"True, as the form fails sometimes to fufil
The art's intention, if the lumpish clay
Prove unresponsive to the craftman's skill,"

Canto 1, Line 127, Paradiso

Our neighbors' cat is just dumber than a pile of bricks. Literally.
How could any cat not know the meaning of the phrase, “scat!”? Or what it means when somebody tosses out the dog water, narrowly missing you?
It just looks at me with big, uncomprehending eyes. Then it rubs its chin against the top of the block wall.
The only reason I interact with this dim-witted beast is to try to protect my own kitty’s food. I put it out every night, but if she isn’t right there than this cat, who I rename Dim for blogging purposes, comes along and nibbles it. I know the owners, so I don’t think Dim actually needs to eat Oreo’s (my kitty) food. And I’m not aggravated about it eating the cat food. Its just its insistence that no way, no how, could anyone want to be denied the delight of its presence.
The closest comparison to a well known cat figure, to help you understand, is from Lady and the Tramp. Do you remember the two Siamese cats?
“We are Siamese, if you ple-ease.” *cha, cha* “We are Siamese, if you don’t please.”

So since there’s nothing else I can do, I’ll laugh, and throw water halfheartedly.

On Valentine's Night, I was sitting at my table working busily on my table easel. I was doing a scene with outdoor tables and a flower shop. So I'm inches from my pasteled roses, scratching carefully to show the petals with a colored pencil, and my dad comes in. With a bouquet of roses!

"I thought," he said, "maybe you drawing roses was a hint."

I didn't tell him it wasn't. Call it a subconcious hint. ;-) It definitely made my day.

My dad is so cool.

Joshua was sitting on my lap as I worked the hand wheat grinder. He was trying to read Billy and Blaze.

"H-H...OW....U....S-S...EE..."
"H-Ow-Uss-EE.."

"Hu...ss...EE..."

"Hussy!"

(I interject- "O-U says OW there.")

"H-OW-S-EE"

(I interject - "The E will be silent, there.")

"H-OW-S."

"House."

("Good job.")

  

Green Grapes

During my life as an older sister, I have often petitioned the powers that be to lock up such dangerous items as scissors, pencils, rulers, and staplers. But I realized recently, as I petitioned my parents (unsuccessfully) to store jump ropes and paper clips locked both by combination and key operated locks, that two or three boys who become bored and use their brains and imaginations are capable of misusing just about anything.

The reason that I wanted paper clips and jump ropes stored more securely was that yesterday, as I sat leaning against a tree, deep in an interesting book, a pack of starbursts slowly making their way inside me, I took one, unwrapped it and put the wrapper in my pocket. I read a few more pages, and the last sticky remnants were floating down my throat, leaving a sugary taste behind, as I reached without looking for my Starbursts. I was eating them out of a – well, a square tube is the best description of the package, I guess. I picked it up and ripped the package down to pull out the next one. I stared. Instead of bright packages of orange and green, I beheld, nestled in the package, green grapes. As I stared, befuddled and desperately trying to return to 20th century America, I heard muffled laughing from above me.

After I chased down the treetop chucklers, I extracted information on their activities for the last twenty minutes. After I pieced together the confused story, I discovered that the grapes in my Starbursts were not evidence of any strange scientific phenomena or a mix up at the packaging factory- they were, rather, the fruition of a clever plot, planned on a level of stealth, secrecy, and intensity usually reserved for counter espionage missions.