Get With the Program

It was the year that Blue Bottle won the Preakness. A good year for her, without a doubt, but not good for the Genome. I had busted. Wile E. Coyote notwithstanding, one does not remain aloft after running off the edge of the world. When I crashed, I held nothing back.

Everyone gave up on me, including me, everyone but my best friend, Poopsie Wonder. Ms. Wonder reasoned that as long as there was breath in my body, something in the wind might stir me; as long as there was moisture in my cells, the sea might have some telling wisdom; as long as the temperature was close to 98.6, a spark might remain to be fanned into flame. 

In other words, as long as I was alive, there was hope. I know! Imagine that! Talk about stalwart resolution. I later learned that it's hard-coded into the descendants of the Russian steppes.

Poopsie knew that if anyone in Houston could speak the word in season, it was Cowboy Dan, a devotee of Wen, The Eternally Surprised. Dan condensed his life into a 20-minute verbal documentary and a miracle occurred as I sat listening. Well, two miracles all told. The first was that I listened. The second was that I forgot my hopelessness and began to be grateful that I had escaped the destruction that had plagued Dan. 

Talk about a smash-up! But Dan had found a way to turn his life around and his new life was just what I wanted for myself. I began to wonder how this was possible.

"How is this possible," I asked Dan. "How did you do it?"

"It's simple," said Dan. "Anyone can do it."

"Do you think that I can do it?" I asked.

"I know you can," he assured me. "The fact is," Genome, "you just don't have to live that way anymore."

"Will you help me?" I asked.

"I'll offer you some guidance," he said, "but there are conditions."

"Anything," I said.

He mused. He pursed the lips and moved them this way and that. It's a technique that seems to help people think but it's never worked for me. Perhaps you use it, perhaps not, but that's what he did. Then he spoke.

"OK, here are the conditions," he said. "I will not be your teacher but I will attempt to guide you. You must be willing to try anything that I suggest. If I think you are not willing, I will stop working with you. Agreed?"

"You mean you want me as an apprentice?" I asked, overjoyed that there might be hope for me yet.

"Of course not," he said, "Don't be silly. Why would I want that? Just be over at my place tomorrow morning at 7:00 AM. We've got a lot of work to do and the sooner we begin, the better."

Next morning, I was up early--with the larks and snails apparently--and I got to his place on time with the book he'd loaned me. I didn't know it then but we were people of the book too but unlike all the other people of the book, we were allowed to improve ours from time to time. To update it as it were.

I was anxious to begin and drank the first cup of Jah's Mercy.

"Ready to begin?" he asked.

"I am," I said.

"Come over here with me," he said and I followed him to a small closet in the corner of the kitchen.

"Lesson number one," he said, handing me a broom and then taking out a second for himself.

"One hand here and the other here," he said. "People never get it right. Smooth even strokes," he said demonstrating the move. "Let the broom do the work. Just a small amount each time--like that. Don't try to get all the dirt in one go, you just wind up spreading it around."

I gave him a look. It felt questioning to me but it must have come across differently to him.

"Don't worry," he said, "no one gets it right the first time. It takes practice to get really good."

And that's how I became an apprentice of Wen, The Eternally Surprised. Since mastering the broom, I have added the fan and the umbrella to my accomplishments. I'm now working on the walking cane. Life just gets better and better in the Program. I hope you have one.

Cats Anonymous

"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 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'm sure 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. I put it all together with one quick glance around for we Genomes are quick to build the story from the clues. Sherlock Holmes was much the same.

Finding himself in a room normally off-limits to him, his first thought was to get to the highest observation post. I'm sure you would do the same. The space chosen was occupied by a large paper shopping bag filled with toilet tissue, so something had to give. Sagi enjoys a 14-pound advantage over the bag, so it was no mystery that all twelve 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. I'm sure the emotional struggle was intense, but his willpower was no match for the primal urge. I believe the Irish hero, Chuhulain, suffered from similar 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. His emotional energy drained quickly, leaving him 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.

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

I spoke in a soft voice to let him know that we love him even when we don't approve his ways. "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."

