Hello "Helpful" Kitty

It's hard to get work done with Joy lolling all over the computer desk. She often hits the F1 or F2 keys with her head (which is in serious need of petting) and messes up whatever I'm working on. Crazy, lazy cat.

On the screen is legendary wrestler Arn Anderson. Like many Southerners, my sister and I truly love wrasslin'. It's our guilty pleasure—that and watching Cops.

Chicken and Rice

Just a still life—not a recipe. Myrtle loves steamed brown rice, so I made her a special treat yesterday afternoon.

Today is a much-needed day off for me; even though I'm about to work a couple hours at Cow-Tipping University (CTU) as an art-class model, it still counts as a day off. (I love being paid to sit completely still.)

I've known this art professor, Larry*, for years—he's a renegade, near-crazy good ol' boy from Tennessee who wandered into a ceramics class one day at college and discovered he wanted to be an artist. He's never forgotten his working-class roots, and he brings that to every class he teaches, whether it's Art History or Advanced Glazing 4209. Every now and again, he'll call my cell phone and leave a message in his strong east Tennessee drawl: "Hey Kitty, this is Larry* over at Cow-Tippin' U. Reckon you know why I'm callin'. Guess I'll be callin' you about modelin' 'til I retire. Which, at the rate CTU's payin' me, will prob'ly be when I'm 85. Call me back."

So my schedule worked out this time to where I could travel down to CTU and help out Larry* and his Drawing II class one day a week for Summer Term. It's nice to get out of Small Town for an afternoon.

Another uneasy detente

More tolerance in the hall/bathroom area: Ernest, Graya, and Hobo Kitty. Juuuuust barely.

Hobo likes the cool marble floor. (Home Depot special, $1.78/square foot).

Well, well! Who do we have here?

Look who returned to the Happy Kitten Cottage this evening (sans kittens), asking for a square meal!

And you know who gave her that square meal, too. Fancy Feast Fish & Shrimp Feast, to be exact. Expensive kitty food for a pitiful, prodigal kitty? You bet! Kill the fatted calf—my kitty who was once lost to me is now found.

Kitty Break #6! (an update on Kitty Kamakura)

Great news—Kitty Kamakura and all six of her six fast-growing kittens haven't gone far from my Happy Kitten Cottage. They've just moved back over to Mr. Rowland's* house a block away. I saw them yesterday evening on my usual walk. Whew. I'm glad they're all right.

The construction on my street and the bad-ass neighborhood kids must have made Kamakura nervous. But she's just fine over at Mr. Rowland's. I'll drop off some canned kitty food on his porch tomorrow morning. She may not want to keep them at my house, but helping the kindly old man feed seven kitties is the least I can do.

An unexpected opportunity—to learn

Part of what I love about teaching is that I learn new things all the time. My classroom failures teach me how to do it better next time so my students will get as much out of the lesson as possible. I'm lucky that the fields of composition and literature allow me to do this semester after semester. When I no longer learn new things from each class, I'll know it's time to move on, find another job.

I've also been lucky in that I've always been asked to teach English, in one form or another. Composition I and II, American Lit, World Lit—all old favorites that always present new challenges. When I was first hired at Small 'Bama Community College, my new supervisor neglected to tell me I'd be teaching English 092, the remedial English class designed to get students (most of whom were poorly prepared for college-level work) ready for Comp I. I was mortified when I went down to the SBCC campus to pick up my textbooks; how was I supposed to design a syllabus for a class I'd never taught? I'd only had a couple sections of Comp I and II in my teaching life! But the dean gave me a sample syllabus and a pat on the back, as if to say, "You can do it! But you're on your own." I went home scared shitless.

But three years of teaching Comp I and Remedial English at SBCC did wonders for my teaching. By the seat of my pants, I managed to cram the equivalent of six years' experience into my time at SBCC, and it was worth it. I landed on my feet after every instructional fall, and was a much better teacher for it. And, similarly, getting thrown into teaching remedial Regents' Essay Exam courses at Division II University has made me better at the basics (explaining grammar/punctuation rules and basic essay writing), which I take into my higher-division classes every day.

