Mrs. Boil Discovers Time Management

I am exhausted. My sleep cycles have been running back to back which is difficult when you are someone who has goals and dreams, objectives and deliverables all derived from a mission statement that I created after a day of instruction at a time management course called Focus: Achieving Your Highest Priorities by those sly time-management experts at FranklinCovey.

Up to this point my highest priorities besides napping have been occasional efforts towards the accordion, and contemplating if Facebook is worth the effort. Facebook really, it can eat up an entire afternoon, and what do you have at the end, other than knowing that Adam has gone to the gym yet again, and Jan loves Honey Bunches of Oats?

Before Focus: Achieving Your Highest Priorities, I had occasional goal impulses. Sculpture held my attention briefly, but alas no thumbs. I thought about being a Life Guard, but then remembered I really hate getting wet. Song writing had crossed my mind but a recent trip to Portland doused that nascent flame. It was a song I heard on that trip, one I hadn’t heard in a long time, a song so profound that I actually stopped dancing the first time I heard it at 3:00 a.m. at that club in the East Village whose name I’ve forgotten. I was with Thomasina an actress friend of mine, employed mostly by Disney and I remember she was annoyed no one had recognized her. Then the song started. Perhaps the catnip played a role, but I felt mesmerized, just like I do when I watch the metronome.

Now, here, so many years later I was hearing it again, reliving the moment, which is suddenly shattered when the driver’s voice interrupts the second verse announcing, “It will be seven minutes before the shuttle reaches the Hertz lot.” All art becomes commercial it seems. I shall not abase my talents.

There are those moments, like that night in the East Village as well as the Hertz shuttle where we must ponder profundities. Some spark ignites and we alter our course. Maybe that’s what sent me down the self-actualization road with a stop at Focus: Achieving Your Highest Priorities.

The course length puzzled me at first. How long should it take to “Focus”? Two hours seemed reasonable, but apparently it takes an entire day, a challenge if napping is a recurring event in your Outlook Calendar. The very idea of eight hours uninterrupted by a snooze is beyond my comprehension not to mention my abilities which is why I missed the middle part of the course. Spending an entire day focusing should have signaled to me this was more than tips to streamline your morning routine. Efficiency was not the goal here; economizing time and tasks were mere tangents, time-management afterthoughts. I figured we’d be resurrecting long-established ideas from the turn of the last century and just buff them up a little with a nod towards iphones and the internet. How hard could that be?

Our bright-eyed instructor Sean, who had that Utah Valley enthusiasm that usually hides severe passive-aggressive tendencies, had been facilitating only a short while when he suddenly posed a question, a question which was to serve as the cornerstone for the rest of the day if not the rest of our lives. Given the dramatic pause preceding his query, I could tell this was the point in the course designed to confront you, compel you to some realization hidden from you until now. It was a little bit scary. What if I didn’t want to know this about myself? Maybe I really am dull. Maybe people only pretend to find me fascinating while rolling their eyes when I’m not looking. What if I’m really not a good dancer! What if I have to tell people I hated Avatar. Could I defy popular opinion and still be invited to parties? I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

Sean said it again, “What…… (dramatic pause) would you set out to do……….. (pregnant pause) if you knew you could not fail?” (poignant silence)

Hmmm?

Everybody’s thoughts immediately turned inward. You could see it in the knitted eyebrows and the distant gazes fixed out the window at the IHOP across the street. At length our instructor posed the question again and turned to a Great Dane named Bijou sitting on the second row.

She stared at her paws bashfully then exclaimed, "I'd bake a cheese souffle. I'd even make it for a dinner party!" Our instructor coughed then moved on.

A man on the back row named Thad whose slack-jawed stare through this first hour of instruction made you wonder if he had a brain injury, volunteered, “I’d become a star on The Young and the Restless”. All the women in the room turned, and then went slack jawed themselves as they recognized his statuesque, smoky-eyed, soap-opera possibilities. He already possessed the photogenic features, and appeared to have the dim intelligence one suspects of the celebrities showcased in US or The Enquirer which probably explains why he’d settle for a Soap Opera rather than feature films. Aim higher, I wanted to say, at least shoot for prime time.

I nodded appropriately at both responses trying to appear non-judgmental, although I was judging them all over the place. These two had opened themselves up in a surprisingly stark way, revealing, perhaps without realizing it, how mundane or low rent their aspirations were when placing themselves in a world without limitations. I decided I must raise the bar.

