Really? Do I really need one?

I am sitting at a stop light, in the fifth largest city in the United States (we passed Philadelphia last year), when I looked to my left and there, on the street corner, was the free enterprise system at work. A man was selling ‘cat trees’ out of the back of his truck. These were not your ordinary cat trees-no way. They were the Sequoia of trees, the red wood of cat climbing, well, things. Covered in fine carpet ruminants and containing perches and tunnels two to three meters off the ground to simulate the feline’s prior life as a huntress in the great forests, Serengeti’s,  and apparent living rooms of millenniums past.

Here’s a question, why do we want to promote such behavior with an animal?

Now don’t write hate-o-grams to me about cats being like people and they make great pets. Yes, I admit, I am not a cat lover. But I will defend your rights to own one. But do we really want to allow a cat, who apparently once hunted living things, and apparently lived high enough that when they are on a well, let’s say a book case ‘two to three meters’ high, they apparently can’t be seen by the animal they are hunting and will jump down and smite the passing victim? Do we really want to have this animal get in touch with its ‘roots’ and have that son of a bitch jump out of a used carpet/cardboard thing and have some PTSD thing on our skulls?

If we’re going to do that, we run the risk of being mistaken for some passing water buffalo and Tom thinking it’s a friggin Bengal tiger, not to mention that damn tower falling over when you always least expect it and render us unconscious, thereby allowing Tom to come up and eat our eye balls out, then go lay down and clean himself.

By god my dogs don't do that! You won’t see them jumping out of a bookshelf. No way, they have the recliner or the pillow on the couch next to master. And they don’t clean anything unless 1) it tastes good 2) it feels good and 3) why would they clean it off? They will just have to roll in it again tomorrow?

I was playing golf this morning, early morning and quite badly I might add. I hadn’t killed anyone and was able to keep the ball near the fairway. Here, about one hundred yards out, in the middle of the fifth largest city in the Americas, loped a coyote. At least it looked like a coyote at one hundred yards. When we got closer, it looked like a dog with some coyote in him, a product of some West Virginia/Appalachian relationship. A well fed coyote. Apparently, the coyote found a food supply. He wasn’t jumping out of trees. Nope, he found himself some morning sun and laid in it while watching me slap a little white ball passed him. I think he laughed, while he licked himself and then fell asleep in the warm sun.

There wasn’t a cat tree around.

Sacred Time before Dawn and two Sleepy Dogs

We are coming up on a sacred time and place in the next two weeks.

Its the morning of Thanksgiving, along about a half hour before the sun comes up. That's about 5:30 Phoenix time to be exact. The house is quiet, the dogs get me up, we all go out to get the paper, pee in the front yard, and come back in for our coffee. The dogs like theirs with cream and Spenda, much like me. They have no thumbs so they share from my cup. We do a quick walk and ball throw, breakfast for them, then they go back to bed.

I have work to do.

About 6, after a quick second cup, I begin the assembly of Thanksgiving. As tradition has it for the Williams men, we start our prep time with a wee dram of some fine scotch. Its not much of a tradition, actually, I kind of just modified one of my older brother's lead where he drinks some of the cooking sherry he uses when he makes the stuffing. A hit for the celery and carrots, a hit for the cook. Easy peasy. The only time he ever drinks it is Thanksgiving so the bottle is about half empty and about seven years open on the shelf. Me-well, if you're going to drink in the morning and its not under the 7th Avenue bridge with two guys named 'Moby' and "Hot Fork" sharing a bottle of Thunderbird, you should be drinking some good stuff.

Problem is with all the kids grown and the actual celebration now over at someone else's house, custom has it the home team makes the turkey. That would leave me with mashed potatoes, about twenty pounds worth. That means standing at the sink skinning and cutting them up for the big pot. Clearly that is not something you need to get up at the butt crack of dawn for. Furthermore, if I sleep in and then start the aforementioned program, that just seems wrong, like I AM either Moby or Hot Fork.

And there is a decorum to marry what you drink to what you are building. For example, turkey or ham and their preparation are always married to the whiskeys-American, Scotch, or those bastards on their own island-the Irish. You also are allowed to mix these whiskeys since they are all, well, whiskeys, especially at O-Dark-Thirty. Drinking glasses are of course optional. Vegetables and their associates, cranberries, may be prepared with either red or white wines. Dessert pies are assembled with coffee and Kahlua, pastries are created and made with anything an Italian general would drink after they surrender. The heavy carbohydrates like rolls and potatoes (yams or russet) take on Southern Comfort, bloody Mary's, and if your Russian or from anywhere in the Ukraine or the island Baltics you have your vodkas and ouzos. Beers are reserved for our friends with South American cultures and anyone in a union.

So, it could just be me, the paper, a couple of drowsy dogs, and a bottle of seventeen year old scotch I stole from a dear friends wake. Its okay, he would have been proud I did so.

I wonder how it would go in my coffee?