jaywalking with jesus part 10 4-5-11

8/7/2019 Jaywalking with Jesus Part 10 4-5-11

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Cat People and Pussies Galore

At one point in time, my idea of homework was suspendingchipped beef on a string from my bedroom ceiling in an effort to train

my cats to increase their vertical leaps. Starting off at about a footand a half as kittens, I had those Sky-Cats rippin' chipped-chop beefoff a string at three to four feet from the floor at six months old. Thatwas long time ago when I was 10-12 years old, but my love for catsand ALL animals continued.

That big, chronological clock kept ticking and I suddenly foundmyself settled down with one woman for good; the aforementionedNancy. One of the big reasons it was a no-brainer was our sharedvalues and interests, and one of our shared interests was the love of

cats. Nancy already had two when we moved in together and justgetting to know them (and they me) took me back to the old days withmy Sky-Cats tearin beef off strings.

Magnificent beasts, probably the most coordinated (pound forpound) land mammal in history, these feline-fighter-jets areperipatetic, frenetic bursts of electrified energy with seven timesbetter night vision than humans. With floating shoulders and a

solitary grace and style that's visually beguiling, cats of all sizes andstyles dance a dance that perhaps only athletes, poets and artistscan truly appreciate.

Years later, I wrote a brief letter to my "fake" (non-biological) son(at that time in the Gulf of Iraq) who was in the "real" U.S. Navy abouta kitten his "real" Mom (and my fake wife as we werent legallymarried) had purchased from the Humane Society. My letter says itall about the singular style, grace and coordination of the great cats.

Jan. 4, 2006, SundaySubject: The Grey Ghost (our kitten) riding the hump of theWildebeest.

Patrick: First and foremost I trust, hope, pray and believe you'resafe and better than sound (no Navy pun intended). I've seen manythings during my career as a dilettante, overachiever, underachiever,


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dreamer, cynical realist, blowhard, orator, raconteur, smart-guy,dumb-guy, idiot savant, savant and just plain idiot.

Tonight I witnessed an interlude of bestiality between your motherand the Grey Ghost (Smoky) the likes of which made my ears ringand my eyes widen with stunned disbelief and admiration. TheGhost climbed your mother's shoulder and proceeded to festoonhimself around the back of her neck with a languid grace that beliedhis (soon to be seen) intentions.

The poor Mumster hasn't seen her haircutting guy for ages andas a result is rather "hirsute" (hairy) as they say. Kinda like thoseGieco Insurance cavemen.

Smoky, the Grey Ghost as a kitten. Imagine him riding atopNancys head of hair like a gray hood ornament on a golden helmet.He was all ears. If he had ten or fifteen more IQ points, he couldtalk I mean really converse.

At your Mummy's cue of mewling and soothing noises, the Great


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Grey wrapped both his dusky paws around the Mumster's neck frombehind and began to ravage the back of her head like a leopard atopa small, wounded gazelle.

The problem is, your Ma's hair is as thick as the frontal plate of aWildebeest and more impenetrable than the hide of a Black Rhino orthe coat of an American Bison in midwinter. The Kitty's young, yetexceedingly sharp and mobile claws met this "mat-of-doom" like EvelKnievel plowing into a bus at the end of an unsuccessful jump.

The sheer fear and incredulity that registered on Smoke's leonineface was something to behold. Barely able to dent the helmet-likeshield of golden locks, poor Smoke leaped from his precarious perchlike Mo and Stan (our other cats) used to beeline for "The Pipe of All

Knowledge" (a neighbor's drainage pipe).

I once saw an apple fall from a tree and hit your Ma atop the

head only to bounce right back up into the tree and REATTACHITSELF BY STEM to the branch.

ABOVE Left: Mumsters Mop in all its glory. One can just see theGrey Ghost atop that mop riding those golden locks. Above Right:Jacks fake kids with his fake wife and real love in 1984, before hebecame their fake husband/father. It wasnt too long after that he


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became a turtle without his shell, utterly exposed and vulnerable tothat merciless predator called love. Life was real then, at least forthem.

Not to be cruel or make fun of "The Mumster's Mop", but perhapsthe Navy or other sectors of the military would be interested in sometype of "renewable-regrowable" defense system. Not too unlike the"Star Wars Defense System", "The Great Hairier Reef" could be theanswer to a myriad of questions Congress and many of us ask butare too afraid to answer.