Now he turned to me. “What would you do if you knew (dramatic pause again) you could not fail?”

“I think (dramatic pause myself) I would travel through time,” I said.

I knew immediately that I had given a wrong answer. That he thought I wasn’t playing along. It was the look on his face that told me. But it was the truth, and he’d made the rules. Why limit yourself to the constraints of the space time continuum? What’s the point of thinking small? Bijou and Thad had made that embarrassingly clear already, not to mention the whole point of the course afterall was "time management."

The instructor seemed caught off guard but recovering said, “And what would you do then that you could not do now?”

“I would invest. You understand compounded interest stretched over five or six decades don’t you? When I came back to the present, well let’s just say Wells Fargo would be offering me more than free checking.” And on it went.

At the end of the day after a dizzying number of exercises and videos with contemplative music and a lot of homilies and platitudes, you leave the course armed with a mission statement and a description of your governing values, the principles that guide your decisions identified, articulated and documented into some sort of a pyramid, or a matrix useful in a PowerPoint presentation, that illustrates hopefully for you, but definitely for your colleagues and the course instructor, and of course your boss, that you have gotten it. You have grasped the concepts, and your paradigm has shifted into clarity and motivation; the natural results that come when you formally describe the timeless principles, natural laws and values that govern your choices. There they are all laid out, with commas and capital letters in Arial Narrow, a font you deemed appropriate for such profound thought, staring you in the face.A derivative of this documentation of course should be a good set of goals, things you want to accomplish that inform and shape your activities each and every day as you work towards their completion; long term achievements deconstructed into short term tasks, the daily activities that get you there. And now you finally know where “there” is. What a relief!

That is until you realize you have no goals. There really isn’t anything in life so compelling that you feel a desire to accomplish it: trying to understand the dialectic that prevents Conservatives from having intelligent conversations – pointless; reconnecting with your best friend from the old neighborhood – I’d have to find the number and I’d spend most of the reunion wondering, “Has she had an eye job? Are those tiny little scars?”; snorkeling in Costa Rica – that getting wet thing again. Sad experience has taught me that things aren’t always “worth it.” Is it my advanced age that has brought me to this world-weary place? I mean I am three.

I am skeptical when it comes to things others tell you are important. As a Scout I was told by every Scoutmaster, and there were a lot of them, that learning Morse code was a highly desirable skill since one never knew when one might find themselves adrift at sea or stranded atop a remote mountain, with only a flashlight some mixed nuts and no sweater. This seemed important when I was young, but as an adult the only time I’ve really been stranded was on my way to Madrid where I spent 5 ½ hours stuck on the runway at Kennedy International. But they gave everyone a Diet Coke and some smoked almonds and let us watch the movie for free, so how bad was it really. Should I have signaled an SOS to the next plane over or the baggage handler? Did they know Morse code? Would they care?

Before this course I never realized how narrow my vision was. As a cat, obviously I have my limitations; a short attention span that prevents me from tackling the more difficult tunes on the accordion; Stairway to Heaven, It’s Been a Real Nice Clambake, anything by Shakira or Barry Manilow. I am handicapped by my predilection for being nocturnal, a quality that is not well received at church, where as second counselor in the Relief Society I am always suggesting our next meeting be at 11:00 p.m. rather than 6:00 a.m. as President Richards insists. She thinks there is virtue in getting up early, treating climbing out of bed at 5:00 a.m. as the equivalent of giving to the poor or taking in an orphan. I say there is virtue in staying up late, fighting the flesh with its narcotic desires for sleep. Conquering one’s own flesh is much more character building. Staying up late requires endurance and focus as opposed to the momentary effort of waking up, something we all eventually do every morning. I mean which is harder, to not wake up or to not fall asleep?

