Intellectual House o' Pancakes Comments Page and Grill

(On some browsers you'll need to refresh this page in order to see the comment you just left.)

2fs - 2005-12-26 18:15:23
Well, I've been a cat person for nearly twenty years, and there's nary an NPR tote bag, gardening clog, or elastic-band pant to be found in our house. The kind of cat person to worry about is the kind that really only likes kittens, and pretends they're actually babies. Cats are cats. I think your idea to get a cat to take care of your mouse problem makes sense. Different cats have different personalities, of course: if you have a shelter near you (such as one run by the Humane Society) you can meet the kitty and probably learn its history.
-------------------------------
iwombat - 2005-12-26 18:54:20
Mice are just like tiny dogs with really high voices, cats are just biggish mice with canibalistic tendencies, but some cats are more like dogs, you would probably like one of those, you can tell, because they will walk over to you when you enter the room, even if they are not really hungry, a good thing to do with dead mice is to make mice on toast, it cures may ailments...
-------------------------------
Baby Party - 2005-12-26 19:02:41
Isn't our mutual friend who lives on Monroe Place a cat person? I think it would be amusing to see him in clogs and elastic band pants. But it's unlikely to happen.

A warning: I once found my cat wandering around the apartment with the back half of a dead mouse in his mouth. Other cat-and-mouse games: tormenting the mouse for fun til you have to step in to euthanize the poor bleeding mousey; depositing the dead mouse in your bed (look what I did, mommy! aren't you proud?); vomiting up mouse parts. Don't be surprised if the mice don't just magically disappear- you may still be exposed to their gruesome deaths. Still, I think you should get a cat.
-------------------------------
Baby Party - 2005-12-26 19:06:17
My old friend Donavan had a method for choosing a kitten from a litter: she'd hold the kitty to her chest, and then see what would happened when she pulled it away. If the cat tried to cling to her chest, digging its claws into her shirt, she figured it wasn't mellow enough for her.

I had a cat with a dog-like personality once. He was great. He would jump in a stranger's lap. I think you can tell if a kitten is liable to have that kind of personality.
-------------------------------
Baby Party - 2005-12-26 19:10:23
And finally: have you ever seen the Friends episode where Joey says something is a "moo point?" When questioned about this usage, he explains: "It's like a cow's opinion. It just doesn't matter. It's moo."
-------------------------------
Editrix - 2005-12-26 19:24:10
As someone who grew up with dogs and for many years thought that cats just didn't care for me, I am proof that feline companionship is a big quality-of-life enhancer. And if you get one of those laser toys? Oh man, hours of entertainment. As long as you remember what Doug's mom says: dogs have owners; cats have staff.
-------------------------------
Janet - 2005-12-26 21:21:27
I'm the live-in maid to three cats, own no elastic-waist jeans, and there's really nothing wrong with NPR totebags, you know. As BP implies, plese be aware that you will probably be cleaning up little half-mice from the second day the cat resides with you until the mice get smart enough to no longer hang out there. You do want to adopt two cats at the same time; they will enjoy disregarding each other when you are not there to disregard.

As for "moot point", curiously, I also just got hipped to its rampant (including mine) misuse. But my enlightenment came in a letter-to-the-editor that I disagreed with strenuously, so I was disinclined to care what the writer thought the real meaning of "moot point" was until I saw the same, ah, moot point referenced in your blog.
-------------------------------
Michael - 2005-12-26 21:29:57
As for a cat taking care of the mice rather than you, which would you prefer: to have your leg caught in a trap, or to be attacked by a tiger? Don't ring in one awful creature to rid yourself of another.
-------------------------------
Flasshe - 2005-12-26 21:32:11
Whether or not you should get a cat is a moot point.
-------------------------------
iwombat - 2005-12-26 22:23:11
More fun things about cats- you can give them vaguely insulting names like fur-face, and they don't even know! and if you are holding an open can of cat food, and you call them that, they'll actually come! they are such good sports! also they pretend not to like things that they really do! like being wrapped in rubber bands, they put on a really funny face, but they really like it! One disappointment you might as well be forewarned of, is that they are not that much fun to make out with, because their breath always smells like cat food.
-------------------------------
jonhope - 2005-12-26 23:29:26
Hi, Paula! Happy Holidays! The comments about misuse remind me of a malapropism from our mutual friend Tina Trent, who once said that someone should "get off their high hog." I saw your music discussed not long ago in one of my favorite blogs: http://www.littlehits.com/2005/11/song-of-day-november-1-2005.html#comments
-------------------------------
Paula - 2005-12-27 10:48:34
Cat people: (cue David Bowie: "See these eyes of greeeeeeen...") Thank you for your helpful comments and feedback! I am no longer afraid of becoming the crazy cat lady.

Jon: Hey! Nice to hear from you! Yeah, that is a cool blog--I recently bookmarked it, too. I'm opening a socket in the back channel and will send you a real e-mail soon-ish.
-------------------------------
2fs - 2005-12-27 15:02:20
How about having your leg caught in a trap (and, uh, we can't back out, because we love you too much baby?) *and* being attacked by a tiger while being forced to listen to John Ashcroft sing self-penned lyrics in accompaniment to Kenny G. records and your eyes are Clockwork-Oranged open while a Rob Schneider film fest plays? Hurry up tiger, say I. (PS: Calling utterly natural animal behavior "awful" is silly. It's attributing human morality and perspective to nonhuman creatures and is absurd as the medieval habit of putting horses on trial if they killed a man.)
-------------------------------
Paula - 2005-12-27 15:08:50
the medieval habit of putting horses on trial

Really? That's an interesting bit of history of which I was unaware.
-------------------------------
Michael - 2005-12-27 17:04:32
I wasn't referring to the behavior as awful, I was referring to the animal itself.
-------------------------------
Michael - 2005-12-27 17:19:30
And don't forget, you'll have to figure out where to put that open box of feces.
-------------------------------
Michael - 2005-12-28 12:37:16
Paula, I'm flummoxed by this business of your misusing "moot point." Tell me so I can finally sleep tonight: what did you think it meant?
-------------------------------
Michael - 2005-12-28 13:05:33
Never mind about "moot point;." I finally read your link and now it's a...I can't say it. Nowadays, of course, there's no confusion about what the phrase means: an irrelevant point (the essay seemed to indicate that there was some grey area there, but I don't think there is, at least in the United States). This is definitely another case of the meaning of a phrase becoming quite different over time.

Sometimes you encounter what sounds like quite modern slang in some surreally early contexts, though. I was gaping at the fascinating movie "The Bowery" (another 1933 Fay Wray film) at Film Forum a few years ago and almost fell out of my uncomfortable little chair when Jackie Cooper's character "Swipes McGurk" says of a dummy that Steve Brodie had intended to throw off the Brooklyn Bridge to fool some people with whom he'd made a bet, but that was stolen by his opponents the night before the dive: "They were hip to us so they copped it."
-------------------------------
Michael - 2005-12-28 13:09:15
On top of anything else, I'm a world-class proofreader of my own writing, as you know, but I am somehow unable to make an entry here without a typo, no matter how hard I try. It's mysterious.
-------------------------------
summervillain - 2005-12-30 19:42:27
misuse of moot: Let's all blame Rick Springfield!
-------------------------------
Paula - 2005-12-31 08:54:20
Oh, no, I just made the identical joke on another comments page!
-------------------------------

add your comment:

your name:
your email:
your url:

back to the entry - Diaryland