This summer is my second and last quarter at Small Military College (at least as long as my D2U full-time job holds out). Once again, I find myself thrown into another situation that I didn't expect, teaching another class about which I don't know the slightest thing.

The course? "Contemporary Ethics." A philosophy class...taught by an English professor.

Oooookey-dokey.

So, I needed the money—that was the main reason I agreed to accept the ethics class for the summer term. It's only three-fourths what it'd be for a regular term, and SMC pays pretty low wages anyway, but it's money that will last until my full-time position starts in August. And the class only meets for three days: three Saturdays, from 8:00am until 6:30pm. It sounds killer, and it is, but in the long run it leaves much more of my Saturday time free for the remainder of the summer.

SMC's dean explained it to me this way: to get re-accredited by the Big-Time Accreditation Board, SMC has had to refigure the way it offers courses. Starting in the fall, SMC will have only philosophy instructors (with an M.A. or higher) teaching the course. That's the way it should be. My class will be the very last time SMC offers "Contemporary Ethics" in its current form, so the dean told me that "[I] can teach it as [I] see fit." Leeway in teaching a last-time-ever class? Academic freedom? Oh yeeeeeah, baby.


So I went about preparing as best I knew how to teach the class. I borrowed a former instructor's syllabus and added a few more readings that I'd taught in my Comp I classes (Stephen Carter's "The Insufficiency of Honesty" and C.S. Lewis's "We Have No Right to Happiness" among them), and a couple of films suggested by Inside the Philosophy Factory and her readers (Gandhi, Thank You for Smoking), and some extra reading from Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. I reviewed the text as well as I could in the short time I had to prepare; I'd only taken one philosophy course as an undergrad, and that was "Introduction to Logic." The names were by no means new—Aristotle, Kant, Hobbes, Mill, St. Thomas Aquinas, More—but the explanations of their contributions to philosophy were.

Class began rather smoothly on Saturday. Ten of my 12 students showed up, all enthusiastic to begin. We discussed logical fallacies and how our not catching them causes us to agree with all kinds of faulty and flawed reasoning, and we began a discussion of what the field of ethics is all about. I encouraged the students to carefully examine the reasoning that each ethicist we read has put forth, and then base their own reasoning on the evidence provided. I let them know that this was not a means of insulting their religious faith, but more to help them understand real reasons behind why they believe the way they do on many of today's "hot button" issues. We took a long lunch break, then viewed Thank You for Smoking—wow, was that ever a great lead-in for discussion. Lastly, as the class was wrapping up, I had each student take 15-20 minutes and write out his or her personal core values. What beliefs did the students hold most dear? What were they brought up to believe in? What would they like for other people to see in them? Would they ever take another life? Why or why not? And where did they stand on some of today's controversial ethical topics, such as abortion and the death penalty?

The students got to scribbling furiously. Some students, who seemed shy and quiet at first, completed two pages without much effort. It was amazing. And for the record, I too wrote out my beliefs for the assignment. I thought it'd make the students feel better, as if I were putting my beliefs up there, too, to be judged, and I could perhaps clarify some of what I thought.

As I called on each student, he or she read out his or her list of core beliefs. I noticed a lot of similarities: hard work, kindness to other people and to animals, loyalty, a belief in God, honesty. I was also struck by what many of them said about the abortion issue—they think it's wrong and would never have one themselves (or ask a girlfriend to do so), but they also wouldn't dare make a woman's decision for her and tell her she had to bear the pregnancy to term. The students are from a very wide cross-section of society—they range in age from 19 to 60, are Caucasian, African-American, West Indian, and Asian, some are active-duty soldiers while others have never dreamed of enlisting, and so on. (Perhaps this is a sure sign that the Religious Right does not have a lock on Americans' personal belief systems.)

