A Tiny Visitor

Homer came to visit me this morning. No, not "D'oh!" Simpson, and not the Poet/Philosopher either. Homer, in this especial case, is my landlady's cat.

He was out for his morning romp when I brought my garbage to the curb, and gleefully followed me back into my apartment. He nuzzled everything in sight, walked on every surface, followed me around while I made coffee and gathered my wits for the working day.

He even allowed me to comb him. He so enjoyed it, in fact, that he lay down on my chest as I was combing him, buried his face in the crook of my arm, and purred to beat the band.

He dunted my face multiple times and asked for sustenance, but all my cat food and cat treats have gone back to the house along with Troi, my own cat, who prefers the larger estate and more accessible windows to life with mommy.

So I offered Homer a cup of water, and he even drank some. What a pleasant cat! A truly enjoyable visit. When I heard the landlady calling him, I had to pick him up and bring him to her balcony.

I miss having a pussy cat to nuzzle. To feed, to play with, clean up after, brush, dunt faces with.

I need more purring. I've had a cat in my life, all my life. Sometimes up to three at once. I not only love cats, I'm like them in many ways. For example, I don't like large places that are full of noise and people. I prefer calm quiet rooms, with one or two people I can watch carefully from a safe distance before I decide whose lap I'm going to jump into, so to speak.

I can also take a nap at any time of the day or night, no matter how recently I woke up. Come to think of it, I can usually eat pretty much any time day or night, as well, irrespective of how recently I've dined! Hmm. I hate getting wet, love to sun myself on a rock, and I have a bit of an ornery streak in me. Maybe there is something to this reincarnation business, after all! That, or perhaps not all humans evolved from apes - perhaps my origins are feline.

It would certainly explain my feelings about most of the rest of "humanity".

Culture Shock

Okay, today my job was downright funny.

I've been coding the HTML on a web page for a prof at the university where I work. This can sometimes be repetitive, and sometimes challenging, but it's almost never funny.

Today was quite different.

See, the research has something to do with the Inuit. Little kindy-garters way up in (who-knows-how-it's-pronounced)-land. Ice and snow pretty much most of the year, in the dark at least a few months, not much in the way of vegetation...

So I'm busy copying and coding the list of things they're trying to teach these little kids, and one of the items listed is...

St. Patrick's Day.

Okay, I mean, can't you just hear the questions from the wee ones?

"Miss? What's a snake?"

"Miss, if St. Patrick got rid of all the snakes, what did the people eat?"

"Miss, what's a shamrock?"

"Miss, what's green?"

They are also, apparently, learning how to waltz.

In the words of the great Dave Barry: I am not making this up. This is true. And fun.

But I'd sure hate to be the one trying to explain the Irish to the Inuit!

The Shadow Would Know...

I need a shadow.

No, not like Peter Pan's. Like they give... ummm.... well, I think the polite term is "mentally handicapped" nowadays. When I was a kid, we just called 'em twits.

Well, I'm a twit, and I need a shadow!

I keep getting off at the wrong bus stop.

I take the number 66 bus. It goes along a beautiful run through Westmount, and the name is "The Boulevard." Some of the houses along the route actually have both the house number and the words "The Boulevard" under the number. Sigh. Wouldn't that be nice, to live at, say, "Fifty-two, The Boulevard"?

The homes are lovely, the trees are dense, the sidewalks wide. The bus rolls up and down, swaying pleasantly... (Hah! Weaving through the potholes - this IS Montreal, after all!) Most of the people on the bus speak English, and they speak to each other. Some of them, myself included, even SMILE occasionally. You only get THAT on the BEST buses...

Then the bus turns, and my troubles begin. See, I have to transfer to another bus, the 144. The timing is perfect - about three minutes after descending the steps of the 66, the 144 turns the corner.

I KNOW it's the stop where I see the Montreal General Hospital. Just that, I usually DON'T see the Montreal General Hospital.

The first day, I saw it, way at the top of the hill, having got off two stops too late and finding myself down at Sherbrook street, having to walk two blocks back UP the hill. That, in itself, really isn't anything much to whine about - except that it was minus a gazillion, the wind was howling, freezing stuff was hitting my face, and both my knees were blowing up...

By chance, the next day, I only got off one stop too late.

So the next day, I got off too early, just to make up for it.

I can't visualize the damned landmarks! I don't know - am I looking for landmarks a driver would see, not a pedestrian? In the bus, you can't see the street names - and that actually doesn't help much, because the bus skirts "Cote-des-neiges" twice.

Today I got off two stops too early. Sighing, and hitching my purse a little higher on my shoulder, I calmly walked toward the goal, the 144 stop two blocks ahead of me, trying in vain to resist the temptation to keep rubbernecking around to see if the 144 was coming yet...

When I did arrive at the stop, about ten seconds before the bus did, one of the nice ladies who's been chatting with me smiled and waved. "So," she said as we climbed in, "Were you getting some exercise this morning?"

"No," I admitted. "Not on purpose, anyway. I just keep missing the stop!"

She proceeded to tell me all the landmarks, especially the hospital. God, that thing is so big, how could ANYBODY miss it?!

Well, I can, apparently!

I had a boss once who told me, "Deborah, you make the most INGENIOUS mistakes of any employee I've ever had. Nobody in their right mind would ever DREAM of making the mistakes you do..."

I guess the key phrase there is "in their RIGHT MIND." I'm a twit, and I need a shadow!

Or a leash...