Enough of this diversion, I just espied Smoke sneaking out of thebathroom with the magnifying make-up mirror slung across his backand some mighty sturdy pruning shears clenched in his teeny teeth.

Can the Mumster cut the mustard; or will her hair get in the wayof "cat evolution" and the natural progression of shared animal-human knowledge? It used to be "cut to the chase"...now in catparlance it's "cuts to the face!"

See you very soon but way too late for me,Love, Fake Dad Supreme (FDS) John

P.S.: Its only been a couple of months, but it seems like you've

been gone for years and I've been alive forever. All I can hope for isthatsome of Mumster's hair starts growing on my head so I can becomea "Ted Koppel Look-alike".

Our other cat's names were Morris and Stan, and both wererenowned about town. His name was Morris, but around theneighborhood he was known as the "Beige Bullet". A heart the size

of Jupiter, a brain the size of my own (on a good day) and feet asfleet as Mercury's; The Beige Bullet" was a legend in his own timeand a hero in mine. Covering over 100 feet in under two seconds, Ionce saw The Bullet run up a steep hill studded with rocks, ivy,bushes and myrtle in beige blur. Paired with "Stan the Man", a hefty,hedonistic orange tabby, they were counterparts to each other, trulyopposites without agendas - only love for the grass, flowers, trees


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and human friends that surrounded them.

I remember the neighbor had an eight-inch drainage pipe thatstuck out from their backyard hillside. One of Mo's favoriteamusements was arching his back like a cartoon cat then explodingin a frenzy of speed, racing across the lawn to end up inside thedrainage pipe. I dubbed this pipe the "Pipe of All Knowledge", andrepeatedly told Nancy that this was where Stan and Mo got all theirwisdom.

I recalled telling Nancy, I think I'll be stickin' my head up that pipemore than a few times this summer to get some smarts. Never oneto miss an opening, Nancy observed aloud that prior to sticking myhead INTO the pipe, I would first have to pull it OUT OFsomewhere

else. Well said.

ABOVE: The Pipe of All Knowledge during an early spring thaw,March 2, 2007. You cant really tell, but my head would fit perfectlyinto that pipe. It doesnt look very inviting or informative, but at thisjuncture of my life, everything was a pipe dream. Id constantly


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opine, Ill tell you, those cats always look a lot smarter after visitingthe P.O.A.K..

Undoubtedly among the saddest days of my and Nancys livesoccurred when Morris and Stannie died. Time finally caught up withThe Beige Bullet on December 17th, 2005. Nineteen years old andbeseiged by sporadic seizures (probably caused by a brain tumor)and kidney cancer, we had to put him down at the vets. I last sawMoMo in a vet assistant's arms, and as he was carried out of theroom and our lives.

I looked him in the eyes and said, "Keep runnin' Bullet, I'll catchup with you soon enough."

Big Stannie made it until December 26th of 2006, when old agereduced him to virtually nothing and he literally died in my arms at6:30 in the morning. Stannie, who also was nineteen, had a great lifeand a great final summer and fall, and enjoyed an incredibly mildwinter (till mid Jan.). Ill will never forget a last, late summer eveningwhen Stannie, like a big Cheeto, laid curled up next to me on a rockstill warm from the sun, purring contentedly on a perfect evening, inour perfect yard, in (at that moment) two perfect lives. Wherever theyare now, Morris is still his name, but around their new neighborhoodhe's known as "The Beige Bullet" and Stannie is known, appropriatelyand perfectly as Big Stannie.


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Stan the Man at the height of his powers


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The Beige Bullet enjoying his last spring, 2006

Back to Reality; THESuper "Bowl"

Wayne French often found himself at the epicenter of theseground breaking experiments and adventures that continue on untilthis day. His innate lust for life and devil-may-care attitude, bolsteredby breathing gasoline fumes and suckin' on Bob Marley joints as bigas oxygen cylinders ( when he was younger) made the Frenchman anatural born "volunteer".

Years later, driven by winter blues and boredom, he once againwas my target for torment and terror. When my best customermentioned his bowling league exploits and prowess and suggested"we go bowling sometime," I took him up on it. Wayne worked for acompany whose products he and I jointly sold to my customers,Steve and John, thus Wayne was naturally invited to this "SuperBowl" as I dubbed it.


