Tuesday, June 27, 2000

27 June 2000

A sample of conversation as Matt and I were going to bed last night:

"I have it on very good authority that boys think about sex all the time!"

"Well, not all the time. Otherwise driving would be pretty hazardous."

"ALL the time!"

"Wow. Think of the distraction the new Beetle would present! 'Look! A breast!'"


About 2 this morning, I woke up thinking I'd heard the cat yeowling. I listened for a few minutes, heard nothing, and decided it was a dream. I adjusted my pillow and went back to sleep.

About fifteen minutes later...

EOWwwwwrrrachKKKKKrrrrrrARRRRRrrrrch!!!

It sounded like an ambulance in a blender. Matt sat straight up. I did, too, and since I'd been lying on my stomach and side, I strained my back doing it. We went out into the hallway, looking for the cat.

Eowwwwwwwwrrarrrrr!

"Downstairs," I said, and led the way.

The cat was on the windowsill in the living room, staring out into the night with hatred, fury, and murder on his tiny little mind. Matt and I lifted convenient pieces of the blinds and looked out.

...nothing.

Eowwwwrrrrrarrrr!

Matt turned on the porch light.

...nothing.

I looked down at the cat. His tail was puffed up like a pom-pom. It had to be another cat - it's the only thing that could've gotten him so angry. That was his yard, even if he never got to go out in it, and he was going to defend it to the death!

I picked him up and petted him and soothed him until his tail was almost normal again. Matt tried to take him up to bed with us, but he ran back downstairs. I could hear his tail smacking into the blinds as he lashed it furiously, but at least this time he left the sirens off.

Half an hour later, of course, he was ready to come up and be snuggly and fuzzy and to pester me until I put him in the garage. As if nothing had happened. Sigh.


Word of the Day: clepe - to name or call. (archaic; past participle yclept still in use.)

I know a lot of people who name their cars. My car has a name, but it's sortof a leftover. My first car was a '79 Plymouth Volare, a clunky white car that came with a radio that was worth more than the rest of the car altogether. The license plate assigned me at the DMV started "BOV" and a friend suggested that this was short for "bovine". The car immediately was yclept "The Cow-Car" and various other friends occasionally threatened to sneak up in the middle of the night and paint Holstein spots on it. (To tell the truth, I probably wouldn't have minded. It would've given it some character other than "Needs a new water pump every two years.")

When I got the new car (well, it was new then) I kept the same plates, and so it, too, by default became the Cow-Car. It didn't work so well for this car, of course, because this car is less clunky and bright electric blue. (It might've been better if I'd gone with the purple car. Then I could've at least mentally recited the Purple Cow poem.)

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