"If I were you, Sagi, and I offer the suggestion in a spirit of goodwill, I would use every effort to prevent this passion from growing. 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 willpower alone is enough to defeat demon tissue. You must rely on your allies and we are all 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 now that the thing is over, I feel inspired to 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.

A Tide in Cat Affairs

Thursday evening used to be the most boring night of the week at Chatsford Hall because even though it's almost the weekend, it's not quite enough to be getting on with. That all changed when one of the staff recommended devoting the evening to cat pruning. 

I realize, now that it's too late, that she meant well but was undoubtedly suffering from one of those empty-calorie, sugary drinks, the kind that caused all that unpleasantness in New York a while back. Ms. Wonder took the suggestion seriously and that put an end to the quiet near-weekend evenings.

Last Thursday, as I was putting away a stack of vinyl records, I noticed the handle of Beignet's hair brush sticking out from a chair cushion where he'd hidden it along with some of his favorite light reading. 

This Beignet is a largish, ginger and white cat of about the tonnage of Muhammed Ali when he faced Joe Frazier in that Thrilla in Manilla.

When I tell you that he loves this brush I am understating it. He can't get enough of the thing. Wants to keep it all to himself too. I've tried to convey the wisdom of the Middle Way but he has no control over this aspect of his life. He's powerless over the brush. I fret that, by brushing him so often, I'm enabling him to continue his addictive behavior, but what can I do? He's my cat!

While I stood in a meditative trance, my attention focused on the hairbrush, his sixth sense alerted him, causing him to give voice. I turned toward that trilling soprano and became aware that a drama was brewing somewhere in all that fur. 

There he stood, wider and rounder-eyed than usual, and the expression on his face spoke of his inner feelings, a swelling enthusiasm that is all too familiar to the Genome. And I'll tell you the inner thoughts he expressed:

There is a tide in the affairs, is the way the thought begins--Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. I'm sure I don't have to tell you how much this Beignet admires the work of the Bard. The thought doesn't end with the tide in the affairs but continues, which taken at the flood, and we know of course that having the brush in my hand becomes to this cat, the height of the flood. Then comes the payoff, leads on to fortune. 

At this point, he no doubt thought, Here is the tide in the affair and an opportunity for a brushing and no time to lose. He moved forward. I moved back. It's the natural reaction when being chivied in that strong, silent, earnest manner characteristic of this breed--a fine Raggamuffin kitty. 

When I collided with the chair in the corner of the room, I was immediately aware that resistance was futile. There was nothing wiser than to get it over with. I raised my eyebrows to signify, "What about it?"

To leap onto my chest and press me into the chair was with him the work of an instant. He placed his paws on my shoulders and gave me a series of head butts. Then he gazed deeply into my eyes and said, Let's do this.

You understand that I had no choice. As soon as the strokes began, moving from the base of the neck, down the spine and not stopping until the tip of the tail, his expression changed to one both grave and dreamy. 

This expression implies that he is thinking deep and beautiful thoughts. Quite misleading of course. I don't suppose he'd recognize a deep and beautiful thought if you handed it to him on a platter of sardines. No matter. Not germane. I just mentioned it in passing.

If I could only convince this cat to read Jimmy Buffet instead of Shakespeare, he might become more interested in road trips and less interested in brushing. Sort of an intervention. I'd like to hear your opinion on the matter. Worth a try do you think?

Little Cat Feet

"What's the problem?" asked Ms. Wonder when she came into the dressing salon. It may have been my slow, careful movement through the sea of cats that prompted her question. "Something wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," I said, "I remain, as always, the pert and nimble spirit you see before you."

"Before I what?"

Eddy Peabody

"Before you think of your own adjectives," I said. "And no more of the high-order repartee, if you please. I'm practicing fierce living like the dickens right now because sewer harpies that I will not name are intent on bringing me in sorrow to the floor."

"Where do you get this drivel? Do you read it somewhere or make it up?"

"I make most of it up but that doesn't mean that I haven't read it, or at least something like it somewhere. Wodehouse probably."

"I thought as much," she said. "Anything I can do to help?"

"Do you have American standard wrenches in your toolbox?" I said. "I need to replace a couple of vertebrates in my lower back--numbers 4 and 5. But all my wrenches are metric."

"Sorry," she said, "no wrenches."