But, back to my values and their articulation. There was an insight, a slightly disturbing one if you live in Utah that began with dim realization and then alarming clarity that my governing values, what few of them there were, did not include obedience. I think this is good, my friends and family don’t. Marci Purr who had just been rebaptized into the Mormon Church after some problems stemming from her brief but lucrative career as a massage therapist in Vegas, was shocked that obedience had not made my list. Now as any good Mormon will tell you, “obedience is the first law of Heaven.” They can’t provide any scriptural support or foundation for that statement, but that never seems to stop anyone from throwing it out if you question them about something you don’t agree with or think is just plain wrong. For example, the church spending all that money in California to fight gay marriage, but remaining stone-cold silent about health care reform or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I’d like them to weigh in with some revelation from God on the Public Option in healthcare which has so many people in a dither or reveal God’s troop-reduction ideas. That would be useful. We need a Conference talk on this.With my completed mission statement I made another discovery. It’s not easy dealing with people when they don’t understand the clarity, ease of decision making and empowerment that a good mission statement brings. I determined the day following the seminar that in most situations I could just let my brain idle, which was so appealing since I always found thinking exhausting to begin with. I decided to just filter things through my mission statement. Do they pass through or don’t they? But just like quantum physics or Pilates, it’s harder than it looks. How should the Democrats govern? Is Florida a good or a bad idea and when do I need to decide? What song should I sing at Uncle Harlan’s funeral? A mission statement answers none of these questions, the things that plague us from day to day. And I don’t know about you, but these decisions are where I spend most of my day. I’m out of diet Coke, should I drink the Dr. Pepper or go to the store? I still must think, something I was so excited to give up.

So my mission statement is framed and sits on an upper shelf between the portrait of me I had taken at the Mall and the snapshot from my trip to Cincinnati. I don’t think about it that often, usually only as I’m dozing off, which come to think about it is pretty often and is my highest priority. So maybe those brief but cumulative pre-slumber contemplative minutes will result in an accomplishment someday, or maybe I’m already a success and just don’t realize it. After all I do have dreams, with every nap actually, and what are dreams really but just grand possibilities, possibilities that evaporate each morning as we put the Pop-Tarts in the toaster, retrieve the paper and face the cold light of day.

Kevin and Javier - The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name

Sometimes in life you are the flight attendant who must suddenly fly the plane. The pilots are dead, fuel is low and many people still have not received their beverage and snack, but there are bigger issues at hand. It is time to get involved. You heed the radio call from the control tower and realize it’s up to you to land the plane. You have never been a pilot, but figure a pamphlet or perhaps a DVD provided by Boeing will get you through. When my friend Kevin the Big French Poodle called one evening insisting we go to California to fight Proposition Eight I could see I was soon to receive my pilot wings.

Rarely does Kevin get political. He mostly enjoys catalog shopping, quiet evenings at home and an occasional trip to Chula Vista with his boyfriend Javier to visit the in-laws. I’ve known Kevin since he moved to the bottom of Bon View Drive the same summer Marci Purr became a Jehovah’s Witness. It was the summer all my friends were exploring new options caused by spiritual thirst, lactose intolerance a messy breakup or getting engaged to a vegan.

Marci made flesh the new zeal of recent religious converts and pondered the proselytism of Kevin. He was Marci’s first target since her own spiritual renovation. But when Kevin’s homosexuality became apparent she fled from him the same way she now ran from blood transfusions, voting and Christmas.

Kevin is a huge French Poodle, a “standard” which might have tipped Marci off from the start, but no. He is also the only dog I know that insists on going to the groomer every week. He confided once his wish he were born a Collie or an Afghan with long flowing fur, the kind Cher would have if she were a dog.Instead Kevin visits the Bark Avenue Day Spa where Eduardo, a Doberman recently graduated from the Sherman Kendall Academy of Beauty Arts and Sciences, chemically treats Kevin’s fur to create the windblown look he longs for. Without irony Kevin will tell you being gay was how God made him and we should all be how God made us, and in the next breath will describe the full retinue of hot rollers, blow dryers and chemistry that makes Kevin, Kevin. But each month he leaves the salon his fur blowing in the gentle breeze. He dreads the humid weather of the summer which plays havoc with his “look”. When Kevin runs through the park he imagines he is running in slow motion.

I had not heard of Proposition Eight until Kevin called. Several of my friends have told me I should be more political but it sounds like a lot of work. So when I asked Kevin to explain Proposition Eight the dead silence at the other end of the phone told me I might just as well have said “Jesus? Who is Jesus? Tell me about this Jesus.”

Apparently and according to very informed sources, traditional marriage is just one swift kick from collapsing into nothing but meaningless sex with shared health care benefits. Destroyed would be the mutual commitment, the shared view of life, not to mention the children, the mortgage, the Visa bill, and the credit rating. These same highly informed sources also have it on good authority that people will soon be marrying their pets which will be just one more burden on said health care system when you considered the added cost of good veterinary coverage. Marriage will be so weakened that only the most intrepid will wade into its swirling tide, what with lesbians of the deep lurking to pull you under while tearing away your children to become one more recruit to the gay lifestyle.

