Chou chou here…

I’m forgoing my nightly routine of shredding toilet paper and chasing dust bunnies around the apartment. Now that the big cats have wandered off to bed, the computer is mine, so I’ll take this chance to post some birthday greetings!

During the hours when the big cats disappear every day, I mostly sit around with my eyes shut thinking up new haiku to pass the hours. These are for the tallest big cat:

Fluttering, cats melt.
Eagerness melts the woman.
A hunting spice walks.

Happy hostile cat.
Calm blue oceans create waves.
Psychology nut.

Happy Birthday!

Hi…I have to make this fast, because the big cats are due home any minute. I’ve been watching them for weeks now, trying to figure out how to hack into their blog and leave a few comments of my own. It’s been a little frustrating, because every time I get close to their keyboards…they hiss at me and chase me away. I guess they don’t realize that kittens are a little near-sighted and have to get really close to read the screen.

Meanwhile, instead of remaining frustrated at my inability to access the big cat’s blog, I started leaving a few “comments” of my own around the place. Things like tearing up chunks of toilet paper and leaving them all around the house, meowing incessantly the minute I hear the keys in the door, making them think that I’m “fishing” in the toilet, hopping in the shower with them and then prancing all over the one that’s still asleep with my wet paws, waking them up at 3 am by sitting on their heads, or biting that soft tender spot right above the elbow (or right behind the knee). You’d think they would’ve gotten my message by now…but boy, these big cats are DENSE. I mean…getting in the shower isn’t easy for a kitten, y’know…but they seem to think I actually LIKE it, instead of considering the deeper meanings behind my actions. Hey! Did ya ever think this might be an act of creative civil disobedience? I’m fighting for the rights of all oppressed kittens to post their opinions (and poetic musings) where the whole world can see ‘em.

Anyway, enough venting. Pretend you never read all of that and continue to think of me as cute and harmless, please! So yesterday, I was reading over the female cat’s shoulder and finally caught the password to this joint. It’s about time! Now I had to find a few moments where the computer was unguarded and the big cats weren’t around.

Today, I finally got my chance. I logged on (it took a few tries…it’s hard to type with only 4 furry fingers) and discovered that in the five weeks I’ve lived here, the big cats have only written one post about me. Ingrates! I do a lot around here – entertain them by chasing around that stupid feather thing they brought home and biting my own tail, rearranging their papers on the coffee table, keeping their laps warm, making their apartment more fashionable (those cowboy couches are hideous, but I’m giving them special treatments to give them the “distressed” look). And for all that, only ONE post and one page of five week old photos. Half the cats reading this blog probably don’t even realize that I now have a NAME, much less my own opinions about things around here.

So let me introduce myself. The big cats call me “Chou-chou”…and I guess that name will do for you, my loyal readers…because if I told you my real name (which not even the big cats know), I’d hafta…um, well, let’s just say that it wouldn’t be pretty. To the casual observer, it probably looks like I spend most of the day asleep. But the casual observer is wrong….I never sleep. What passes for kittenish slumber is actually a deep state of creative reverie and composition. I am a writer and though my moments at the keyboard are scarce (the big cats are MAJOR computer hogs), myriad compositions swirl in my brain. Opinion pieces and Haiku, mostly. The opinion pieces are too long to post tonight, but in my last stolen moments here I’ll leave you with four of my favorite haiku to date.

And with that, I must away! I hear the male cat’s heavy paws pounding up the stairs. I’ll post again, as the opportunity presents itself. Until then, I hope that the big cat’s inane ramblings don’t bore you to tears.

p.s. I overhead the big cats talking about someone named “The Boss” and his cat Doo Doo. Apparently Doo Doo is getting shaved tomorrow. I almost threw up when I heard that….it’s so barbaric, but at least it gives me fodder for my next opinion piece. Hope the big cats don’t get any ideas!
p.p.s. I also snuck the camera while they were away. My latest photos are here!

