Hajime….. As time passes since Leelu came to live with me, I am reminded forcefully of two aphorisms which speak to the nature of Cat. First is one from our old friend Lazarus, who noted: Anyone who doesn’t believe in protocol has never dealt with a cat.” In a cat’s world, protocol is VERY important, for they are great believers in maintaining the status quo in their home life. They DON’T like changes made to the way things are…. The other statement has to do with their reaction when something is not to their liking, and goes like this: “You haven’t really been ignored until you’ve been ignored by a cat.” It’s often hilarious how effectively they can remove what they do not approve of from their awareness; it is total obliteration.

All that said, the perks are well worth the effort of learning to live with a picky, opinionated, small fur-bearing extortionist, especially, as now, when she comes to where I am sitting, gazes lovingly into my face, and purrs loudly to be picked up & cuddled for a morning session of bonding…. Time out for cat…. I’ll be back in a bit….

Okay…. She went off to eat & monitor the morning bird traffic in the back yard, so, I’ll try to slip in the rest of this post, & get it online before it’s play/training time. This chatty, informal approach to the intro worked pretty well, don’t you think? Good, because it was, literally, a pain in the ass to do. How do people be so damn nice? It’ wearing, to say the least, on us old curmudgeons. Not to mention what it could do to my rep. Ah, well, so be it. We’re far enough down the page I can ignore any ethical considerations, and just be done with it. And, that is what we’re going to do, right here, right now…. Watch THIS!….

Shall we Pearl?….

“Democracy is more cruel than wars or tyrants.” — Seneca, Epistulae morales ad Lucilium CIV, c. 63

“Man is a religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion – several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn’t straight” — Mark Twain — The Damned Human Race

“Representative government has broken down. Our politicians represent not the people who vote for them but the commercial interests who finance their
election campaigns. We have the best politicians that money can buy.” — Edward Abbey

“The enemy is fear. We think it is hate; but, it is fear.’ — Mohandas K. Gandhi

“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country…. Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.” — Former US President Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864 — letter to Col. William F. Elkins, printed in “The Lincoln Encyclopedia”, ed. Archer H. Shaw, Macmillan, 1950, NY

“THEOSOPHY, n.  An ancient faith having all the certitude of religion and all the mystery of science. The modern Theosophist holds, with the Buddhists, that we live an incalculable number of times on this earth, in as many several bodies, because one life is not long enough for our complete spiritual development; that is, a single lifetime does not suffice for us to become as wise and good as we choose to wish to become. To be absolutely wise and good — that is perfection; and the Theosophist is so keen-sighted as to have observed that everything desirous of improvement eventually attains perfection. Less competent observers are disposed to except cats, which seem neither wiser nor better than they were last year. The greatest and fattest of recent Theosophists was the late Madame Blavatsky, who had no cat.” — Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”

‘You have a mongrel perception of humor, nothing more; a multitude of you possess that. This multitude see the comic side of a thousand low-grade and trivial things — broad incongruities, mainly; grotesqueries, absurdities, evokers of the horse-laugh.  The ten thousand high-grade comicalities which exist in the world are sealed from their dull vision.  Will a day come when the race will detect the funniness of these juvenilities and laugh at them — and by laughing at them destroy them?  For your race, in its poverty, has unquestionably one really effective weapon — laughter. Power, money,  persuasion, supplication, persecution — these can lift at a colossal humbug — push it a little — weaken it a little, century by century; but only laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast.  Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.  You are always fussing and fighting with your other weapons.  Do you ever use that one?  No; you leave it lying rusting.  As a race, do you ever use it at all?  No; you lack sense and the courage.” — Mark Twain (1835-1910), “The Mysterious Stranger”

“It has long been known that one horse can run faster than another – but which one?  Differences are crucial.” — Lazarus Long

“He who should teach men to die would at the same time teach them to live.” — Michael de Montaigne, Essays, Book i, Chap. xviii, “That Men are not to judge of our Happiness till after Death”

“There’s always a bigger fish.” — Qui-Gon Jinn, Star Wars Episode I

“All time in all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is. Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all bugs in amber.” — Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Slaughter-House 5

“Respect cannot be learned, purchased, or acquired….  it can only be earned.” — Gentle Bee

“The enemy is fear. We think it is hate; but, it is fear.” — Mohandas K. Gandhi

“Love means loving the unlovable – or it is no virtue at all.” — G. K. Chesterton, Heretics, 1905

Suitably interpreted, this is an exact value.” — Precise Bee

********************************

Well, it’s done. I’m completely in the dark as to how it will look, but, will trust the process once more, in order to get posted in a timely manner. We humans, it is well known, will go to many great lengths for the sake of expediency, and, I am nothing if not human. See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes, unless somebody provides me with a damn good reason not to do so…..