Proposition Eight would add an amendment to the California state constitution defining marriage; one man, one woman – that’s it. The amendment would also negate any recently legal same-sex marriages, throwing Kevin’s and Javier’s three-month-old nuptials into the fetid swamp of aborted matrimony -their whisper-white wedding album tumbling into the oozing, decomposing wreckage of millions of traditional marriages. The Proposition Eight proponents ignore the pungent dung of heterosexual broken homes. Distraction is their method – “look over there! That woman just married her Chihuahua. Watch out, here comes your second wife" and it's not the good kind you get when you hit middle age and make a lot of money. It's polygamists shopping at the Gap in plain sight of your children. To quote Kevin, “the rubble of traditional marriage ain’t caused by the queers, dear.”

Now of course the thing that has me most alarmed about Proposition Eight is the wastefulness it would cause. Hundreds of couples are spending millions of dollars on frappe and cakes and ice sculptures and spray on tans all in preparation for the “big day”, the big day that has taken generations to arrive.

Kevin and Javier spent months creating a wedding so extravagant, so stylish, so over-produced that the wedding video came in two versions – one being a “Director’s Cut”. The mixture of Javier and Kevin’s family was a little uneasy. It was Guadalajara meets the Episcopalians of Greenwich Connecticut. The effluvia and detritus that adorn every elegant reception came under particular scrutiny. There were piñatas, but the rakish pinks, yellows and oranges had been replaced with the tasteful taupe, antique white and delarobia blue of the Westchester Country Club. There was a Mariachi band, but they played Air Supply and Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” the most popular song of both weddings and paradoxically funerals. The whole event was one big stylish compromise, which after all is what marriage is all about anyway.

And then there were the families, Kevin’s parents and all his siblings were there with their reserved comportment and naturally curly fur and right in the thick of them was Kevin, all highlights and flowing tresses, you would have bet he was adopted to look at the whole clan.

Kevin’s grandmother had had herself died especially for the event, apparently a throwback to some elegant poodle fashion from the 60’s as a tribute to her gay grandson and his tribe. Her tearful howls throughout the ceremony while touching and hearfelt were highly annoying and at one point got so out of control that it started half of the other guests baying, barking and yowling, turning the wedding momentarily from a joyful celebration into a mournful chorus of canine wretchedness. It was like when an ambulance drives past the pound.

All of this pagentry for naught, wasted, because traditional marriage was stewing over the cannibal's fire and those angry haters from the Christian Right were stirring the pot and blaming the gays. I recently saw one of "those people" protesting gay marriage, holding a sign that said “G.A.Y., God Abhors You” and that was all it took , sending me up the aisle and into the cockpit ready to help land the plane, staring cross-eyed out the window, just like Karen Black in Airport 75.

Of course this was all before I found out I would miss the catnip festival in the Coachella Valley and I would need to write out a check and the whole thing started to sound much more complicated than landing an airplane. Then of course I felt a nap coming on and told Kevin I would have to call him back. Well, Kevin and Javier left without me. I got a postcard from the front lines just yesterday.

Mrs. Boil Goes Waterskiing

Sometimes in life we make bad choices. In my case I was trying to stretch myself, not the way I do after a nap, but emotionally, mentally, psychically. My limiting beliefs have caused me to miss out on opportunities. Who would have thought that poodles would catch on when I predicted they were just too ridiculous for anyone to consider seriously. Yet there they are in dog parks across the land, straining at the end of a leash as if they were Lassie or something, clueless that they look like Lassie with a bad perm and a cheap dye job. My broker came to me with the opportunity to invest in poodles, but I deferred when I shouldn’t have. That was my lesson that one can never underestimate the intelligence of the general public. I mean look at how people are giving serious consideration to Sarah Palin.

So my friend Cozette Funk called one morning to tell me she was going up to Willard Bay for some boating and invited me along. Even though I am deathly afraid of water, I also believe that I can’t allow fear to make my choices for me. I pushed past my fear and came to appreciate both Thomas Kinkaide as an artist and Applebees for late-night dining. Plus I was all wired up on Starbucks latest brew which might have accounted for my impetuousness, so I said, “Let’s boogie.” Next thing I know we’re blasting around the bay, Cozette at the wheel and her sister Luscious Tappscott behind the boat, riding the water weenie with three kids. I was sunning myself on the bow of the boat when Cozette tells me it’s my turn.

Well this is my moment of truth, my time to break through my fear. This is when my therapy, all my internal work, all my mental discipline must come into play. My heart was pounding, but I maintained my aloof posture, my appearance of calm and control. My religious training and my year at BYU had taught me that if we fake it on the outside it might eventually stick on the inside. It has never worked, but still I persist.