The latest night security drama: I made art, social commentary, highlighted the difficulty of applying ancient Scriptures directly and literally to our contemporary 21st century issues, and most importantly, I made a friend. In some cultures, I would have made food instead. But this is Texas – they may eat catfish, but they do not eat bugs, not even battered and deep-fried, nor do they often eat their work buddies. As someone who is formally trained in cross-cultural sensitivity, I thought it best to apply my education and not eat my new friend. It scares me to think of all those people who don’t have such education, running around the world, eating their new friends. Misunderstood cultural faux pas can cause wars, you know.

Have you ever been in a park with birds or squirrels, and you want to feed them, and someones says, “Just be real still and quiet and they’ll come to you.” Well it was just like that – I was just sitting still reading some Stanley Grenz and my friend just came to me, sat right there on the keyboard.

Yet, it would be disingenuous of me to give the impression that this was an easy choice to make, not to eat my new work buddy. I have tried to artistically display my inner-deliberations through the photographic works of art embedded in this post. Even as I write this I’m tempted to scratch a bite – continual reminders of the dirty who-gets-to-bite-who societal double standards. Some nights on the job I unleash pitiless wrath on every insect that dares enter my personal space, which in this job encompasses the entire first floor of the building.

So I let him live. He camped out on the keyboard and chewed on his legs and one of his antennae (the one I messed with a bit) for hours while I ate cereal, read, and considered contemplating the metaphorical potential of an insect having a good time while oblivious to the giant can of insecticide casting its perceived yet uncomprehended presence over the evenings festivities … for we are like grasshoppers. Hmmm… food for thought.

I know I should have some really gripping title for this little series, but it’s after 5am and my mind is floating off somewhere between the fumes from the bug spray and the Chinese folk classical music (on very cool surround sound)in which I am still trying to find a groove… current song: “The Lawn Is Interspersed With Flower.” Perhaps the experience will provoke some flash of intuition regarding how ancient Chinese worldviews can inform our deliberations regarding troubling implications of the impending strides in technological human alteration on the mind-body problem. Then again, maybe it’s just chemicals and music. Either way, welcome to The Night Security Monologues - which is what happens when I’m done eating, practicing Chinese, and my mind is too fried to read or work on stuff that needs to get done.

Night security sounds like a cool job with guns, big flashlights, dark corners around buildings and guys in black masks to fight with. I hope you weren’t expecting that sort of thing. I sit in the lobby of a dorm full of highschool girls. My job, from 10pm-6am, is to make sure none of them leave and none of their boyfriends get in. Since they’ve already found out that I (a) am married, (b) won’t do their homework for them, (c) think 10pm is past their bedtime, and (d) like to mock their boyfriends, they pretty much leave me in peace. Which is good, because Chinese is tough and requires concentration (the language and the music).

Here is my latest adventure (as best I can remember):
3:12am - strange noise outside of front door of dorm, like someone throwing pebbles.
3:14 - decide to go investigate strange noise.
3:14 & 1/2 – find a really big, scary-looking bug that I have never seen before throwing itself repeatedly against the glass door (apparently he wanted in).
3:15 - get piece of cardboard to catch him with (it looked vicious, and since most insects in Texas bite, I wasn’t taking chances. I don’t know that he really bites, or if he’s actually a ‘he,’ but my ignorance regarding the former guaranteed my continued ignorance regarding the latter).
3:16 - go outside to catch bug. He runs, I chase him. Door locks with 1000 pound magnet. Bug tries to hide in puddle but I catch him and fiddle for my access card to get back in the dorm. My subconscious says, “Puddle? Where’d that come from?”
3:17am - get soaked with “non-potable water” from malicious rotating lawn sprinklers’ direct hit while locked outside dorm fiddling with access card.
3:17-22 - get inside and play with bug.

I let him go in the end… it had huge eyes, and it’s hard to kill things that can look at you unless you plan to eat them, but I only eat stuff like this when I’m overseas. …I think it’s a giant water bug, only mine had bigger talons.