The last student read her list of personal core values, and paused briefly. "Okay, Professor Kitty! It's your turn!" a former student called to me from the back of the room. She was in my World Lit I class, and I don't mind a little ribbing from her. I laughed, picked up my list, and read aloud.

What do I believe in? (my core values)

• Kindness to people and animals; sticking up for those smaller/weaker/less fortunate than I am
• Education for everyone
• Freedom of expression/free inquiry, to determine my own future, and to worship how I please (or not!)
• Fairness, tactfulness
• Honest self-assessment (I don't always do well on this one, though I try)
• The power of creativity
• Civility to others
• I think I believe in God...but I have a lot of questions about faith and religion, and I believe that if there is a God, he/she/it is big enough to handle my questions
• Loyalty, integrity

I was raised to be honest, but I saw adults lie and manipulate. I was raised to think that people of other races were inferior to mine, but getting to know people of those races changed my mind. I was raised to believe that I was supposed to be a people-pleaser and subservient to my husband and elders; I am still struggling with this one.

I would like for people to see in me someone who strives for integrity.

And what surprised me most of all in my own inventory:
Yes, I would take another life if I were defending someone else, or myself. If I found anyone abusing an animal, I might not kill them, but they would certainly wish I had by the time I got through with them. I do take lives every day; I eat animals, and sometimes wear animals. It is harder to say whether I would execute a person, as I'm ambivalent on the death penalty. My father was murdered by his brother (who then killed himself) in 1997, and I'm sorry my uncle isn't alive to be on Death Row so he could live, as the rest of the family has had to, with what he did. I wouldn't want my uncle to be executed, but simply to live out the rest of his existence being tormented by the consequences of what he did. On the other hand, if a member of my family were murdered today, I'd probably be all for the death penalty. It's hard to say exactly how I feel on the topic.

My students nodded and listened to what I had to say, just as they'd listened to one another's lists of personal core values. I was grateful to them for doing so, and perhaps I'd put myself with them in struggling, as a human being, to figure out my beliefs and how to explain them to others.

This whole experience of teaching a class whose material is foreign to me will be a good one. I'm clarifying my own beliefs and making my own discussion abilities sharper for the classroom—and for when I return to graduate school.

What the hell happened?

Davy, aka Little Guy—June 2006.



Davy, aka The Cat Formerly Known as Little Guy and Now Known as Shithook—June 2007.

The Bruce Hornsby song of the same name inspired this post title.

Can we please just have one exam week without multiple fuck-ups?

A continutation of the craziness from yesterday's post.

Thursday evening, after I got Bobby T. Pudwhacker* started with his pointless-because-he's-not-even-in-the-class final exam (but which he insisted on taking anyhow), I sat down in the Tiny Tech computer lab to check my e-mail. Perhaps the two students who had so far failed to show for the final had e-mailed to say they were on the way. One student, Jane Q. Bridezilla*, was still nowhere to be found—I'd expected her to come in for her final on Tuesday afternoon.

But, lo and behold! Here was an e-mail from Jane, a newlywed as of last week, with the subject line "URGENT!!!! PLEASE READ ASAP!!!!"

Prof. Kitty, I'm sorry I can't make it to the final. I guess I'm going to drop the class. My husband and I found a house, but unfortunately the real estate agents are giving us the run around and we don't have a place to live. So, I have been running arond all week tryng to find somewhere to stay. I really wanted to complete all the assignments and pass this class, but I'm so stressed out about this situation I don't know if I'm coming or going. How do I go about dropping this class? Once again, I'm so sorry I wish there was some way that I could take the test up here, but I know I waited to late.

[deep sigh]

The last day to drop was Monday, June 18. It's not possible to drop a class during Finals Week.

First of all, who the hell plans their wedding to fall right at the end of the academic term, just when classes are really getting hectic? And second of all, why work so hard in a class all quarter long just to blow off the final and fail miserably at the very end? The final counts as 50% of students' grade for the class—it's Tiny Tech policy, and it's on the syllabus and on our class website in big, bold letters.