So I climbed out onto the water weenie with the children, who refused to get off and before I could really get settled Cozette guns it and we’re off. Reflexively my claws come out to hold me in place which is as you can guess the wrong thing to do on anything inflatable. There is a hissing noise, like steam leaking from a radiator and all the children’s’ heads turn. Again I act nonchalant. As far as they know I’m carefree and bold, the wind whipping through my whiskers. I am Magellan on the open ocean facing the storm. They are all pointing at the tiny little puncture marks at my feet and starting to shriek. I look down and back towards them. “What?” I say.

The craft is losing air and we’re now bouncing around on the water, completely destabilized. Well I suppose I needn’t fill in the rest. Cozette took a picture.

What can I say? Life comes at you fast as they say in the insurance commercials. And speaking of insurance, thank goodness I pay my premiums. The mental health benefits have allowed me to work through my weenie nightmare with Cuddles Bullough my therapist. Cuddles is a godsend really. We have both struggled with PWSD, (Post Weenie Stress Disorder). Being a Dachshund she has been referred to as a weenie more times than she can count, and the intersection of our weenie traumas has created a deep bond between us that ultimately resulted in the healing I now feel.

Mrs. Boil Goes to Anger Management

Marci Purr my dear friend stopped by last week to tell me she was being shunned by the Jehovah's Witnesses for having a birthday party and was once again casting about for a faith. This was her fifth faith in five years if you don't count "The Secret" which isn't so much a religion as it is a DVD and a book.

So Marci stops by and I just blurted it out, even though the shame was overwhelming, I have to go to an anger management course. The judge is making me, that feline-a-phobic, power grabbing, ham-fisted adjudicator". Marci stopped short at the word adjudicator. It was last Tuesday's word of the day on my calendar, a gift from my sister who should have kept it for herself, considering she can't get her verb tenses to agree to save her life, but I digress.

It was a minor traffic altercation. My boyfriend, Tucker Wagtail called it classic "road rage". Sylvia Pooftail called it "your anger issue". What is she talking about? It was a momentary lapse in judgment. Stephen Covey one of the thought leaders of the universe has said, "We must learn to create a space between a stimulus and our response. It is this space where we can act out of maturity and reason rather than impulse or anger". What does he know, really. Personally I'm just going to fill that space with a little Valium or one of Tucker's Lortabs left over from when he got fixed.

I was late for my yoga class. Limberness has always been one of my goals, a governing value really. Yoga has provided me with the opportunity to stay centered and at peace with the world except on the days this one instructor leads whom I hate.

So there I was behind the wheel of my Chrysler Seabring, the top down and Simon and Garfunkel on the radio being a "rock" and an "island" at the same time and I was singing along and I sounded just like Brittany Spears. I turned left into the parking lot where I was blocked by two women, not in a Seabring convertible, but an old Ventura with a vinyl roof.

I honked to let them know I was behind them with the back of my car hanging out into oncoming traffic. Imagine the shock when instead of getting out of my way as they should have, they flipped me off, both of them, together. This is the part where I should have heeded Dr. Covey's advice, but three weeks earlier I had been cut off by an elderly women who didn't signal and I had just had it. I laid on the horn and plowed right into her tail lights. With only two feet initially separating us I wasn't able to get up much speed so there was really no damage, and I suppose I shouldn't have backed up and rammed them again, or the third time for that matter, but if you only understood the kind of day I'd had you would sympathize.

The passenger in the offending vehicle did come back and tell me they had stopped so she could open the trunk and get the wheelchair out for the driver. She was on her way to a doctor's appointment. Of course I didn't believe her. I'd heard that wheelchair scam, well actually never, but it sounded fishy. Anyway she still had time, so it wasn't like I made her miss that.

So I drove around her, parked and went to my class. When I came out of my yoga class my car had been towed which completely ruined the inner peace I had just spent 90 minutes achieving. The police threw around a lot of phrases like "hit and run", "leaving the scene", "assault." The details after this are boring so I won't go on, other than to say, lawyers, fines and insurance have cost me more than $1,200 which doesn't even begin to measure the emotional price I've paid just because I'm in the right.

Marci sometimes lent a sympathetic ear, but this time she just looked at me with that look of hers and said, "It sounds to me like you spent $1,200 on a temper tantrum. You should have called Gretchen".

