CAT TALES

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (11-11-21)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

     If you didn't know that October 29th was National Cat Day, and you didn't get your cat a present, and today that really good book you had almost finished is shredded into a million pieces, now you know why. A cat is a cute, cuddly, furry, friendly, curious, inscrutable, somewhat dangerous, evil, diabolical, devil-worshiping, homicidal bundle of joy, and last Wednesday was his day to shine.

     I always seem to have a cat, and I'm not really sure myself why I like them, if I indeed even do. I think it has to do with the fact that inside a cat's brain there are many lobes and cortexes and synapses, and not one of them is on speaking terms with the others. There is something about the way a cat is wired that seems like it might not be up to code. Every cat I've ever known did something weird, and no matter how embarrassing it was to either of us, was oddly unapologetic about it.

     I had a Siamese cat that used to eat holes in your sweater as if it was a moth. Did you ever see anyone in Siam wearing a sweater? I didn't think so. I had what's known as a "tuxedo cat," which used to enjoy shinnying up your entire body with its claws and perching on your shoulder, which was disconcerting but at least it was impeccably dressed. Once he did it to a contractor that had come to install new windows, and I can't help thinking that we paid more than we should have for those windows. And I had another cat who used to like to play the piano. He wasn't very good at it but he was definitely better than me. The cat I have now (there might be more than one of them) pretends to hate me during the day and at night likes to nestle next to me only if no one else is looking, just like a girl I used to know in high school. I once had a cat that had six toes, whom I guess would have been better at the piano.

     My dog will fetch a tennis ball once in a while, although she won't bring it back to you. A dog is focused on the thing it's playing with, trying to remember what the rules are. But a cat is out there racking it's brain to find a game to beat YOU in. It's making up the rules, then not playing by them. It's personal. My wife has a particular chair that she likes because it's comfortable and easy on her back. The cat has zero interest in that chair the 99 percent of the time that my wife doesn't want to sit in it. For the other one percent, the cat will figure out a way to get into that chair. The go-to move is to use the litter box so vigorously that civilized societal norms dictate that my wife leave the chair to go clean it.

     I had another cat when I was growing up who, if you stared into its eyes, would charge directly at you like a deranged psychopath off his medication, and just when your life had finished flashing in front of you, wold stop and give you that "Aw, I was just messing with you" look. It was surprising both how disturbingly dark that cat's moods were, and boring my life was when it flashed in front of me.

     For once I would like to have a cat that was evil, yes, but not to me. I picture one like Blofeld's Persian cat in the James Bond movie, that sits on my lap and sometimes I let her push the button that drops Bond into the alligator pit, and we both share a laugh over it. Or maybe a cat that torments the moles that are digging up my lawn, and brings me one as a gift. I say, "I'll unwrap it later, because it's kind of gross," and we both share a laugh over it. Or maybe the cat and the mole figure out a way to pay the real estate taxes directly from my bank account and get themselves listed as tennants-in-common owners of my property, have me evicted and share a good laugh over it. See what happens? All cats will eventually come for you, but it does keep you on your claws.

     If I ever catch up with Charles Darwin, he's got a lot of explaining to do about his stupid theories. For instance, If he were here right now he would probably be spouting that crap about homo sapiens being at the top of the food chain. I'm a homo myself, and I get up at 6:00 AM, work 12 hours a day including the commute, pay for the dry cleaning, make dinner and pick up everything the cat knocks over. Felis catus sleeps on the couch for 22 hours out of the day, wears the same outfit all the time, gets all meals for free and licks whatever he wants, whenever he wants. YOU tell ME who won evolution.

OLD SCHOOL RULES FOR GHOULS

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (11-04-21)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

 
     When you're out trick-or-treating do you ever think about WHY you're doing it? For the candy, of course, is the short answer to the $100,000 Bar question. The longer answer is a mish-mosh of religious ritual, superstition and modern embellishment. Some of the traditions that we now celebrate as Halloween can be traced to Samhain, a Celtic observance dating back to the 10th century. Held on November first, it marked the beginning of the "darker months," a day when communion with the netherworld was thought to be easier.

     When the Romans conquered much of Europe, All Saints Day was already on November first and their version of Samhain moved up a day to become known as All Hallows Eve, or Halloween. Dressing up as ghosts or fairies was a way of bridging the distance between this world and the next, and honoring the dead. How we got from that to the "sexy dentist" costume is just America working its magic.