I wrote Jane* that I could possibly give her an extension, but it probably wouldn't fly with my supervisors. They're happy to approve incompletes due to circumstances beyond a student's control. Fighting fires in the Okefenokee Swamp for three weeks? Now there's a good reason to need an extension. (One of my students, who's a fireman in North Georgia, was sent down there in late May and ended up working 36-hour shifts in the charred swamp for almost a month. No problem approving that one!) But needing an extension because you got married and didn't think to have a place to live lined up? Oh, for pity's sake.

I wrote Jane* that she could either come to campus first thing Friday morning and take the exam, or fail the class. No reply.

And another one bites the dust.

Can we please just have one Exam Week without a fuck-up?

This week has been celebratory at Tiny Technical College for two reasons. First of all, it's Finals Week, and a hellacious quarter has come to an end. Hooray! Secondly, Tiny Tech has just been awarded "fully accredited" status by the Big-Time Accreditation Board. HOORAY!!! Now our students can transfer to other colleges when they finish their programs, and most, if not all, of their classes will transfer with them! So there's been much high-fiving and skipping down the hallways at TTC during Finals Week.

Every day this week, I've left Division II University right after my classes finish up at 2pm to be at Tiny Tech by 3pm. Then I stay in the Tiny Tech library until 8pm watching my internet students take their on-campus exams. (I will refrain from stepping onto my soapbox about this cruel incongruity.)

My Tiny Tech students have been conspicuously absent from E&P this quarter, and for good reason: they're a decent, responsible group. I finally got a bunch that had the sense to call or e-mail when they were having trouble with assignments, or when a family situation would be getting in the way of their doing the work on time. The students who weren't like this mercifully dropped the class before midterm.

I had a couple of stragglers, of course. Those are the students from whom I haven't heard a peep in over a week. I drop those students when they don't check in. Two of my students hadn't logged into BlackBoard since May 31, and the last day of the term was June 18. I figured it was pretty safe to drop these stragglers, since they hadn't bothered to log in for almost three weeks.

Overall...final exams at Tiny Tech had been going rather well.

So two of my most responsible students, R. and M. (who are both single moms struggling to work full-time, go to school, and care for their kids), showed up promptly at 3pm to give their presentations and take their final exams. M. was just finishing up a killer presentation she titled "Death on Your Doorstep: The Faces of Meth" when a tall, skinny young man made his way through the library and over to the door of the presentation room. I motioned to him to wait—he was probably a lost student, looking for the librarian or one of my colleagues—and I figured I'd help him after I got R. and M. started on their final written exams.

"Hi, there!" I whispered in my Library Stage Whisper. "Can I help you?"

"Umm...are you Professor Kitty B. Goode?" he asked.

I must have frowned deeply. "Yeeesss...and you are...?"

"Oh, I'm Bobby T. Pudwhacker, and I'm here to take the final and do my presentation."

I sighed. "Step outside with me. I have to talk with you, Bobby."

Yes, ladies and gentlemen—I had dropped Bobby T. Pudwhacker from my roster on Monday, assuming that since he hadn't contacted me about an exam time, and hadn't turned in the last two assignments, he was no longer participating in the class. And now here he was, fully expecting to take the final and complete English I.

I told Bobby I'd talk to the registrar, but that I also doubted he'd be able to get back into the class here on the last day of finals. He protested and said that his computer had crashed, and it really had thrown him into a tailspin. I said, "Well, if you'd called me and let me know what was going on, I wouldn't have dropped you. I can't read minds, and if something's going wrong, I don't know unless you tell me." He said he understood (whatever) and that he'd go ahead and take the final and hope for the best.

Why-why-WHY must we repeat this insanity EVERY SINGLE QUARTER?!? Are these people not adults? SHEESH!

An uneasy detente

Ernest and Hobo Kitty tolerate one another—but just barely—in the bathroom doorway.

Juuuuust barely.

Find safety where you can

It seems Kitty Kamakura has moved her kittens once again...this time, away from the Happy Kitten Cottage. Mama kitties simply do what they have to do, and "let the rough end drag," as my mom's saying goes.