Gretchen Knickers the Shetland pony who is the Relief Society President in the 12th Ward is going to law school at night. I think she's really looking for a career that will allow her to dump that plow horse she married, but I digress. Gretchen just laughed at the whole thing, or maybe she was neighing out the back window at her two daughters, it's so hard to tell the difference. She told me to pay the fine and move on, which is probably what I should have done. But I was right and I am not one to compromise my principles out of expediency or to conserve finances.

So now All State has raised my premiums by $81 every six months, and, well I just can't even begin to talk about the blow to my self esteem, I mean losing in court and everything. Anyone who knows me will tell you I will admit it when I'm wrong, which is hardly ever, and I will acknowledge I'm not perfect. But this just wasn't one of those times.

You Can Stare Up the Steps, or You Can Step Up the Stairs.

As I continue my journey of self discovery my therapist Cuddles Bullough suggested I incorporate daily affirmations into my morning ablutions. Of course I turned to FranklinCovey those cunning people in Salt Lake City who have made a nice living out of inspiring people to be slightly above average for more than 20 years. Their daily quotes have lead me down a fresh new path of platitudes; sayings that, I can only hope, will shift my paradigms and in the transcendent words of Celine Dion create a "New Dawn, a New Day" of possibility.



My friend Buster Marie Fur-Face, who because of a birth defect has always struggled with her self image
has shared with me (confidentially) that if it hadn't been for the people at FranklinCovey she would still be slightly below average. I don't think you can have a more ringing endorsement than that.

My Little Birthday

Just had my fifth birthday with 72 of my closest and most intimate friends. We had Fancy Feast in all the flavors, for desert my favorite, clam ice cream with tuna chunks, and catnip in abundance. Marci Purr and Mittens played ping pong. If you click on the image you'll see Mittens masterful control of the paddle.



We all sang "How Much Is That Doggie In the Window" and then we'd laugh and laugh. My dear friend Snowflake provided more music by playing her favorite song, "In the Ghetto". Normally I don't care for the harmonica but she so wanted to contribute to the festivities. Puff Puff Tapscott played the piano and I snapped a picture of her singing "Laughter in the Rain." Puff Puff's a real talent!

Cuddles Bullough - My Therapists Story

Cuddles Bullough was a rather trashy looking wiener dog who lived on Bon View Drive. Growing up had been tough. Her mother could never hold a job, was always drinking out of the toilet and even though she had no idea who Cuddles's father was, she lied and told her he left them for Hollywood taking a job as Stevie Wonder's seeing-eye dog. Abandoned and valueless with a moral compass pointed straight to hell, Cuddles fell into promiscuity. Known as the "Bitch of Bon View Drive" she gave birth to seven or eight litters that ravaged her low-slung body to the point her teats dragged on the ground when she walked.

She had other addictions beside sex; going through the garbage cans late at night with Bubbles Wallace and Kevin the French Poodle from the bottom of the street, yapping at the mailman, and spelling out profanities on the neighbor's lawn with spots of dead grass created through carefully calculated bladder control. Using a thesaurus she could carry in her mouth she and Bubbles had created a virtual crossword puzzle of profanities on the block.


They'd chased cats, the three of them, Cuddles behind the wheel in her Chrysler Sebring screeching around corners and honking the horn at all hours. While stopped for gas one night she was jumped by Wootsy Woodbury the Abyssinian who lived on Ash Circle. Wootsy scratched her so severely she had to go to the vet for stitches, antibiotics and the worst of all, a bath.

Hard living eventually caught up with Cuddles. She woke up one more morning in the alley behind IHOP, pregnant again, garbage strewn everywhere, half a pancake still in her mouth and decided that was it. She needed help. After getting into a twelve-step program for sexual addiction offered by the Humane Society and finally convincing the people she lived with to get her fixed, she had emerged, tattered and worn looking, but with new insights into the conditions and battles that everyone struggles to win. Like so many who emerge from the "dark walk" as she phrased it, Cuddles went to work helping others. She began as a volunteer at the resident facility that treated her sexual addiction. Her first group, "Lick the Self-Licking" was such a big success they asked her to facilitate other groups including, "Loosing your Fear of the Vet" and "Taking Heartworms to Heart". It wasn't too long before she was in private practice and helping dogs and cats all over the valley.

This was the time I started my own therapy, I had decided my journey of self discovery must begin and the only way to move forward was one paw after the other.

