His Most Puissant Imperial Majesty, Emperor Turkish the Large, Protector of the Giant White Cats, Lord of the Holy Food Grail, Befouler of Litter Boxes,
Biter of Hands, Drinker from Sinks.
Maybe what we need is a king. The American Experiment seems to have given us a clot of unfunny Louis C.K.s bent on showing us their freckled dicks.
Meanwhile, Charlie Pierce is working on the weekend … and so, apparently, is Stormy “Making America Horny Again” Daniels.
The skies are rarely boring above Duke City. Looks like we’re getting a visit from an alien spacecraft that overshot Roswell.
Eek eek eek eek eek, etc.
I’d hide under the bed with Turkish if I didn’t have so much to do. Plus it looks like a nice day to ride the old bikey bike, if you’re not allergic to cedar, juniper and/or elm. Snurk. Honk. Ptui.
Herself and I popped round to Scalo last night to celebrate her (mumble-mumble)th birthday and it was a pleasure as always. Tasty food, excellent service, reasonable prices, and someone else does the cooking and cleaning up afterward; if you’re ever passing through town, feel free to take us out to dinner there. I had the penne con salciccia, and she had grilled sea bass over polenta. We split a plate of insalata di cavolo.
In other news, the MacWizards are still waving their iWands over my sickly computer down to the Apple Store, and this being a Friday the 13th I’m anticipating evil tidings and contemplating strategies.
I have the MacBook Pro, but I can’t say I’m a big fan of extended work on laptops. It’s hard on the neck, and the screen real estate is extremely limited for a guy who’s used to running side-by-side 22-inch monitors. There are workarounds, obviously— add an external monitor and a Bluetooth keyboard/mouse combo — but it’s kind of a clunky setup, and my office already looks like the den of a crackhead who’s great at stealing technology but poor at selling it. Plus one must leave room atop the desk for passing cats. That’s Scripture.
Then, this morning, I happened across a news item I’d overlooked while sneering at Apple’s new MacBook and Watch. Seems Cupertino also dropped the price of its Apple TV to just 69 smackers, which is less than we spent on a birthday dinner last night. We’ve been using a 2010 Mac Mini to stream our TV, but it’s total overkill, about like driving a tack with a barrel bomb. What if I were to buy an Apple TV for streaming video and repurpose the Mini as my main work computer? Other Pat is using one and early reports are encouraging. Eureka!
It’ll take me down to one 22-inch monitor, but that means more room on the desk for cats. Another First World Problem solved. Winning!
Meow, bitches.
His August Majesty, the Emperor Turkus Jerkus I, Attacker of Feet, Drinker From Sinks, and Filler of Litterboxes, is currently posing for your edification and enlightenment via The TurkenCam®. That is all.
• Editor’s note: ‘Is Lordship has left the building.
sit like a cat
and wait for the door
to open.
—From “Braided Creek: A Conversation In Poetry,” by Jim Harrison and Ted Kooser. This one’s for Chris and Theresa Elizabeth Coursey.
“Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat” was the title of one of Bill Watterson’s “Calvin and Hobbes” collections. It’s also a pretty apt description of Turkish. When he’s awake, anyway.
The Hobbes to my Calvin enjoys a snooze in the sunshine.
Speaking of which, were you aware that there’s a documentary about Bill Watterson and his creations? True fact — “Dear Mr. Watterson” premiered yesterday, and NPR carried an item about it this morning.
“Calvin and Hobbes” is one of my favorite strips. I have a dozen or so of Watterson’s books, and tried to get an interview with him back when I worked for The New Mexican (through a minion, he declined, as he does pretty much any invitation to chat with the press; smart fella).
I made the mistake of listening to the NPR piece, and now I’m going to have to thumb through a few of Watterson’s books, goddamnit. If you’d like to take a bumpy trip down memory lane on your toboggan, with your best friend for company, you can read “Calvin and Hobbes” online at GoComics.com.
Ordinarily Mr. Boo would be fetching that orange squeaky toy from room to room, demanding playtime (squeaka squeaka squeaka), but it’s too damned hot to play Squeaker of the House today.