     The practice of trick-or-treating possibly evolved from the practice of leaving food or gifts in a sacrifice as thanks for a successful harvest. A recent poll found that "Sour Patch Kids" is the most popular 2021 Halloween candy in six states. Here I'd like to point out that if I were a god, I would not be thrilled by that as a gift, and you should expect to see some wilted crops next year, and possibly a plague of locusts. Did you happen to notice that the cicadas came this year? This should prick up the ears of anyone who gave out Sour Patch Kids as a Halloween treat last year. I feel a certain responsibility to inform the public about things like this.

     Some of what we do around holidays seems pretty random. Bobbing for apples? I just don't see me putting my whole face in a tub of cold water and the prize is a wet apple that already has the teeth marks of someone with worse aim. Maybe if the payoff was a little more in line with the possibility of ruining my hair I'd give it a try. What about bobbing for magnesium-alloy wheel rims, or bobbing for insurance vouchers?

     Yes, there are some new rules about Halloween, like you shouldn't appropriate other peoples' ethnic identities by dressing up in goofy versions of their costumes. If you're not Native American, it's not as nice these days to traipse around in a headdress waving a tomahawk at people. If you ARE Native American, then it's not exactly a costume so you shouldn't wear it on Halloween either. Trick-or-treating is tricky these days. Once I dressed up like one of the Beatles, but I wasn't actually one of the Beatles, so it was probably culturally inappropriate and I hope I didn't hurt anybody's feelings.

     You're probably wondering how all this relates to the fact that my next-door neighbor Dave's parents made him this great "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" costume out of a refrigerator box, and I hounded my parents day and night but they refused to buy a new refrigerator just so I could have a really great Halloween costume. I don't know why, because our refrigerator was so old that there were fossilized spare ribs in the back of the freezer from the Cretaceous period. I was left to fashion my usual "hobo" outfit, which was basically whatever I wore to school the day before with a few extra rips and more dirt than usual rubbed into the knees. Dressed thus you really could believe that we were the only poor people living in Chappaqua who could not afford a new refrigerator.

     Halloween has definitely done a 180-degree turn over the centuries, evolving from a dark, pagan observance in service of the dead to a light-hearted excuse for a party with people whose identity you won't find out until they either remove their costumes, or you read about them the next day in the police blotter.

     Appropriately, there are at least two black cats that live in my house, and I can see why people are superstitious about them. If you consider something that throws up on your newspaper fairly often to be bad luck, then I sympathize with you. In their defense, a lot of what I read in newspapers makes me want to do the same thing. I wouldn't waste your time being afraid of them, though. If they cross your path it only means you're standing in front of the food bowl.

MISSED MANNERS

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (10-28-21)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

     I was leaving somewhere recently with friends, and without speaking, in a familiar dance, we almost came to blows because everyone wanted to hold the door open for the others, and no one wanted to proceed through it. It's literally a rite of passage, and it made me wonder why we still bother with such archaic niceties. Thank goodness it wasn't a revolving door or it could have been much worse. 

     Many customs that are accepted behavior today were related to simple survival when they were conceived. "Ladies first" probably originated back in the Stone Age, when you brought your wooly rhinoceros back to the cave, and all the knuckledraggers from next door heard about it and rained a hail of rocks and crudely-designed arrows towards your entrance. You tell your family, "We're going to have to get out of here. Honey, I'll get the door. After YOU." And you courteously wave your arm towards the great outdoors.

     Or possibly in the heyday of maritime travel. By the time the Titanic sank, "women and children first" was the order of the day. "Crew, man the lifeboats. Women and children, into the water you go and the rescue officers will pick you up. And let us know if the water is totally freezing, or if it's doable."

     I haven't figured out why people say "bless you" when you sneeze. You can ordinarily recover from sneezing without the blessings of others, whereas coughing might be more problematic and in need of a quick invocation. I'm allergic to cats, and I can sneeze 20 times in a row before the cat leaves to go lick something. You might count my blessings once or twice, but after that you'll probably cut me loose bless-less. Incidentally the cat sneezes a lot too and may be allergic to me.

     There are a lot of table manners to keep track of, too. My wife is always telling me, "Don't talk with your mouth open." I say, "I thought it was 'don't talk with your mouth full?'" She answers, "Okay, well maybe it's better to err on the side of caution." There are quite a few forks and spoons on the table, and they might look exactly the same, but don't be churlish and try to eat salad with a fork that was not designed specifically for that purpose.

     Don't put your elbows on the table. Already there's a thigh of turkey, a rump roast, a rack of lamb, meatballs and a breast of chicken on the table. My elbows are about the most polite body part on there, but whatever. Someone asked me to pass them a dinner roll, and even though I put it right between the numbers with a perfect spiral, everyone gave me a dirty look.

