House Cat

by Thomas M. Pender

I'm not sure what to call this.  It's written like a story, but reads like a poem.  In any event, it's a "Reflection" about something that occurred shortly after moving into my present residence.

 

My house has a cat.

I do not have a cat.  Most certainly, I do not have a cat!

But my house has one . . . or it has the house.  Whatever this strange and dark relationship, it has nothing to do with me, nor I with it.  And yet, I am now involved.

As I stepped out of my shower the other day, I glanced out the bathroom window, which usually reveals nothing but an overweathered balcony and the bottoms of discarded carpet pieces left by the as-yet-unfinished renovators.  Yesterday, however, there was a new sight.  A new eyesore, to be quite frank.  The house’s cat was holding court.

All by itself, happy as a . . . cat, I suppose . . . lounging atop the comfy (for a cat) carpet mountain on the balcony of the house in which I am legally squatting, the felinous beast laid and blinked, until it noticed something.

A movement.  Inside the house.

Me.

His face snapped to align perfectly with mine, and neither of us moved.  For rather a long time.  It was like a silent conversation of the eyes.

The cat’s said: “What are you doing inside my house?”

Mine said: “What are you doing outside mine?”

The cat’s replied: “This is my house whenever I wish, and it always has been.”

Mine answered: “Tell that to the owners, who gave me a key.”

“Well, I’m certainly not leaving.”

“Well, neither am I.”

“I suppose we’ll just have to get used to each other then, won’t we?”

“I suppose we will.”

And that’s how it went.

I don’t know if I’ll see the cat again.  I certainly won’t look for it.  I won’t wonder about it, worry about it, leave water or milk or kibble for it, and I will burn in everlasting fire before I name it.

I’m sure he or she feels the same about me.  And I’m fine with that.  My house, my rules.  Keep your raggedy old carpeting.  Just wait and see if it bothers me.

Stupid cat.

Keep Your Tundra!

by Thomas M. Pender

Being raised in Michigan, and having lived in the Chicago suburbs for a few years before dropping down to the Deep South, I remember winter.  Real winter!  I’m now in the midst of my 13th “Southern winter,” and I have to admit, I still love being out of the snow.  I’m surrounded by folks who, born and raised in the South, covet snow.  They get all giddy when there is a 0.3% chance of snow, and they salivate whenever they see snowmen in TV commercials.  But I have been there, and I don’t wish to return.

Not only is it tougher to drive in the North in the winter, but you have to deal with shoveling pathways and driveways, re-shoveling driveways when the snowplows come through ten minutes after you’ve gotten out of your driveway-shoveling gear, and my old arch-nemesis: static electricity.

This isn’t the cute static electricity, where you rub a balloon against your hair and it sticks to the wall.  Oh, no!  This is the nerve-wracking static electricity, where each and every time you reach for a light switch, you receive a tiny preview of the electric chair.  At some point every late fall-into-early winter, Yankees are reminded of this winter hazard when the simple act of turning on or off a light jolts the tender pads of their fingertips, and gets them hopping and cursing.  For the remainder of the winter, our Northern friends either accept and make peace with the shocks, or they must go to extremes to avoid them.  Some may carry novels throughout the house, and touch their light switches with only the books’ spines.  Personally, I would turn lights on and off with the back of my hand, or the knuckles, where the shock is much lighter.  On occasion, I would simply swat the switch with my fingertips to eject the electricity, then flick it up or down normally.  In any case, it’s a headache which requires forethought and tactics to avoid.

Then there is the dryness.  When the outside world is white and snowy, and your house is heated to your comfort level, everything and everyone inside it gets dry.  Your skin cracks (and if not moisturized, bleeds), your nostrils become barren wastelands where the simplest blowing into Kleenex is a tiny blood-letting, and your lips join in the crack-and-bleed parade unless another moisturizer is purchased.

Wearers of eyeglasses know what happens whenever you step from the cold to the warm, too.  You fog up.  As a member of this club for over twenty years, here was an additional mini-migraine to the day.

Roads ice over.  Power goes out.  Slip-and-fall hazards become a daily occurrence.  And what happens when the spring is rumored to be around the corner?  Slush.  My birthday is in mid-March, but while the lion is morphing into the lamb, it is not a pretty sight.  Ice-edged snow patches join slush, slop and mud on the roads and driveways.  Every car is a moving mess of road salt, mud and ice, unless the driver chooses to expend even more winter cash on car washes.  Not until the birds are heard and the grass is at least a hint of green does the world become attractive or pleasant again.

What gets me wondering are the people who live in such places by choice.  I still have many friends up in that climate, dressing in layers and getting into intersection bumper-thumpers.  I don’t get it.  What I really don’t get is the ultimate insanity: ice fishing.  Imagine putting on numerous layers of clothing, plodding out into the wind chill and snow to walk out on a frozen lake, sit in an uninsulated tin shack, drink cold beer for the love of God, and stare at a hole in the ice waiting for nibbles.  These must be some severely unhappy husbands to go to such extremes to escape warm houses and experience such ridiculous conditions!

I stick with my annual mantra, repeated whenever I hear a Southerner moan for flurries:  “Yes.  Snow is beautiful.  That’s why God made postcards.  You can look at it, you can marvel at it, but you don’t have to shovel it and you don’t have to drive in it.”  In fact, the great thing about living on the Dixon side of the line is that you can visit snow!  If you really and truly hanker to make a snow angel, you can pack up the kids, drive straight north until you see snow banks, stop the car, get out, roll around in it, throw it, take pictures of your snowy happiness, get back in the car, and drive home.  This is the ultimate winter in my book.  “Woohoo, snowball!” . . . click . . . “Okay, kids, let’s go home. “  All the joy, none of the hassle.