A week ago, Kamakura thought she'd found a safe place at the HKC—and I did, too—but the combination of the ill-behaved neighborhood kids always shrieking after her kittens and the construction that happened on my street last week seems to have driven her to look for another home. I've seen no kitties, baby or Mama, on my front porch since this past Saturday morning.

This makes me very sad.

I'll be out looking for Kitty Kamakura this evening, when I finally get home from giving final exams at Tiny Technical College. Perhaps she moved her babies back to Mr. Rowland's* house; I know he was happy to feed her what he could and pet her when she pranced up to his front steps to meow for food.

Is it? For real?

Well. I reckon it is.

Some creative soul chalked this on a large rock in the landscaping at D2U. I snapped a pic of it before the rainstorms that are predicted for this evening and tomorrow morning wash it away.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY 2007!

Hope everyone's having a wonderful Father's Day, even those of us whose dads have passed on, or who (for some other reason) aren't part of our lives anymore. My own dad died in January 1997, and this 11th dad-less Father's Day has been hard for me.

However, I'm very happy and fortunate to have my stepfather, Steve, to fill in. Mom's third husband is the best stepdad anyone could ever ask for. He combines caring, love, and redneck insanity in a way that would make anyone proud to know him. "What in the hell dawgsheeeit is this?" is one of his famous sayings.

A story from a few weeks ago:

Mom, Steve, and I were grilling out at the Happy Kitten Farm (Mom and Steve's house) when a huge hornet—close to three inches long from antennae to stinger, and wearing very angry-looking yellow and maroon stripes—flew up out of nowhere. The hornet made a few dive-bombs at Steve and me, and we panicked. "Goddamighty, Gina!" Steve shouted at Mom, who'd gone back into the house to get something. "There's a big-ass wawst out here!" The hornet circled the porch—becoming increasingly, menacingly closer to us—looking for its nest entrance. It disappeared into a small crack between the eaves of the house. [wawst = Southern pronounciation of "wasp"]

"I think it's a hornet, Mom," I called. "This thing is huge. You better bring the big guns."

"I'm comin', I'm comin'," we heard Mom yell back from inside the house. She'd been through this before and was in no big hurry to get back outside. The hornet had probably been there for weeks, and would no doubt still be there when she finally got out into the yard.

Now, despite being a formidable-sized guy at 6'2" and 240 pounds, there are two things that rattle Steve: any kind of plant with thorns on its stems, and any kind of flying, stinging insect. I have seen him fly off of more ladders than I care to count when one of these bugs comes buzzing by, minding its own business. Steve's plan of action upon seeing a wawst takes one of three directions:
1. Drown the wawst (hornet, wasp, yellow jacket, carpenter bee, horsefly, etc.—whatever insect it really is, he still calls it wawst) in half a can of Raid,
2. Whack at it with a 22-ounce hammer until it's dead, muttering the whole time that "this thang don't know who it's fuckin' with," or
3. Take off across the yard like a shot, yelling his fool head off.

So there was no doubt in my mind Steve was going to put into effect one of his usual three modus operandi this time, too.

"Brang the wawst spray!" he shouted back into the house. "I can't grill with this damn thang flyin' around my head! I'll burn the steaks!"

"I'll be out there in a minute," Mom shouted back from inside the house. "Let me find the 'wawst' spray." Originally from Michigan but living in the South for nearly 40 years, Mom still pokes fun at a few Southern-accented words, of which wawst is one.

"Hurry!" Steve shouted. "You don't know how big this thang is!"

"I'm sure it's the biggest 'wawst' ever," Mom replied, without affect.

"HURRY! This thang's as big as my left nut!"

At which point I collapsed on the ground, laughing too hard to move, speak, or breathe.

Mom finally emerged from the house, can of Raid Outdoor Extra-Strength Wasp and Hornet Killer in hand. "Mom! MOM!" I gasped between belly-laughs. "It's as big as Seeben's left nut!"