"Well, number 4 is moving like the North American tectonic plate and bumping up against number 5, which is moving like the Pacific plate, and if the pressure isn't released soon, California is going to fall into the ocean."

"Is that what's bothering you?" she said.

"Why do you insist that something is bothering me?" 

"Oh, just thought I would," she said. "Bad dreams?"

"Not particularly. I slew all my enemies in my dream, and the interesting part is that I did it with the jawbone of an ass."

"Just drifting off station then?"

"I fancy so, don't you? Can't think of anything that's gone especially wacky in the last 24 hours. I suppose Princess Amy is just bored and thinking of all the things that might possibly go wrong, which of course would be everything as far as she's concerned."

Now, if you regularly attend The Circular Journey, you are familiar with that little clump of grey cells sitting in the middle of my head who goes by the name, Amy. You are also aware that Amy follows a line through the Red Queen from Looking Glass World, and you understand that when Amy is discontent, the Genome is manic.

I wrestled a pair of socks from the dresser and began to upholster the outer man. This requires delicate acrobatics for those of us who lack the full cooperation of the lower back, and as I rolled back on the bed to bring the feet closer to the hands, Eddy the cat developed an acute interest in the socks. His intentions were good, but we all know where that leads, don't we?

"Are you going to wear knickers under those pants?" asked Ms. Wonder eyeing the clothes I'd laid out.

"Of course, I'm wearing knickers," I said holding Eddy back with one hand and attempting to don the socks with the other. "Do you think me wanton?"

"It's just that I don't see any on the bed."

"I'm wearing them now," I said, "underneath the robe."

"I'll give him a treat," she said and after some intense concentration, I realized that she was talking about the cat.

"Oh, sure," I said, "reward him for keeping me sock-less."

"What are you going to do about California?" she called from the laundry room where the treats are stored. Eddy heard them rattle in the bottle and catapulted himself from the bed and into the ether, in the general direction of the laundry room.

"I think the great Eureka State will have to take care of itself. I've got about all I can handle with the situation here at Chatsford Hall."

"What's the situation here," she said, "other than getting dressed I mean?"

"Oh, you know--ordinary life," I said. "It isn't always easy, is it? Who can say why, really? It could be that the path deviates sometimes from the dotted line connecting A with B. Or it could be that the Fate sisters, those Great Aunts of the Universe, are busy dropping banana skins in our path. I lean toward the second line of thought, don't you?"

"Well," she said, "if it means anything to you, I have all the confidence in the world that you will get the latest issue of the Happy Cats newsletter published today. You are the Genome, descendent of Ortho Gherardini, and when you make up your mind, look out Princess Amy."

"Besides," the Wonder said, "you have people who depend on you. Big and small people. Some of the littlest ones are the most important."

She smiled at the cats gathering around me now that she'd placed the bottle of treats in my hand. They were all there. Ben, Sagi, and Uma were at my feet. Abbie Hoffman was sitting high atop the cat tree and, Eddy the kitten, was walking about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.

"I do have people depending on me, don't I? The big and the small. Some of them wearing fur," I said lifting the chin and swelling the chest. "Thanks, Poopsie."

"Not at all."

Streaming Universe

"You're in such a wicked mood. What's happened to you anyway? You had so much promise when you were younger and we expected much, much more from you. Didn't we Claudia? Genome, did your mom drop you on your head as a child?"

Claudia didn't look up from her phone, but she did snicker, and not in a flattering way.

The snarky comment came from Lupe, but you probably guessed that. I'd come to Native Grounds this Friday morning needing a quick pick-me-up but found Lupe here instead. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. She may offer only a half-dose of whatever it is she brings to the table, but she's always there for me. Something to be said for that.

"My mother did drop me on my head as a child," I said, "and it's not funny. Think what might have happened."

"That's what I'm thinking of, and I'm convinced that whatever might have happened did happen."

"Oh, shut up," I said but with the velvet glove because I didn't really want to offend. "Let me tell you why I'm so bent."

"Do," she said. 

"I recently went to Ocean Isle, to the memorial sand dunes, to give the Universe a piece of my mind."

"The memorial sand dunes," Lupe explained for Claudia, "is what he calls the spot on the beach where he talks to the Universe and all the souls who've passed through the veil."

