Dame Julian has discovered, like so many ladies before her, that one way to my heart is to read stuff I've written. Extra points are awarded for sincere-sounding praise. Here, we see she is going above and beyond, by reading my chickenscratch upside down. By the way, the bit she's reading here are the notes which would become Part IV of my Winfield serial (below).
DJ has found some interesting ways to wake me up. My least favorite is when she gets under the covers and starts nipping at my feet. Equally risky is when she paws at my closed eyelid (happily, her claws are retracted). But the latest is almost ... perverse.
She grooms my beard. That is to say, she starts licking my beard, fairly close to my lips. I have two suspicions about the source of this: 1)since it is close to my lips, she smells food, or is licking food residue from my beard; 2) she really does see me as a huge cat — mutual bathing is one of the few social activities cats have.
I am reminded of an early scene in the sweet romantic movie The Truth About Cats and Dogs. Janeane Garafalo plays a radio call-in animal expert (similar to "Calling All Pets"). A man calls up, complaining that he's got a rash from his cat licking his face so much. "She seems to like it, and it don't seem to hurt her none, " he says. Janeane's character responds that cats lick themselves in places we just don't want to think about. She reminds him to preserve the distinction between human and animal companion: "Repeat after me: Us. Them. Us. Them."
I'm working on it.
Tomorrow could be a little stressful for la belle Julian. Tomorrow is the annual blessing of the animals at St. Paul's, in commemoration of St. Francis' Day (which is actually Oct 4). DJ has not yet acclimated to riding in the car, it will be the first time she will be around a wide variety of species, and it will be the first time she will be on a lease (I got a harness for her). This is so obviously a thing for the human side of our relationship, I've got to carefully consider whether it's worth the stress for the little lady.
Oh, yeah. Us. Them. Us. Them.
I do have a favorite St. Francis story. He had come to a town, and started preaching in the town square. The people jeered, and refused to listen. So, he went to the field and preached to the birds. According to The Little Flowers of St Francis, the birds came and sat through the whole sermon.
In his book on Francis, Chesterton makes much of the scene in the ruined chapel. Francis was kneeling before the cross, seeking direction. He heard a voice say "Rebuild my church." Thinking the voice meant the specific dilapated church he was in, Francis went through the countryside begging for bricks. The man was starving to death, and should have been begging for bread. Instead, he begged for bricks.
This is a "foolishness" which utterly charms Chesterton. He believes the intention was for Francis to reinvigorate the church catholic. Which he did. He also did rebuild that little chapel, with the help of like-minded "Fools for Christ" (a term Francis coined).
Finally, a picture of your humble correspondent. Sometime back, Augustine challenged her fellow bloggers to post pictures of themselves in the buff, at their work stations. Never fear, ain't going to happen here. As a cartoon, Augustine can afford to appear naked without being considered pornographic (see her entry for Sept 20). Me, not so much.
But there's other ways of being naked. I think I've been pretty self-revealing in the Winfield serial; perhaps too much so, considering the relatively small world I move in. And here below, a rare unaltered picture of the man of many names starting with the letter "J". The only gimmick here, aside from the clashing tie (soon to become a toy for DJ), are the horn-rimmed glasses.
Those glasses are safety glasses, which originally belonged to Padre.
No comments:
Post a Comment