New Stuff For Your Urban Dictionary

Kittens Are So Insane Cute!




Parkour.


Google it.

Or, watch MTV—either/or.


For those of us in the crowd (myself included) who may be nerds or geeks or rednecks or whatev’s, Parkour is when those people run up walls, do a handstand off a fence rail and a flip over a garbage container, then follow that up with a roll under a park bench.

I like to call it Urban Gymnastics.


My kitten, Napoleon (classic "short man" syndrome on this guy, by the way...) is unbelievably talented at Parkour.  (Kittens throughout the ages have had this skill, but thank God we now have a name for it...)

Say you’re me, and you’re sitting in a chair, just an ordinary, ugly reclining chair, and maybe you have a remote control for the television resting on one arm of the chair and your phone on the other arm, and you’re doing important Facebook stuff on the laptop while cradling a cup of Scotch hot chai.


Oh, come on! Play along!


Suddenly, you hear the kitten barreling down the hallway in his distinctive gallop, and as he rounds the corner, you realize with some horror that he’s headed right for you. In the split second it takes for him to get from the hallway to the chair, the only thought that runs through your mind is that when that cat hits your lap at that speed, you are going to spill Scotch hot chai all over the keyboard and yourself, and the very important remote/phone arrangement will be toppled.


What happens instead?  Magic.

The kitten leaps from three feet away to the right arm of the chair, spots the remote, adjusts, and lands just beyond it.  Then, in the same movement, he launches himself to the top of the chair, hangs momentarily behind your head, then proceeds down the other side, skipping gingerly over the phone, following that with a beautiful long jump to the coffee table where he narrowly avoids three lit candles, vaults again, ricocheting off the front of the sofa, and before you know it, is on his way back down the hall.


And not a drop of Scotch hot chai is spilled. Amazing, that Parkour stuff…look it up.

Perspective Rears It's Ugly Head

Life is full of perspective-changing moments.  Saturday night I was out with a friend, and both of us were complaining about how much it sucks being single.  We lamented how sad it was for us, even though we have friends, not being someone else's special someone. 

 

When I got home from dinner, I found out that another friend had lost her partner of three years in a tragic car accident.  Needless to say, I realized immediately that I had nothing to complain about "just" being single.  After all, alone was a choice that I made for myself, not one that was thrust upon me through devastating circumstance.

 

 

The worst feeling in the world is the feeling of being powerless.  I thought I had been feeling that so much lately, and I was, but obviously, I continue to be a very lucky person.

 

We put so much effort into preventing any bad feelings creeping in--so many unimportant things seem "life or death", and we fight as if we are trying to hold back the flooding waters that will surely drown us.  However, on the occasion that things do blow up, you very often wonder why you were so concerned because, well…you lived.  You made it through the hard part and the sun came up again.  It's never quite so obvious as it is at a time like this.  

My friend is a lot like me in that her instinct in this trauma was to just fix it.  We fix things that are broken.  We can't wrap our heads around situations that our own actions can't cure.  While she will never, ever be able to "fix" what happened, in time it will become a part of the landscape of her experience.  It will be a low point, to be sure, but being the person that she is, someone capable of remarkable things, I think that she will use this tragedy to fuel many, many future insights.

I wish she didn't have to.

We Now Return To Your Regularly Scheduled WhateverTheHellThisIs

Remember the olden days, ancient times, when you'd be watching a television program and then *POOF!*  the screen would go blank or static-y and after a time, the television station would put up a graphic apologizing for the problem and begging for your patience through the technical difficulties?

 

They actually used the words, "We're sorry" and everything.

 

It just occurred to me while writing the title for this post that I haven't heard anyone say "We now return to your regularly scheduled programming" for a very long time.  They used to air that announcement after the President spoke, too, or if they had a breaking news or weather story that interrupted a broadcast.

 

And most of those apologies happened during my Soaps, thankyouverymuch.

 

 

 

Nobody apologizes for disruptions anymore--did you notice that?

 

 

Or is it just that I don't watch soap opera's anymore?  For all I know, they are apologizing all over the place, and I'm just not paying attention.

 

 

Anyway....

 

 

I had an epiphany last night.  Nothing too exciting, just a sudden realization that I no longer give a shit, so, in a sense we are returning to where we were before the start of the summer, before my stress level shot through the roof.

 

After the epiphany, I fell asleep and had a dream about a grand, beautiful home filled with fine furniture.  I have dreamed about that house dozens of times, but not lately--nothing like stress to suck all of the success thoughts right out of your head.

 

Those of you following along in your dream books at home will know that the beautiful house is very much a place of comfort, in a good financial omen sort of way--not that I am expecting anyone to throw money or anything, but hopefully we'll get back to the "The Harder I Work, The Luckier I Get" mode that I'm used to.

 

Did I mention how I love the Fall?

 

Anyway--we now return you to your regularly scheduled WhateverTheHellThisIs

 

 

Hope I didn't interrupt anyone's Soaps.