Alfred Newspickle Has A Question

Poor Alfred, half here, half somewhere else. During his lucid moments I find him so endearing. I'm posting his latest e-mail because it is his one connection to the outside world. I should disclaim that the Susan Lucci he's refering to below is the name of his departed pet hog. She was almost 400 pounds, but she had such a nice singing voice that no one mentioned her weight.

Dear Mrs. Boil—
I must confess that I’ve been off having lunch with Susan Lucci today and the courtesy title Mrs., used prior to a married woman’s surname, emerged out of nowhere as our topic of discussion. I found that it is a subject of great concern regarding your use of the word given that no one knows if you were ever married and furthermore no one among Susan’s circles daresn’t bring it up least a great offense might be taken (on your part dear, of course). Well, I just told her I had no hesitation whatsoever asking you such a question, given how close we are and all, and I marched out of the Silver Spoon Café and pulled my 1972 Vega into the parking lot of the nearest internet café. That’s what I did I tell you and that brings me to this letter that I am now typing. (The “help” here keeps pestering me with requests to bring me a Cup-o-Jo. Can’t they tell from looking at me, hair and all, that I daresn’t—my word of the week, which isn’t a real word but anyways—take such a substance into my nervous-laden-over-stimulated-body? Well, I’d be up for weeks, even months if it happened during one of my manic phases. We won’t even get into what it would do during one of my depressive episodes as that is a story for another day. Do I really have to sip caffeine in order to use their computers? As if I don’t have my own laptop. Don’t these servers know they are a must have household item these days? Honestly.) Could you kindly respond to me so that I can clear the potential damaging confusion lest your image among the Lucci-ites become tarnished? Should the Mrs. be a clever acronym for My Raccoon Sisters you can tell me and I promise not to laugh, although I always enjoy a good laugh. We can always carefully craft a message back to Lucci that will not be damaging or embarrassing. In fact, might I recommend that we just tell her that you were married and that the particulars are none of her darn business? On second thought that might cause more gossip and chaos amongst these folks. Let’s just get it out and make a full disclosure MRS. Boil or whoever you are. I’m really starting to get irritated with you here. Well, I’m off to have lunch at the Silver Spur in France with one of my oldest and dearest friends. (It’s really Francis, Utah but don’t you think France sounds much better than telling others you are having lunch at a bar up near Kamas? I do. Image is everything now you know.) I’ll be waiting.

Sincerely yours,

Mr. Alfred Newspickle

Cat Haiku

Snowflake, my close personal friend and confidante has put aside the harmonica and turned to poetry. She's begining with a number of Haiku's that I found enchanting and penetrating, capturing the many dramas that fill the days.



The rule for today:
Touch my tail, I shred your hand.
New rule tomorrow.

In deep sleep hear sound
cat vomit hairball somewhere
will find in morning.

Grace personified.
I leap into the window.
I meant to do that.

Blur of motion, then --
silence, me, a paper bag.
What is so funny?

The mighty hunter
Returns with gifts of plump birds --
your foot just squashed one.

You're always typing.
Well, let's see you ignore my
sitting on your hands.

My small cardboard box.
You cannot see me if I
can just hide my head.

Terrible battle.
I fought for hours. Come and see!
What's a 'term paper?'

Small brave carnivores
Kill pine cones and mosquitoes,
Fear vacuum cleaner

I want to be close
to you. Can I fit my head
inside your armpit?

Wanna go outside.
Oh, poop! Help! I got outside!
Let me back inside!

Oh no! Big One
has been trapped by newspaper!
Cat to the rescue!

Humans are so strange.
Mine lies still in bed, then screams;
My claws are not that sharp.

Alfred Newspickle Writes

My dear, dear friend Alfred Newspickle whom I lost track of after he was institutionalized has suddenly turned up and contacted me. He was such a delight despite his tenuous grasp on reality. I thought I'd share his correspondence, such an upbeat happy fellow.

Dear Mrs. Boil--Love your blogg. It's so good to hear from you coming back from the dead and all. I thought those darn raccoons, LouDean and LouJean, had gone off and eaten you right up. Thank goodness for that séance, conducted by Algie Anderson--your former landlord, or else we would have completely lost touch with you. I think she only held it to see if she could collect on those bounced checks you wrote. BTW: Do they have money over on that side? Anyways (which isn't a word, but I like to say it anywayS) I do like your writing style. You always did have a way with words being a designer and all. Perhaps I will ask you to be my columnist sub one week when I'm out of the country promoting my new book, How to Bee a Columnist in the Summit County Bee--and Like It. We'll be in touch.