I waited patiently for Claudia's response. She first glanced in my direction and then at Lupe. She offered a sort of eyebrow-lifting hint of a shrug and then went back to the phone.

"You, stooge," Lupe said to me. "You thought you'd get tough with the Universe, didn't you, and I bet it didn't work, did it?"

"Stooge is right," I said. "Believe me, Lupe, I want to believe all that guff about the Universe watching my back and looking out for my best interests. I really do. I've tried. But it doesn't work for me."

"You misunderstand me," she said. "I didn't mean stooge as in someone who always becomes the butt of practical jokes."

"You don't?"

"I mean stooge as in one of the Three Stooges. Someone who, no matter how hard he tries, always looks silly in the end."

"A comedy ensemble from the 1940's," Lupe explained to Claudia who had looked up from her phone with a furrowed brow and a sideways glance at me. You do the translation.

I mused on her words because if you remember the recent post mentioned above, I gave it my best in Ocean Isle but my best just wasn't good enough. If you missed the post, you can find it by searching The Circular Journey for A Day of Reckoning.

"The Universe has been watching over you all your life," Lupe said.

"She's done a poor job of it," I said.

"Are you completely looney?" she said. "Forget that, not a question. Of course, you're looney. Looney to the eyebrows, if I remember the full diagnosis.

"Lupe!" I said. "Rally around you, little geezer. You're supposed to be on my side."

"Look, Genome, you're not a bad guy. I'd say most people like you, just in small doses, right Claudia?"

Claudia didn't respond. Apparently, something big was trending on TikTok.

"That's right," Lupe continued. "You've had a fantastic life. You have wonderful stories that people love to hear. Even Claudia and I love to hear your stories, and we're the last people you'd expect to appreciate your antics."

Claudia looked up from her phone and looked directly at me with a crooked smile and nodded at me. It was a tiny nod. Barely perceptible but I got the message.

I was having a hard time taking it all in. I've heard about the limited bandwidth the mind has for processing information but this was information overload on a massive scale.

"You see, all those wonderful things that happened to you weren't the results of your plans or your actions. No, they occurred serendipitously."

"Stop right there," I said. "I know what you're going to say. I've said it myself when trying to convince myself that there's hope in the future. But believe me, you little half-measure, it's all random, accidents. Nothing more."

"You don't know what I'm going to say," she said. "Consider the earwig on the lanai this morning."

"How do you know about the earwig?" I said.

"What's an earwig?" said Claudia, finally a part of the conversation.

"Why did that earwig live to tell the story?" asked Lupe.

"Because I chose to let it live another day. Live and let live is my motto."

"I'll bet that earwig is telling its buddies the story right now. The friends are probably saying, You should be grateful that the Universe is looking out for you today. But the earwig is objecting. It's not the Universe, he's saying. "It's just random accidental events. I was lucky that's all."

"Now, I ask you," she said to me. "Was it just an accident that the earwig is still alive?"

"No," I said. "He survived because I decided to let him go. It was an intentional gift of kindness."

Lupe didn't respond right away. She watched my face in silence giving her words time to sink in for full effect. At least, that's my take on it. You may see it differently.

"Here's the deal, Genome. Consciousness. There's only one. It's Universal. The Universe desires physical experience. If you want my opinion, our brains are tuned into one or more channels where we get subtle suggestions and a little nudging. It's like tuning a radio."

"It's a box where people listen to music and talk shows," she said to Claudia.

"I know what a radio is," said Claudia.

"Bottom line," said Lupe. "The Universe has been looking out for you since you were fetal." Then as an afterthought, she added, "There's a chance you may still be."

"Fetal?" I said. "Are you calling me fetal?"

"Did I say that out loud?" she said.

"Fetal?" I said again because I didn't fully understand her point and was trying to hide the fact by appearing to be offended. Don't knock it. It may be a new concept to you but it seems to work for many.

"You'd think," Lupe said to Claudia, "that just having Ms. Wonder in your life would be enough to convince a person that they've been given a special ride."

Claudia put the phone down. She looked directly into my eyes as if to avoid any chance of misunderstanding. Then she nodded knowingly and that nod spoke volumes.