On top of everything else, now I have this to contend with: After 15 years, I m suddenly convinced that my cat, whose eyes glow in the dark, is actually an extraterrestrial spy, sent down here to simply observe, monitor, and report the actions of her human back to the Feline Mother Planet from whence she came. I know it sounds odd, but trust me on this one. I can hear her now, just this morning, sending back her findings: All right, true masters, you sent me down here 15 years ago to live with this joker, and it s just getting worse all the time. And I think I m losing my control. He still keeps the water running at a certain drip at a certain place in the kitchen sink because I ve convinced him that s the only way I ll drink this water stuff they have down here, but this morning, when I refused to eat the first two plates of food he gave me, he wouldn t offer me a third, which he normally does. I actually had to eat the stuff. He s getting kind of slack in passing my tests, and he s acting crazy. Even more so than usual. Take this morning. He woke up at 3 a.m. and is in there right now in our den acting like some kind of madman. He s in there sitting on the sofa where we sleep, drinking beet root juice mixed with carrot juice, and has a cup of hot green tea in there with a huge ginger root sliced up in it. He s got Chopin on the stereo and he s reading a book about a boy and his pet raccoon, and is just laughing to himself out loud like nobody s business. I m telling you, he s not one bit right. One minute he s doing that, and the next he s listening to a disco mix remake of a song called If You Could Read My Mind, by some guy named Gordon Lightfoot, and he s dancing around the room. And just talks to himself nonstop. It s bad enough that he follows me around talking to me all the time, like I m going to answer, but when he talks to himself it s really irritating. Yesterday, he did what he always does on Saturdays, which is to go out and buy a bunch of junk from humans who put it out in their yards. Yesterday, he came in carrying a concrete statue of somebody named Saint Francis, but it doesn t have a head on it. It s in our den and is creeping me out. It s on the floor under this really bad painting of some lilies that looks like it had to have been painted by someone in her senior citizens home art class. Do you see what I have to live with? I m afraid he s going to start dressing me up again in costumes. If he tries to put that rag on my head and hauls me around the house calling me his little peasant woman and making me act like I m shopping for cabbage, I m going to go nuts myself. And he has this other painting in there. It s a real abstract painting of a place called Overton Park, and now every time he stares at it it changes. This morning he s convinced that at the end of the path in the painting that leads to a clearing in the trees, there s a huge image of Michael Jackson s face in its current incarnation. And if he s not dancing or reading that book about the boy s pet raccoon, he s pacing. Paces all over the house smoking these long white things that have almost burned the house down several times. At least he s not trying to cook. He doesn t even like eggs, but he tries to boil them all the time just before he s about to fall asleep, and they burn and stink the house up for days. Last week, he pulled that stunt and the eggs exploded all over the kitchen floor. It s a wonder either of us is still alive. Then, oh, wait a minute. Hold on. Here he comes after me. Shit. Now he has me cornered and is reciting lines from movies. At least he s over that Joan Crawford phase. She was a really nasty human who beat her kids and for some reason he used to watch her all the time and recite lines from those movies too. I can t tell you how many times he s looked me right in eyes and said, Aren t the pies bad enough? Pies, he s talking about to me. This whole deal is weird. And my human is on Paxil. You d think he d make more sense. Uh oh, hold on. Here he comes again and he has fabric in his hand. I ve got to sign off and make a break for it before I end up looking like someone from a human show called Mama s Family. More tomorrow. See? The little stool pigeon tells them everything I do. I guess I d better keep praising her when she hurls up hairballs on my new rug.
In the meantime, here s a brief look at some of what s going on around town this week. Tonight, the Memphis Redbirds play Oklahoma at AutoZone Park. Anthony Gomes is at The Lounge. And Baseball Furies and The Subteens are at the Hi-Tone.
