Coffee Therapy

It was one of those breezy, humid mornings when nature seems to be considering scaring the bejeezus out of local inhabitants with a hell of a wicked thunderstorm.

"Better stay home. Who wants to negotiate downtown traffic in a monsoon?" The words floated up from Princess Amy's control room deep in my brain. The mid-brain is the location of her command and control center, or so I'm told, but I wouldn't know the mid-brain from the suburbs.

"Sorry, Amy," I said. "I need to get out of the house. I feel like a balloon with more than the recommended dose of atmosphere, if atmosphere is the word I want."

Wind Horse was purring smoothly as we crossed the newly renovated Memorial Bridge. I immediately saw the thunderhead rolling up the river from the stormy Atlantic, moving past the port, on its way downtown. Lightning bolts danced about in the depths of the darkness. It looked wicked and I didn't like it.

"Faster, faster!" urged Amy. She was talking to me, not the storm. "Castle Street's going to be a river by the time we get there."

"Easy, Amy," I said. "Don't allow your knickers to get all twisted."

By the time I parked, the floodgates had opened, and the downpour obscured my vision. I walked quickly through the rain with a bowed head and an angry heart. I was fed up with all the nonsense that Life was throwing my way over the past week. I was mad as hell and I wasn't going to take it anymore. That's what I told myself but I was at a loss as to what I would do about it exactly.  

Pausing halfway through the cafe door, I assessed the state of the interior. Several people were in line ahead of me. Not good I thought and I could feel Princess Amy taking it big too. 

"I told you!" she said. "We never should have left home. Maybe you'll pay more attention to me next time"

Rather than getting in line, I waved to the barista behind the bar in a way designed to indicate I was desperate for an infusion of Jah’s mercy, and pleading for her to do her utmost to do something about it.

She nodded in a way that assured me she would attend to the matter immediately. I knew this maiden well and I was certain that just like an Arabian genie when her lamp is rubbed, it would be with her the work of an instant to vanish from the crowd and reappear at my table with the promised elixir.

"There's nowhere to sit," said Amy.

I scrutinized the room and there to my wandering eye appeared, my old pal, Doyle Jaynes, seated in the middle of the room, with a peculiar look on his face. It was a look usually seen on the faces of dog walkers who, on rainy days like this one, wish they'd chosen another career. 

I crossed the room and nodded to Jaynes who had finally looked my way. As I sat, I asked, "What's wrong with you? You look like...well, never mind what you look like. I probably look the same."

"Mine is a long story," he said, "full of heartbreak and grief. I've been abandoned by the one I most depended on."

"Well, so is mine a long story," I said, "although I'll bet it shares nothing in common with yours. Still, a warm, friendly environment and a bottomless supply of steaming brew-ha-ha help to make a fine day for it. Who'll get us started, you or me?"

And just at that precise moment, the barista arrived with my cappuccino. Perfect timing. A good day to die, as my ancestors would say. It's a traditional term meant to indicate that one has lived a good life and has no unresolved regrets hanging around.

Each day is a special and unique gift. No matter what comes with it, it's the same day--good or bad, happy or sad. Seems to me, we might as well accept life as it is and get on with it. When there's a dry spot with a friendly face in it and a mug of globally brewed and locally roasted, who needs therapy?

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."