Our Cat is Shane MacGowan

Today's big discovery was made while driving down the interstate with a yowling cat in the back seat, and the front seat, and then wandering into the back seat again, and then making her way once again to the front seat, yowling the whole time. Happy Thanksgiving! She only did this for, let's see... roughly the entire five hours we were on the road.

She yowls because she's elderly and deaf and has no concept of volume. She yowls because trees, fields, and cows are going past at unnervingly high speed; because we're surrounded by other cars and trucks, any of which could swerve and kill us in an instant; she yowls because life is short, love is precious, and she isn't completely sure we're taking her home: perhaps we're going to the vet, instead? Or perhaps to a highway rest stop where we might accidentally forget her, so she'll have to spend the rest of her days foraging in the rain for scraps from the rest-stop Au Bon Pain? YOOOWWWWL!!!

But the discovery is this: she yowls right on key with any number of old Pogues songs! Put on "Dirty Old Town" or "A Pair of Brown Eyes," and you can barely hear her! It just sounds like someone trod on Shane MacGowan's foot during the chorus, making him cry out. Or sometimes it sounds like an Irish fiddle in the background adding its pain to the overall lament. (How does that quote go--"The Irish are the people that God made mad/For their battles are all merry, and their songs are all sad.") Our cat's an Irish singer! On our next trip, we're going to see if she can yowl to Sinead O'Connor.

Any bands wishing to rent our cat as vocal talent, please drop me a line. Very reasonable rates assured.

In Memoriam, Goddammit

On Halloween, one of my former professors--an upbeat, funny, hyper-intelligent shaggy-haired Jewish guy--died of a massive heart attack at the age of 48. Today, at his memorial service, I shook the hand of his delicate, elderly mother hand and said, "I'm so sorry." Then I shook the hands of his teenaged children and said, "I'm so sorry."

If people have to die of heart attacks at 48, why can't it be a certain cardiac-impaired Vice President? Why can't it be a certain effectively anacephalic president? Why can't the human race be carefully pruned away such that the world becomes a better place?