Getting a cat isn't like getting a lawn mower,

yet they sometimes come from the same sources. In this case, they come from Jeremy. A week ago I had one barn cat, yclept Chance, with whom I spent the most limited time. He is friendly enough, but rather pointy. I was quite content with just that one cat. I had no need for any more. Enter Sophocles; 17 pounds of orange, long-haired, affectionate, drooling, shedding chaos. He is inspecting the dust and spiders behind the couch, just now. I suppose there is some logical reason for a cat to play with spiders, but I've never found it. I don't like spiders. Too many legs. But then, cats start with rather more legs than I, so I suppose that they naturally have got a quarter less of a problem with the aforementioned spiders than I have. Of course, that still leaves three quarters of creepy spider to dislike. Lets think about that for a moment more, shall we? I have two legs and dislike spiders, which have eight legs. A cat has four legs, and likes spiders, which have eight. So. I have two, and a cat has four, so we need to subtract two in order to keep this whole thing logical. Thus, eight minus two equals six. So to a cat, a spider only has six legs. Most random bugs have six legs, but I hate them half as much as I dislike spiders. So, if a cat (equaling four) likes spiders (which now equal six) and six is half as offensive as eight, then to a cat, a spider must equal three (for the half of the bug that is objectionable). Now it is obvious that three is less than four, which makes it possible to like things with three legs one quarter more than something with four. With this said, we can logically conclude that cats like spiders a quarter more than we like cats because (by our entirely reasonable calculations) spiders have one less leg than a cat does. I assume that many people like cats. If I also assume that my above reasoning is correct, then it follows that cats like spiders one quarter more than people like cats.

Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass

I've recently set up my old phonograph and have started spinning my grandmother's records. The crisp sound and faint crackle please me though I am not entirely sure why. My grandfather's paintings are hanging on the walls, looking very familiar in their details, but very different on my walls rather than his. I cooked my dinner tonight using a pot from my grandmother's kitchen and I sit here eating it listening to her music. Earlier I looked up a word in the muckle great dictionary that two generations of my family have used as a booster seat. The night seems warm and comfortable. It is odd that these things remind me so much of the loss of my grandparents, and also that these things can comfort me and make me feel somehow as if they are standing here at my side.