Clearing The Air

Over the weekend I got unhinged by kittens.  Boy that was fun.  Now it’s a weekday.  So back to work:  I want the world to improve.  For cats, that is.  No hope remains, where beans are concerned.  Present company excepted.  (Cue laughter.  Cue laughter.  ::tap tap::  Is this thing on?)

Skeleton walks into a bar and says to the bartender:  “I’ll have a beer and a mop.”

Took me a while, too.  Beer, skeleton, beer ends up where?  Ah, good.  This thing is on after all.

Important Point again:

“All the heady-info in the world can’t help a bean who’s laboring under the burden of fear and worry.”

Heady info in this case:  Cats develop their predation and foraging skills by play.

Inference:  Bugs may have been mistaking Bean for a littermate.

Action Plan:  Firm “no,” followed by “yes” more in line with both points of view.

And the only thing standing between this Bean and the diamond-like clarity of that theory was the emotional fug around here.  Which to me felt just like fresh air.

So it is, unaware, we walk through our lives thinking we know what’s up.

Visual:  One man on a horse, the other man sitting on a saddle suspended in mid-air.

Saddle-guy says to the other:  “The way I see it, we’re all riding in on our delusions.”

Now I’m reading this great book about that kind of thing.  It’s called Incognito, by David Eagleman.  Terry Gross did an interview with him on “Fresh Air” recently.

http://www.npr.org/2011/05/31/136495499/incognito-whats-hiding-in-the-unconscious-mind

Here’s what the emotional atmosphere looks like around here as of yesterday:

I attribute this to the fug clearing, and info penetrating.  I could actually take in comments from you, Teresa of Tellington, Kim of Michigan, and Jackson of Galaxy.

Info:  Cats need secure runways through the territory and they need high places from which to ponder the world’s errors.  Maybe not all cats?

Inference:  But in this cat Bugs’s case, the inference might be justified — given his aerial exploits to date — that his emotional climate may have been adversely affected by missing those two attributes in this place.

Action Plan:  Clear some space in the physical plant as well as the emotional one.  Yesterday I moved some stuff off high places and went in search of runway-material.  (And you’ll be proud of my self-discipline in steering well clear of the PetSmart kittens lurking nearby.  For the moment.)

Here is the beautiful material I found at Bed Bath and Beyond.

It’s billed as a rubber-backed microfiber kitchen-rug.  It is no-skid and it must be so sweet on the pitty-paws.   I wondered how Bugs would take in that smell scent that pervades all things BB&B – but  Bugs sat all over the material as I was cutting it, so maybe the smell scent is not an issue for him.  I’m sorry I didn’t grab the camera, but I was trying to focus in the available time.  Here is the result.

That’s my grandmother in the background, my father’s mother.  I found that photo of her in the recent flood damage.  When I was small I loved her with all my might.  Now I like the imperfection of it all.  I also like this broken angel I put near her.  (Guess who broke it.)

We’re all broken angels.