 8:00 AM, having wisely concluded that since most heart attacks occur before that hour, I consider it prudent to stay in bed until the danger is past. 

But as I say, if she had been with me, I would have said, "I've got a feeling, everything's going my way!" I said it anyway.

I suddenly felt the urge to begin a brisk walk in the sunlight and remembered a quote from Shakespeare, some little gag from one of those plays you read in high school, if they still read Shakespeare in high school, "If something is worth doing, don't waste time thinking about it, just heave into it." I'm paraphrasing.

The walk worked its wonder and for several minutes I was caught up in all the beautiful ephemera of life. This kind of thinking is something that drives Princess Amy manic, her job being to spot danger and assign the yellow, orange, or red codes to the day. 

You remember Amy, of course, my own personal collection of almond-shaped neurons in the middle of my head. She made her best effort to turn my light, fluffy cumulus musings into the fret-edged stratus variety, but I saw through her plan right away.

Amy and I have danced around the block more than a few times. She works tirelessly to distract me and give the mean-spirited aunts of the universe an opening to sock me with a cosh behind the ear. 

Success does not come easy even without her monkey wrenches and who can say why really? It could be that the path deviates from the dotted line connecting A to B or it could be that life is simply difficult. I'm inclined to believe the latter. Scott Peck and the Buddhists agree with me on this. 

The point in all this is that Amy is intent on derailing the completion of my book, Out of the Blue. She'd laid her plans out accordingly and I might have stepped on the banana peel she'd placed in my path. 

Fortunately, having arrived at the northernmost edge of Chatsford Village, I turned and noticed far across the swale, up the terraced hillside, and beyond the ha-ha, my six-cylindered, front-wheel driven charger, waiting to answer my whistle. 

The sight of her reminded me of all the road trips we'd taken in the bright sunshine and in the gentle rain and it was as though I were standing in that before-mentioned indescribably beautiful light once more.

I raised my arm in salute and said to the morning air, "Good morning, Wynd Horse!" Now I know you're going to find it difficult to credit this but if you've followed this blog for a few turns of the moon, then surely you know that I do not mislead my audience. Not intentionally. 

And I'm not misleading you now when I say that no sooner had I greeted her than she responded with "Toot, toot!" 

That's right; all one her own. It's little things like that in life that make all the difference, don't you think so?