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The "Super Bowl" was scheduled more than a week away, so Ihad plenty of time to think of ways to spice up the action at the alleys.Like many of my brilliant ideas, this epiphany came out of nowhereand had no rhyme or reason to it, other than tormenting Wayne forsome comic relief.

It was the day of the "Super Bowl" and my fake wife Nancy wasgetting ready upstairs while I was REALLY getting ready downstairswith the Frenchman's "surprise pack". I had twenty or thirty babysquid spread out on papers towels and was intently picking out "thebest ones" when Nancy walked into the kitchen and stopped dead inher tracks.

"What are you doing?" she asked guardedly. "What are those?"

Thats two questions already, I said evenly. Youve got onemore and youve reached your limit. Did you ever notice its awomans thing with the questions? Id had told sweet-lips the weekbefore shed get three questions a day and that was it. Man Imgood!

"They're baby squid and I'm pickin' out the ones with the besttentacles," I replied. I continued to stuff the glass jar "surprise pack"with what I called select grade baby squid as Nancy looked on indisbelief.

"What AREyou doing?" she asked again (thats three).

"Look, I know exactly what I'm doing; just don't you worry aboutwhat I'm doing!" I snapped. Thinking back, that I said this in all

seriousness makes me wonder to this day if I wasn't just a littlefunny in the head. Don't ask Nancy.

I screwed the lid onto the "surprise pack", gathered up therejected squid that didn't make the cut and put them into a freezerbag.

"I don't mean to pry," said Nancy, "but what are you gonna dowith those?" That question put her over the limit, but when youre in


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love you dont even count your heartbeats.

"Well, for starters, we're gonna make sure we get to the bowlingalley AFTER Wayne and Jaws, then were gonna decorate Wayne'scar with these extra, bagged squid."

My fake wife looked at me with real disgust and shot back, "I'Mnot going to be 'decorating' ANYTHING with those things. What thehell's wrong with you, how do you think of this stuff?"

How does one explain genius and divine inspiration to anearthling bound by corporeal constraints? I stared at my beautifulwould-be compatriot with hooded eyes and said "Put the jar into yourpurse, please." When she hesitated momentarily, I recalled what an

older guy advised me about a pivotal point in a relationship.

Id told him I was trying to break up with a girlfriend and wasntquite sure how to do it.

You gotta make a clean break of it; period he said.

You mean just tell her its over? I asked.

No moaned my pal, I said make a clean break of it-herNECKyou idiot; a clean break of her neck! That always ends it.

My Lord; Ill say

Once again I looked her in the eyes and gently suggested sheinsert the squid-pack into her smashingly lovely, stinking (or soon tobe) purse.

My tone must have conveyed enough urgency to goad my lovely

into compliance as she readily yet gingerly took the glass tube oftentacled terrors and jammed 'em into her purse.

We were off to the alleys!


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Stuffing a couple of these babies into a bowling ball really gets thingsgoing at the alleys! You should have seen Wayne pullin these slickWillies out of those bowling ball holesSTEE-RIKE!!!

Arriving fashionably late, I grabbed my miniature "Sea WorldWonder Bag" and started festooning Wayne's car with strategicallyplaced cephalopods. Crammed behind the door handles, pinnedunder the windshield wipers, stuffed gently into the crevices aroundthe side view mirrors, I turned Wayne's car into a rolling, aquatic

sideshow. No matter how we bowled, we were sure to end the dayon a high note. Life was good.

There are 70 million bowlers in America and Im not one of them.

Neither was Nancy, the Frenchman, his girlfriend "Jaws" (so calleddue to her excessive talking) or the customers we were"entertaining". We all met at a bowling alley and there we were: Meand Nancy, Wayne and "Jaws", and Steve and John with wives Janet

and Mary Grace. All of us rented shoes and used lane balls exceptSteve, who was the "pro" of the group. Thinking back, I don't thinkJohn and M.G. even bowled.

By the fourth frame of the second game Id already revealed thehidden agenda for my little tentacled friends to Steve and John. Myplans were received with, I thought, approval and great anticipation.


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What's an afternoon of bowling with friends without some baby squidthrown in? You gotta live a little, stop and smell the squid.

Despite the distraction of Jaw's incessant chatter, the Frenchmanwas bowling the game of his, or possibly anyone's life. He'd madenine strikes in row and had a perfect game going when he decided togo to the men's room. Now was the time to strike, but I had to actquickly as the men's room was directly behind our lanes.