Deadlines have been eating up my mornings and record temperatures and smoke have been smothering my afternoons. I had to close all the windows for much of yesterday as a waterless thunderstorm up around Peckerwoodland Park shoved the plume from the Waldo Canyon fire right through downtown Bibleburg.
This morning all the varmints are stretched out on various bits of floor, trying to stay cool. It’s already 82 inside the house, so this is pretty much a lost cause.
Buddy (a.k.a. Mr. Boo) is not amused. Of our three critters he is the one most affected by heat. Turkish just flattens out until he looks like a big white throw rug with blue eyes, turning himself into a radiator. Miss Mia Sopaipilla simply naps more. But Mr. Boo insists on conducting business as usual and it always ends badly.
For example, this morning he was eager for a walk. And for about 30 seconds he even enjoyed it. After that it was just like walking a dog, only in slow motion. I’m going to buy a skateboard and henceforth shall tow him behind me like a hairy, bug-eyed little trailer.
I’m not a morning person. Ask anyone.
When I was a kid my folks had to use a garden hose to flush me out of bed if I were to get my newspapers delivered before the evening news came on. In college I tried to schedule classes as late in the day as possible because the night time was the right time, don’t you know.
As a dropout I worked a janitorial gig — total night shift, 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. And a couple years after I returned to college and got that old sheepskin my newspaper career settled down into shifts of mostly 4 p.m. to 1 a.m. on one copy desk or another.
Yap!
So, yeah. I don’t like mornings unless I can face them on my own terms. This means arising slowly, gradually, easing into the day as though it were an overly hot tub.
Alas, with Herself elsewhere, as she is today, that hot tub is more like an icy pond.
Herself does not object to mornings in principle. She gets up and gets busy, wrangling dog and cats and coffee, while I enjoy an extra hour or two of watching whichever movie happens to be showing on the inside of my eyelids. My participation in the morning ritual mostly involves sitting in the reading room, staring dumbly at the rumbling furnace register, as Turkish describes figure-eights around my ankles before leaping into the sink for a drink.
When Herself is in absentia, I have to assume a slightly more active role.
At dark-thirty Buddy sounds his version of “Reveille,” a single note — “Yap!” — as the imprisoned cats drag the hallway carpet underneath the basement door. Unless I want to hear it again — and again, and again, and again — I have to drag my big ass out of bed and chuck his little ass outside.
Next I liberate the Turk’ and Miss Mia Sopaipilla, who demand a hearty breakfast after their long, dark night of unconstitutional detention without charge or even probable cause. The former gets straight to work on a bowl of kibble while the latter enjoys an aperitif of heavy whipping cream before diving into the crunchies.
A depleted Buddy rejoins the party and gets his own bowlful of breakfasty goodness, after which I stumble downstairs to see what fresh horrors the cats have left in the litter box. After a nostril-scorching few moments of turd dispersal I totter back upstairs to get the coffee started, which involves a bit of dishwashing as some eejit forgot to run the dishwasher last night.
As the java bubbles, so does Buddy. Full of chow and good humor, he locates a toy and begins chomping on it rhythmically — squeaka squeaka squeaka — as I pour a cup and try to decipher the morning news. Squeaka squeaka squeaka makes more sense than pretty much anything being attributed to Those In Authority. The temptation to add a dollop of 12-year-old Redbreast to the coffee is nearly irresistible.
Happily, things begin to settle down and the whiskey bottle remains corked. It’s time for the post-breakfast nap. Mia snoozes in a donut atop the ’fridge, while Buddy beds down in his kennel. The Turk’ is last to fade. In his capacity as field marshal of the 1st Feline Home Defense Regiment he inspects the perimeter from various windowsills before finally settling down in the Tower of Power in the living room.
Peace. At last. Time to get some work done.
Squeaka squeaka squeaka. …
Patrick O'Grady has been making stuff up since, well, forever. He started doing it for money in high school and didn't quit until he retired in 2022. (To be honest, if you waved enough Dead President Trading Cards at him, he might do it for money again.) Until then, this blog is his pro-bonehead work. For more on Your Humble Narrator, click the comic.
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