"Yes," Mom said. "And you'll also notice that it's always 'as big as his left nut,' never the right nut."

Because I am feeling very un-creative lately

Sorry, folks. School is kicking my ass, and this is the best I can do.

Kamakura and three of six babies on my back porch. It's official—they moved into the back yard sometime Monday while I was at work.

This afternoon on the back porch: Kamakura and (I think) five of six kitties. And Myrtle Mae, who's none too thrilled about all these new little critters eating up her cat food.

Anyone would be hard-pressed to cram more cuteness into one photo.

Kamakura after the major thunderstorm that hit Small Town this evening. She moved all her nearly-wild babies from the back porch to beneath the storage shed, but got soaked in the process.

And my sweet, pesky Ernest, who reeeeeally wants to go out and play with those other little kitties! The look on his face says it all: "Please, Mama? Please can I go out and play?"


More soon!

TERLET! #2, or, You Can't Spell "Pun" without "P-U"

Why's it seem like everybody in Small Town is getting a new crapper lately?

This dejected porcelain telephone is a couple blocks from my house. I guess the people who tossed it by the street are now pooping in splendor and comfort with their new one.

Almost too exhausted to post

Today was the first day of Summer Term classes at both Small Military College and Division II University; I awoke (much to my displeasure) at 5:00 this morning. So I'm almost too exhausted to post.

Much new kitty stuff to report—and new teaching stuff as well—but it'll have to wait until tomorrow or Wednesday.

Kitty Break: Her name is Kitty Kamakura

Enough of this working-on-the-new-syllabus crap! It's time for a Kitty Break!

Arrrrr! Shiver me timbers, ye pesky kittayns!

Kitty Kamakura: that's the stray mama kitty's official name, given to her by a kindly old gentleman who lives one block over from me, and who's been feeding the scruffy cat and her kittens for a couple of months now.

Mr. Rowland* is a widower, somewhere in the vicinity of 90 years old. Every time I see him walking around in his yard or driving along in his Oldsmobile, he's always wearing a hat with the name and insignia of the WWII battleship on which he served. When I stopped to ask him about the kitty whom I'd seen both at my house and on his porch, he explained the story of his service, and told me that Kamakura is the name of a town in northern Japan. When he first saw the pitiful mama cat begging for food on his front steps, the name just popped into his head.

"You can have her, if you want, and her babies, too," he said. "I've been feedin' her what I can 'cause I can't stand to see any o' God's little creatures go hungry. Know what I mean? But I got only Social Security and a little ol' pension from the mill, so I can't afford to get her no shots or take real good care of her like she needs." I assured Mr. Rowland that as soon as I could get Kitty Kamakura to bring her babies over to my house, I would do just that, and that he need not worry.

I returned from my daily walk late last evening—it was almost dark—to find Kitty Kamakura meowing on my front porch yet again. I scratched her head as I walked back into the house to get another can of Friskies. "How are your babies? Hmm, pretty girl? When you gonna bring 'em to live wif Miss Kitty?" She meowed and glanced back across the street at the neighbors' house.

In the near-darkness, on the neighbors' front steps, I saw a pair of reflective eyes.

And another.

And another.

And another.

And two more pairs of small reflective eyes.

Six babies total—three orange-tabby butterballs, two black-and-white spotted, and one gray tabby with white feet. No wonder Kitty Kamakura always looks so exhausted.

And she'd brought them a block closer to the Happy Kitten Cottage!

I left plenty of food, both canned and dry, in the cat dishes on the front porch. As I walked out the front door this morning, I caught one of the little black-and-white kittens darting down the steps and back across the street, his mama watching patiently from the sidewalk. She meowed and walked with me back to the porch, where I had another can of Tasty Beef Slices in Gravy waiting for her.

A few minutes ago, I peered out the front window onto the porch. There, eating in relative calm, were Kitty Kamakura plus one black-and-white kitten and one orange kitten. The other four frolicked and watched me from across the street.