     Chivalry is just the kind of thing that will make me look bad in front of the Queen. I'm on my way to a dinner at the Queen of England's house with a Damsel in Distress by my side, and of course it's pouring outside. "Look at dis dress," she says, "it's going to be ruined if I walk through that puddle!" Without a second thought (I can't share what the first one was) I take off my jacket and spread it on the ground, and she walks over it, sinks in the mud, ruins her dress and starts crying her eyes out. Being a gentlemen I extend her my handkerchief and she blows her nose in it a few times and hands it back. I offer her a cigarette to calm her nerves. "Take one, they're quite bad for you." I don't smoke so I'm trying to get rid of them. She lights it and goes back to the car even more distraught because she doesn't smoke either. When I get to the Queen's house she gives me a disgusted look, more disgusted than the one she usually gives me, and I see that she's looking at the muddy jacket with the snotty handkerchief sticking out, and I'm pretty sure she's not grasping how polite I am.

     I always laugh when I remember seeing photos of Trump in the rain with someone holding an umbrella over him while Melania tags along behind him with beautiful wet hair. If anyone can show us the way out of the era of all this annoying common courtesy, THIS is the leader that can DO it! Until then, I'll still hold the door open for for you, but I might also rudely interrupt the conversation with a joke that only I thought was funny.

 

WINNING WAYS

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (10-21-21)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

     Just to get out of the house we decided to check out the Mohegan Sun casino in Uncasville, Connecticut. The easiest part of going to the casino is finding out roughly where it is. You can drive yourself into the vicinity using a GPS, but then you've got to park your car and get to the actual building, and that's the hard part. I don't like leaving my car with a valet, because what if everyone goes bust at the same time and they besiege the valet? Then it will be like every wedding I've ever gone to, where you appraise the guests and try to game the moment at the end of the night when they've talked to everyone they know and danced as if no one was watching and they're looking around for where they left their tie or shoes, and you try to beat them to the car park, but you can't remember where you left your tie and shoes. Plus, don't you recall a Cheech and Chong movie where they're valets but instead of parking the car they take it to the La Brea Tar Pits and then come back following a truck carrying chickens with loose feathers and end up in a hail storm? I don't either but there are a lot of things from those times that I don't recall.

     So I finally find the self-park garage, and I drive up three levels, and I only see "EXIT" signs that look like they go around in circles, and still nothing that says "ENTER." The garage at Mohegan Sun has a sign that lights up and says "SPACE 12,692 AVAILABLE," and I picture 12,691 cars ahead of me all racing to get to that space. It makes me wish Cheech and Chong were here so we could all drive around in my car looking for the La Brea Tar Pits.

     But there are spaces on the rooftop, and we finally park and take the elevator and walk down a hallway for about 15 minutes. And when we make it to a map that says "You Are Here" we have no idea how we got there. We're already exhausted and hungry, easy marks for the croupier that I imagine is leering at us from the "eye in the sky." "Those two are mine," he gnars, "HA HA HA ha ha!" Villains in the movies find the least thing amusing.

     We're trying to decide where to eat, but there are so many choices. It's like using the remote control on my cable box, where I start at Channel 2 and dial up the menu, and "Casino" is on, but it's not a pay channel so they'll probably cut out all the good parts so I keep dialing.  There's a "Monk" which I've seen four times, but I liked it three of them, yet there might be something better so I keep dialing. Lo and behold, "Mr. Mom" is playing on a movie channel, but it's almost over. This goes on for a half hour until a different "Monk" comes on that I've only seen three times.

     We walk around in a big circle looking at all the menus, and everything sounds appetizing to me. There is a Thai place where I could order a fresh water eel. Maybe me and the eel could take our bests shots and let the waitress decide which of us is fresher. There's a south-of-the-border place that serves a cocktail called a Mexican Standoff, which I like the sound of but I probably wouldn't remain standing for long. There's a sports restaurant with a lot of video screens to take your mind off the fact that there's nothing good on TV at home. There is always Johnny Rockets in case I want to fast forward right to the milk shake. We settle on the Italian place, which is what we always settle on. It's a little like the "Monk" of casino cuisine, but I like it every time.

     Once you make it to the casino floor you feel instantly energized. There are bells and buzzers going off all around you and you feel like you're inside a pinball machine. I read somewhere that they pump oxygen in through the air conditioning ducts, and it makes me wonder what I was breathing before. We pass by the 1/2 penny slots, something that I never saw before. We could double our money and still only have enough for your thoughts. Even in the low rent section it doesn't take us long to lose fifty bucks, and that's my limit, so we go back to the bar and check out the band.

     If you think that all this sounds like I'm having a rotten time, you couldn't be more wrong. The little peeves that most people don't even notice are life-affirming to me, and they give me something to talk about that sounds like a lot of complaining, but it's not. I love it all, even if I pretend not to.