Random Thoughts

Not much to talk about really. Just bits and pieces that were laying around in my blog folder…

The Sacrificial Cube
This started a long time ago when Marv would get ice from the freezer for his ice tea or soda. Invariably, he would drop a cube on the floor. Every time. He started calling that the “sacrificial cube” that paid the price for all the other cubes. Sometimes he would go to great lengths to try and save that cube. It would involve acrobatics the like of which you’ve never seen. But alas, the cube would end up on the floor…

Clinking Kitty Dishes
I’ve had cats that would come running whenever the can opener was employed. Sometimes they were rewarded with mushy cat food. Most often, it was a can of olives I was opening, or perhaps some new potatoes. I would offer them some, but they would turn up their noses. Nowadays, the canned food comes with pull-tab tops. No can opener required. My current cats, Harper and Sheba, have no interest in the can opener whatsoever. What brings them running, however, is the clink of the 2 porcelain dishes I use for their mushy food. They’re just cheap, mass produced little pudding dishes like you see in a hospital or nursing home. In fact, I think that’s where one of them came from. I think my dad took one when my mom was in the nursing home. It probably had pudding or jello that she didn’t eat, but my dad took home with him to eat as a snack later. The second one I got at Salvation Army specifically for the use of the cats. I have to be very careful when taking those dishes out of the dishwasher, because if they clink together and the cats hear them, they come running and won’t leave until they get those dishes filled and placed on the floor.

Special Powers
I have long suspected that my cats have special powers. I now have proof. Harper can transport himself outside without benefit of a door. The in/out, in/out stuff is not unusual. As T.S. Eliot said, “He’s on the wrong side of every door.” And it’s easy to lose track of who is in or out when we go to bed, because they’ve done nothing but the in/out all evening. Yesterday, though, was different. We’ve had to keep Harper in for the last week and a half because of stitches he got after an injury. And he’d been increasingly anxious to GO OUT, DAMMIT!! (Yes, I’m afraid Harper has a potty mouth…) So yesterday, Marv got home from work. He was in the family room and I was in the kitchen starting on dinner. He said something, and I went to the doorway of the family room to answer, and we both heard Harper’s paws on the sliding glass door FROM THE OUTSIDE! WANTING IN! We looked at each other and said “How did he do that?!?” Because I KNOW I didn’t let him out! The answer: teleportation! It’s the only way…..

Grandma’s sayings
My maternal grandparents lived with us while I was growing up, and Grandma had a lot of sayings that she would employ as needed. I really wish I’d written more of them down. These are the only ones I can remember.

1. “If you dream about the dead, you’ll be surprised by the living.” I always thought this was a neat one.

2. “There’re more ways to kill a cat other than choking it to death on butter.” Don’t remember the circumstances with this one…it’s probably a variation of the ‘more than one way to kill a cat’ but the addition of the butter made it different.

3. “It doesn’t eat any bread or butter.” This was said if there was a sale on something like toilet paper or something not readily perishable. All it took was the space to store it in. I have used this saying once or twice myself when debating on whether to get the big box of dishwasher tabs on sale, even though I really don’t need them just yet.