Little by little, she's moving them to the Happy Kitten Cottage.

Stray mama cat update!

You kids! Can't I eat just one meal in peace?!?

The scruffy mama cat has had three square meals today at the Happy Kitten Cottage—she's done this four out of the last seven days. It's costing me quite a bit in store-brand canned cat food, but she has a huge litter to nurse and care for. It's worth every can.

More tomorrow!

Random thoughts from Thursday's SMC faculty meeting

I smell vinegar.

Can you wear your pants any higher?

Damn Baptists, always taking up the whole back row.

Moisturizer. Yeah.

Hey! She gets her shoes from Payless, too!

As a rule, I despise faculty meetings. Little gets done, and almost everyone needs to be doing dozens of other things, such as grading papers, or putting exams together. But Thursday evening's Small Military College meeting was a success. I like my SMC students so much that I'm just a little sorry to be leaving in August for the full-time D2U job. But at least I have two SMC classes this summer: the Contemporary Ethics class will no doubt be a great one—I have several former students in there—and the Regents' Essay Writing class will be easy to teach, even though it meets at 7:00 in the morning three days a week.

But then, yesterday afternoon, I got this e-mail from my SMC supervisor:
Kitty, there is only one student enrolled in the Regents' Essay course. [SMC dean] asked if you would do an independent study with this student and piggyback this student onto your Saturday class. I'm not sure how well that will work. Before you even consider this, let me tell you that the pay for this would be $100.00 (yes, one hundred dollars) for the quarter. I'm embarassed to even ask you this. Please let me know what you'd like to do.

Eeeeeuuuwww.

So there goes half of my summer Small Military College paycheck. The upside is that I've managed to save enough money in the last year to make it through the summer without the extra pay. And the fact that I won't need to be on campus at 6:30 a.m. is also a plus.

More Friday humor

My sister reminded me the other day of one of my all-time favorite jokes.

Three couples—one in their 20s, one middle-aged, and one well into their 80s—wanted to join a very "far out" church. The three couples all met with the church's pastor to discuss the requirements for becoming members. After discussing tithes, dress codes, Bible study, and all the other pertinent matters, there was one last very important requirement that the pastor had to mention. "All couples who wish to join this church must abstain from sex for one month," he told the group.

Everyone nodded in agreement. "All right, then," the pastor continued, "we'll all meet back here in one month."

A month passed, and the group gathered again to meet with the pastor. He turned to the young couple. "Well, how did you do with the month-long abstinence?"

The young newlyweds turned beet-red. "Ummmm...well, we only lasted two days."

The pastor frowned. "I'm sorry, but you're not welcome in our church."

He then turned to the middle-aged couple. "How about you two? Did you make it the entire month?"

The 50-ish husband and wife looked at each other, then blushed. "Well, uhhhh...we held out for two weeks."

The pastor frowned again. "I'm sorry, but you're not welcome in our church." He then turned to the elderly couple. "Well, how about you folks?"

The old man replied, "Well, Pastor, we were doin' all right up until yesterday afternoon. But then—well, Lula Mae bent over to pick up a cabbage, and I just couldn't help myself."

The pastor shook his head in disappointment. "I'm sorry, but you're not welcome in our church."

"That's all right," the old man replied. "We're not welcome at the Piggly-Wiggly, either."

The Daily Ernest

I'm currently trying to get a substantial teaching-related post together—on a problem that's been bothering me for several weeks now—but my mind is so scattered that it's proving nigh on impossible.

In the meantime, here's your Daily Ernest:


Yes, those are kitties in pajamas printed all over my pajamas. And Bill Walton's Nothing but Net in the corner.

TERLET!

There is something about seeing a toilet out of its usual context that just cracks me up.

This orphaned potty was on the side of the street here in Small Town. Strangely, the nearest house is 150 feet away.

Educated & Poor Ernest & Poor!

That's right—time for a change of blog name! From now on, E&P is all Ernest, all the time!


Up close and purr-sonal!

On the printer!

