Cats

My wife has a cat. My daughters have cats. I have no cat. I want no cat. I don't particularly LIKE cats, and only go along with them because they are not dogs. I don't really have any understanding of the urge for pets. Animals were put on earth to provide meat, milk, eggs, leather, wool, etc. They're not people, and I can not understand those who act as if they were. Makes no sense to me, a descendant of generations of farmers.

But .... I'm outnumbered in my own home and have found it preferable to exercise the better part of valor. Meaning I shut up.

At least they don't bark or bite the neighbors. They do, however, get into some circumstances that can only be described as truly odd. You see one of them here.

Background here. A couple years ago, one of our neighbors suddenly picked up and left, hauling off their kids and getting onto the Cherokee Nation (reservation) by Sallisaw, Oklahoma. They left behind a remarkabable beer can collection, considerable evidence of drug use, and a pregnant cat. Who, being more than half feral, promptly deposited a litter on our back porch. Two lived, little Siamese-looking things. I came home one day to discover that Mama Cat had departed and the kittens had been adopted. Twins, one female, one putatively male. Names were already being solicited, with each daughter claiming one. Since they were evidently demented, I recalled the bad Japanese that an exchange student (Mikihiko Goto, where are you?) had tossed off once, to the effect that ''sukoshi nikki-nikki'' meant ''a little bit crazy''. Since daughter number 2 was thinking of calling the male (hers) as ''Squishy'', Sukoshi was acceptable and Nikki was adopted as the other's nom de nutso.

Cats seem to like to play. Here, we had three of them arguing over, of all things, a small fish bowl. (The fish once housed there had, ahem, no further use for it.) The photo is of the small female (now neutered, like the others) trying out the fishbowl as an appropriate hat. Please don't try to convince me that cats are intelligent. Intelligent beings don't put fishbowls on their heads. Of course, I'm not convinced that intelligent beings get tattoos and piercings either, but that is a matter for another day.