"Nance, gimme the squid jar" I said. "Steve, bring theFrenchman's ball over here."

"Is that really squid?" asked Jaws with awe.

I held one of my Grade A-select" babies up for all to see andnoticed Steve's wife, Janet, swoon a bit as the eight-legged wondershimmered and danced in the alley lights.

Stuffing baby squid into the fingers and thumb holes of Wayne's

ball with deft determination, I then wiped it dry and handed it back toSteve. I saw Wayne coming out of the men's room just as Steveplaced Waynes ball back onto the ball return area.

Blithely bouncing down the steps into the alley pits with theexuberance of a standard poodle, "Mr. I-Gotta-Perfect-Game-Going"picked his ball up with two hands and gently rolled it into position fordigital insertion. All eyes were on the Frenchman and we were allbustin' a gut trying not to laugh as our bodies shook with anticipatorymirth.

His eyes focused on the ten-pin triangle sixty feet away, Waynesnaked his fingers and thumb into the bowling ball's squid stuffed

holes.

"What's....? What the..?" A thinly veiled look of horror andcomprehension clouded his face as he began pullin' baby squid fromhis ball with soft, popping noises. Whirling about and while lookingdirectly towards me, we all felt the heat from his accusatory stare.


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"Squid!" he screamed. "You filled my ball full of squid!" Indeed Ihad.

He popped one unusually large specimen out of the thumb hole,and with a hateful glance, violently threw it over the our heads in thegeneral direction of the men's room. We watched it cartwheel overus in a graceful arc as we desperately tried to contain our laughter.

At that moment a young bowler of about six years old had themisfortune to exit the men's room. As he innocently walked towardshis own lane, the squid flew through the air and smacked wetly intothe middle of his forehead like a giant, gray, eight-legged spitball.

Stunned with surprise, the lad took half a step backward as the

"flying squid" slid off his face and plopped onto the floor. Lookingdown at something the group was sure he'd never seen before, thekid let out an incredibly high pitched scream and took off like a rocket.

Personally, I thought the kid was lucky he'd visited the men'sroom BEFOREgetting "squid-hit", as there would have been plenty ofpanty washing for his mommy that night.

"Wayne, you better go pick up your squid before the managercomes down here and raises hell," I said. "I don't think you'reallowed to bring those things bowling," I deadpanned, "they wear toomany shoes."

Well, you can imagine what this did to "Mr. Perfect Game's"concentration, let alone everyone elses. After laboriously trying toream out the slime encrusted holes in his ball, the Frenchman gaveup and stuck it back on the rental rack for a less fortunate bowler toglom

onto later. With the finger holes of that ball as slippery as liquidTeflon, I could just hear the screams later that evening as therunaway ball bounced about the alleys.

Finishing with three open frames and smelling a little fishy, theFrenchman was a bit miffed but I assuaged him with three ice coldales and a hot pretzel, and all was forgiven. You have to keep


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everything in perspective...this WAS"customer bowling", after all.

After hale and hearty hugs and farewells, we all left the bowlingalley in a fine "frame" of mind. A light rain had started and Nancy andI watched Wayne and Jaws drive off into the dusk with tentacledsilhouettes waving their eight-legged goodbyes in the wind,astounded neither of them had noticed their squid-rigged car. Wecouldn't believe it.

Climbing into our vehicle, I put my cell phone on speaker andquickly thumbed in Wayne's number.

"Hello," Wayne said.

"That was fun, huh?" I asked rhetorically. Nancy and I glancedat each other, knowing the Frenchman had to have his wipers on andhad to have seen the six or seven squid beneath the wipers.

"Hey Wayne, did you notice anything funny when you andNoreen got into the car? I asked.

"Not really, why?" he warily asked.

"Do you see anything in your side mirrors or maybe -" I neverfinished.

"Squid!" he screamed. "There's squid everywhere, Jesus,they're in my mirrors, and a bunch of em are floppin' around my

wipers," he moaned; I can't take any more of these squid," helamented.

I guiltily hit the end button, laughing as hard as ever. Dinnerwas going to taste especially good tonight. Im thinkin' calamari for

an appetizer. Squid have three hearts but after that evening Impretty sure theyd also stolen Waynes. Lets make it four-of-a-kindand raise the bet.

jaywalking with jesus part 10 4-5-11

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