In the bathroom floor!

Playing with Elvis—who's a very good and patient babysitter!

And eating with Clark—who's also a very good and patient babysitter!

Some people...I swear.

Ernest is now officially living inside the house. Yesterday evening's surprise thunderstorm—which lasted all of ten minutes, wheeee—was enough to scare the poor little thing out of four of his seven weeks' growth. So I brought him in the house, and he's started to fit in pretty nicely. The only cat who hasn't hissed or swatted at Ernest is Clark, who's an excellent babysitter.

Saturday afternoon, I was out in the yard pruning azaleas when the neighbors' grandkids ran up. (They hang around my yard in the summer because I'm the "fun" lady on the block: I have A CHICKEN. And outdoor kitties who are friendly.) The kids saw Ernest scampering around and chasing after stray branches. "Hey, that cat belongs to Nora*!" said one.

The kid was referring to his aunt Nora*, who's 19 and has two children she very obviously doesn't want. She works only occasionally at a local restaurant and lives next door with her grandparents Rufus* and Lorene*. I've sometimes heard Nora* screaming at the toddler through their open windows: "SHUT UP!" I want to go over and slap her and say, Bitch, she's two years old. YOU shut up.

I looked at Ernest. "He does?" This was news to me. The little cat had just walked up in my yard from out of nowhere, it seemed.

"Yeah! That's Nora's cat!" another chimed in.

"So why did he wander up in my yard last week? How come she hasn't come over to ask about the cat?"

The kids shrugged. "Haaaaaay! Nora! Is this your cat?"

No reply from Nora inside the house.

A few hours passed, and Nora came out into the driveway to get in the car. "Is this really your cat?" I asked her, Ernest purring up a storm in my arms.

She frowned. "Well, yeah," she said without affect.

"Well, he wandered up here over a week ago, and I didn't know where he'd come from. I've been feeding him and playing with him."

"Oh, well," she said, stuffing her nine-month-old into the carseat like an oversized Cabbage Patch doll, "I got him from my manager at work. I put him in the yard when I got home. You can have him if you want him."

You take care of cats about the way you take care of your kids, I thought. "Sure, I'll be happy to keep him. Thanks!" I scooped him up and walked around the other side of the house so I wouldn't be nasty to her in front of everybody.

Never will I understand what possesses people to just toss kittens and puppies outdoors. She didn't go looking for Ernest, or ask around the neighborhood about him ...or give even one-tenth of a shit. Why take the kitten in the first place? Was she trying to kiss up to her boss? Who knows.

But seeing how she cares—and I use that word loosely—for her own kids, it's not such a surprise.

At least all's ended well. My newest kitty found a place where he'll be cared for very well, and loved, and played with. Would that the future were so bright for Nora's two little girls.

His name is...

ERNEST!

More later on how he found the Happy Kitten Cottage—the story's a weird and sad one. I found out "the rest of the story," as Paul Harvey says, yesterday afternoon.

It's just that kind of afternoon

Look at this—passed out in the middle of the day. [shaking head in disappointment] Way too early to be drunk, DeeDee.

And these two—just disgraceful. It's as if someone scraped their carcasses off the highway and just set them down in here. Tsk, tsk, tsk.

Even Joy's sacked out. At least she doesn't look completely like roadkill. [sigh]

It's currently 79 degrees and cloudy with 55% humidity in Small Town. The sky acts as if it reeeeally wants to rain...alas, no such luck. Tropical Storm Barry will most likely pass us by completely, mostly hitting northeast Florida and southeast Georgia, where the Okefenokee wildfires have been raging for almost a month now. Heaven knows they need it.

DANGER! Kitty Break ahead!

Life is so hard when you're cute and people make you lie back in their laps so they can take pictures of you while a chicken is clucking loudly in the background.

He was trying to get out of my lap as I snapped this pic. I wonder if this qualifies for Cats 'n Racks Status at Cute Overload?

More teaching stuff soon. I'm busy playing with a little cat this afternoon!