The entrenched cat

I know, it sounds like an atmospheric tavern name. Perhaps suitable for a fantasy or pirate setting?

My cat L--- was under the computer desk. A great utilitarian-grey hulk of a desk it has only one open side.

The size means it's hard to get a cat resting against the back under-wall of the desk to move out when you want to close the bedroom door for the night.

We don't sleep with our cats in the room. They're too interactive. O--- nuzzles us or L--- whines and mews and demands exit. Or she'll sidle in between your legs and spit and hiss if you jostle her too deeply.

Bending is quite painful and difficult now so I didn't want to flop to my feet then crawl in and carefully push her, cupping my hand against her arse and making sure her tail points downward so as to avoid an inevitable scary snarl of protest and a possible turn-and-claw manuever.

Thus I ended up having to motion at her to get her out but without the benefit of an accompanying yell, for others within the house were abed. 'L---,' I hissed, then lightly finger snapped at her. 'Get the fuck out.'

She stared at me, blank-faced.

Several repeated attempts of finger snapping accompanied 'fuck offs' later I had still failed to shift her. With insanity sometimes defined as doing the same thing again-and-again and expecting different results I realised something else is needed—sadly, taking a leaf out of the states' plods' book of recent days where they used overwhelming force against bathing-weekly hipsters standing up for like 1 per cent like transaction tax on financial transactions, man (1).

I went for an implement.

I started with seeking out Mister Claw—my extender grabbing device—but it was not in the room and I couldn't be arsed lame-walking up the corridor to get it. And the skeleton claw hand back scratcher was too short to reach her. I went into the bathroom to get one of the old tomato sauce bottles we have as a bath toy. as I was going to squirt a single quick shot by way of 'fuck off' inducement. Alas then I remembered they were outside, drafted as water-fighting tools from when we had a boy swarm here on the weekend. My jury-rigged effort? A small cupped palm-full of water which I flung at her that simply impotently dribble-splattered the plastic matting over the carpet hole and landing a good foot from her smug little face.

There was one thing for it. Though it never happened to me, I have seen enough nerds-oppressed movie-fare to know the efficacy of a well-flicked towel-end. So I grabbed my faithful blue towel—liberated from a hotel chain some years past and dyed a tasteful light blue—and whipped it sideways at her. That got her to the side of the desk ... then out, slinking around the radiator, between the legs of the chair and out the corridor and the fuck off out of my way.

Stupid fucking cat! (shakes fist at smug mammalian parasite whose gilded cage means she wants for nothing!)

(1) I know I haven't blogged anything about Occupy Wall Street. I like to think that this blog could someday be part of a collective record of human consciousness about how people felt about the events of the day as they rippled around the world (1a). But it's hard of late to sit down and type unless I am truly gripped with inspiration. Though I have been writing more, which is good. Writing is a thing (1b) I am okay at. It helps me think through things that need thinking through. Indeed, I was thinking tonight about how our experiences shape our character and personality. I experienced life with a semi-crappy body. Don't get me wrong, I am not special needs and I am not disabled in the true sense of the word—hence my preferred nomenclature of (dis)abled; a kind of tween of abed and not. That lack of physicality, and subsequent non-joy of being heavyset, has utterly coloured my life and how I view the world and how I even feel day-to-day or even moment-to-moment. But if I could have changed that ... if I could have somehow made it so I didn't have a semi-fucked body ... would I? No, I wouldn't. Because I wouldn't be me. There would be a different me that isn't me out there in my body having a different me experience. Would I change it now if I could? Like wave a wand over my now-body and declare it pain and discomfort free? Absolutely. Being in discomfort all the fucking time, frankly, is a pain... I would still be me if pain free. Just a better me. Which is why I am more than fine with pharmacological mechanisms being employed to deal with that. Because it actually does make me a better me. Turns out if I have the pain dialed back ... I am more pleasant to be around. Go figure.
(1a) And the OWS protest is a beautiful thing. A flash-mob without egos assembling because they see the status-quo as fucked. But I am with them in spirit. I love that it combines the concept of the sit-in from the '60s with a 2010s social networking twist and that it has had such a powerful effect. As evidenced of all those movements that sprang up around the globe. The future of the world in developed societies is broadly one of socially and environmentally conscious youth clamoring for change. It truly does give me hope for what lies ahead in terms of global peace and environmental protection. The future won't be utopian ... but it won't be dystopian, either. And eventually, like the way of those before them, the remaining fucked-up governments that are the elites over everyone else will die and be covered by history's sediment. Stick that in a plaster model of a Dinosaur pelvis!
(1b) Argh—my stupid always-fuck-up of writing the word think instead of the word thing was there for the first 24 hours of this blog's life. Damn you all to heck! Though what a marvelously apt place for the error to occur...