I love you, Northern friends.  I just don’t understand you.

Ten Potential Nicolas Cage Sequels

by Thomas M. Pender

10)          Face-Expression-Off

9)            Yawn Air

8)            Valley Girl’s Intense Neighbor

7)            National Monotoned Treasure

6)            Mumble Fish

5)            Honeymoon In Acting School

4)            Boring Tess

3)            Gone To Sleep In Sixty Seconds

2)            Ghost Actor

and

1)            Overly Serious Janitor at Ridgemont High

If My Love Were Water . . .

by Thomas M. Pender

If my love were water

            It could rain upon the world

            Such to rival the Great Flood of Noah

If my love were feathers

            It could fill a pillow for each time you rest your head

            Until the stars no longer exist

If my love were pebbles

            It could overwhelm the ocean floor

            And replace the world’s waters with seas of stone

And if my love were pennies

            Such a number would have to be created

            To equal its earthly value

But since my love is only emotion

            Which cannot be measured but in sighs and glances

            I shall resort to such silliness as words

            To attempt to measure my love for you

written by t. michael pender  5/8/91

copyright 1991 T. Michael Pender.  All rights reserved.

Garrett’s “Daddy Time”

by Thomas M. Pender

Today is my middle son Garrett’s 12th birthday.  Time has sure flown.  He’s as tall as my neck, and way too big for me to carry around.  There was a time, however, that he and I spent many magical moments together. . . .

Garrett has always lived with his mother, and while this was not what I envisioned when I planned a family, this arrangement did mean that his time with me was special.  He would always run to me when I pulled up to his house (and in fact, I was told that whenever a car parked near the house, he would ask if I was there!).  During his toddling years, I loved putting him up on my shoulders.  Sitting at an approximate shoulder height of 5’10” or so, Garrett really enjoyed the higher outlook on his world, too!  He would grab two fistfuls of hair, and ride Dad around the house and yard.  What I got a kick out of, though, was that every so often, he would swing his head down on my right so he could see my face.  It seemed to me that he was checking to make sure it was still Daddy on the other side of the head he was grabbing onto.  It always made me laugh.

When he was a bit older, he started to understand that my visits were never for long . . . and he also started to protest my departures!  He would cry or yell “No!” when I would tell him I had to go, and he would latch onto my leg to make leaving impossible.  For quite some time, I had to enlist the help of his maternal grandmother in order to get to my car.  I would give her a nod when it was time for me to leave, and she would say, “Garrett, come and see what’s in the kitchen!” or “You want some juice, Garrett?” or the like, and when he followed her out of the room (which would be the closest room to the door), I’d duck out.  My son is intelligent, however.  After a few weeks of this, he would still go to his grandmother, but he’d very quickly poke his head back in to make sure I was still there!  A few months later, he was developed enough to hop down from my lap to go see his grandmother, but he’d point at me first and say, “Don’t leave!”

I love the man Garrett is becoming, but I have to admit that I miss the days when he ran to me upon arrival . . . and threatened me before leaving the room.

Happy birthday, Garrett!  I love you!

The Dawn of Psychology, In My First Grade Class

by Thomas M. Pender

I’m not sure how or when it started, this ability to involuntarily study my fellow human beings as I go about my business.  Since a time I can’t recall (and perhaps, I suppose, since birth), I have watched the actions and reactions of people around me, and compiled patterns of behavior.  It only occurred to me in my late teens or early twenties that I could say or do specific things in order to get specific reactions from specific people.  When this did occur to me, I became very curious about the origin of this skill/talent/curse.  I still have no answers as to the beginning of this phenomenon, but I recently recalled at least a very early anecdotal sign that I was learning how to use it to my advantage.

The game was called “Seven-Up.”  I was six.

The rules were fairly simple.  Our teacher would pick seven students, who went up to stand at the chalkboard.  The rest of the class would then put their heads down and close their eyes.  The chosen seven would wander out into the columns of desks, and each would touch one student on the head or arm, then return to the front of the class.  Those who were touched would stick their thumbs up in the air.  When the teacher counted seven thumbs and the original set of chosen students were back up in front of the class, she would give the okay.  The students would then sit up and open their eyes, and the seven who were touched would stand.  One by one, each would guess who touched them.  If the student guessed right, they would replace that person at the front.  If they guessed wrong, they would sit back down.  After all seven guesses, the heads went back down for another round.

At an indistinct point in my first grade career, I became an expert at this game.  Not only could I easily pick out which student touched my arm, but I could arrange to be the least likely chosen by the students I tapped.  I slowly and subtly noticed that the other six- and seven-year-olds had tendencies to stand against the board at the head of the same row they picked someone, and to look anxiously at their target while he or she was deciding.  Once this mystically occurred to me, it was a piece of cake to determine who touched me.  Once up at the board and a player, I altered my behavior very simply: I would pick a student on one extreme end of the class, but stand at the opposite extreme end of the board; and while my target was trying to find me, I would casually look away from them and look bored, as if his or her choice didn’t concern me.

I can’t say I was never chosen, but I bet for the rest of that year and the following few years we played the game in class, I wasn’t found out more than one or two times a year.  At the time, I had no idea that I was delving into the complex field of psychology.  I was just playing the game to the best of my ability.  Only decades later did I realize that I had, in fact, studied a set group of subjects, notated patterns of behavior, developed theories of behavior based on these notes, then tested my theories within the study group, to be rewarded with the predicted behaviors.

I’m not even a man of science, but I think this certainly warrants at least a Master’s in Psychology.  I’d even take one that was written out by a six-year-old in Crayon!