Sincerely,
Alfred Newspickle

The Days of '47 Float

I only agreed to be on the float committee after Marci Purr asked me. She said I had been ignoring her, a manifestation of some type of misplaced judgment about her "relationship" with Tucker Wagtail a Golden Retriever who attended the singles ward in the next Stake.

The Days of 47 Parade was only five months away and our Stake had never entered a float before. Marci recommended me to the committee based on my extensive work as a designer. My work focuses primarily on custom made scratching posts, unique shapes and scratching materials designed to accent almost any decor, really no float experience at all, but I accepted as a favor to Marci who was in charge of the budget. The float money came from donations by Stake members, plus a few fund raisers like the dog wash in the church parking lot held by the Deacons Quorum. That created quite a rift between Tucker Wagtail and Marci. The implication that dogs need washing is just projection onto the canine world of the western cultures bathing obsession.

It was easy to see why a cat like Marci would be attracted to a dog like Tucker. Personally I think Tucker's relationship with Marci is just a liberal affectation. Dating outside his species was just his way of slapping his parents in the face. They couldn't even handle seeing him date someone outside his own breed. His former girl friend was a dachshund from Park City. Tucker's mother always referred to her as "that wiener dog."

Brother Richards the float committee head, a retired orthodontist from Pocatello had hoped I'd be able to sketch the design concepts, but I told him I worked best as a creative visionary, a catalyst to the design process. I didn't mention that without thumbs I couldn't hold onto a pencil.
The parade theme was "Pioneer Courage". Brother Richards suggested a fact-finding trip to Pasadena to consult with the Rose Parade folks, "learn all their tricks and secrets maybe get some killer deals on chicken wire and tinsel". Marci had several arguments with him over the budget strains caused by such a trip, and her conscience recently raised, shared a few choice words with him when he suggested another dog wash. She finally had to turn to Bishop Florsheim to mediate, but not before she had Tucker chase Brother Richards car after Sacrament meeting.

Brother Richards big idea was an elephant. "Let's have the elephant sitting at a computer reading his genealogy chart!" He'd have one leg lifted up in the air and underneath his foot would be a little mouse in a tiny Conestoga wagon also doing his genealogy. It all felt very Disney to me and I pointed out to Brother Richards that there wasn't a pioneer in site let alone a courageous pioneer. Faith Despain, one of the seminary teachers at the high school wondered if we were weren't moving into shaky theological terrain. She said if every animal had to trace their genealogy back to Adam, the millennium would never get here. Gretchen Knickers the only Shetland pony on the committee resigned with a snort. "Horses made their way across the plains; doing most of the work I might remind you. My great, great , great uncle was ridden by Porter Rockwell himself through most of Nebraska and I'd bet you a sugar cube they didn't run into any elephants."

Perhaps it was seeing Gretchen Knickers headed for the exit, her little hooves skittering across the cultural hall hardwood, but it was at this point I lost my enthusiasm. Fortunately for me I'm a quitter. I've never seen any virtue in persisting in something that was unpleasant or hard, no matter the goal. I still have friends who'll sit in front of an aquarium pawing at the fish for days at a time thinking eventually they'll figure it out. I'm pleased to say, that's not me.

Mrs. Boil Accepts a Calling

My earliest religious activity was my job as the choir director at the Mormon church down the block. It was my effort to be of service, to give back. My day job, which paid, was working as an operator at the phone company. When I tried to join the choir, my singing voice created consternation amongst the brethren. "Like a hinge" was the Bishop's description. So instead he called me as the choir director - "those who can, do - those who can't, teach". I accepted the calling on the condition "How Great Thou Art" was excluded from the repertoire. Elvis Presley ruined that song for me.

I liked to wear my mink vest to church when the choir was performing since I'd be at the front of the chapel, on the stand where everyone would see me. Marci Purr my best friend at the time (we lost touch when she became a Jehovah's Witness) thought the mink vest was excessive and she was against wearing fur, which was ironic her being a cat. Friends with low self-esteem can be so exhausting.

When leading the choir I liked to face the congregation. It allowed the choir to see my tail much better, which I used to keep tempo. Waving a baton is hard when you don't have opposable thumbs. Sister Purr said the way my tail flicked around it looked like I was very irritated. Sister Purr didn't support my calling. I knew she was very self-conscious of her singing voice (she'd had a shoe thrown at her one night when she was humming on her back porch) but she wouldn't even indulge me at least by moving her lips. She'd just sit there and stare with that stare only a cat can pull off.