“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.
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.
Mad Blog Media 