Cone 5

Christmas of course continues its approach, possibly at its petty pace, or possibly with the velocity of a Japanese bullet train. As Einstein proved, these things are most definitely relative (and Einstein even used the metaphor of a train I believe--what rarified company I travel). This morning the sky is turning milky. Yesterday it was a blue often encountered (as Libby noted) just after a snow storm. There is not much chance of snow on Christmas day around these parts, and I hope it stays thataways.

This morning, perhaps due to the crispness in the cabin, seeping in from outside, the Houdanhenians were racing around at pretty much the speed of the bullet train Christmas, and now and then would leap four paws on us snug in our bed, then off again down the stairs, or out on the window ledge over the stone floor. The idea was for me to get the hell up and into the kitchen, rip open those food packets, make 'em some breakfast dammit. Which of course I eventually did, and pretty quickly, to keep them from waking Libby up too. Momma was out on the porch too, and the yaller Tom peeking out from under the cabin. I got the boys eating on one side of the room, took food out to the outside cats, bits for the Tom so's he wouldn't so quickly try to bums rush Momma out of her food. I had to walk back around through the slider because coming back through the kitchen door scares Momma off the porch and away from her bowl, when then offers an opening for Tom, which is exactly how it works in the NFL for that matter, the pulling guard takes out the inside linebacker and voila there's a nice hole for a good runner to scoot through.

In short, while we work towards some rendezvous with Xmas Destiny in a couple of days, in the universe of the Houdahenians things circle more simply around eat, sleep, poop, play, catch stuff to eat or play with, eat some more, and when tired out, find a nice human lap because the boys did learn as kittens, at just the right moment, that people actually like cats. We might get them another bed for Christmas, as they're also finding out about how nice it is back behind the wood stove. Cats worship wood stoves, allus have, allus will.

Here in our world, we've let skilled rhetoricians working in the employ of businesses with profitable but dangerous products to ply hypnotize us into a dream state where chimeras lurk around every shadow, and illusions protect us from nothing, real or imagined. This business of hypnotism has gone on so long that possibly a majority in even our legislative bodies, state and federal suffer from a profound loss of simple common sense. Thus, to give but one sad example, the gun-good-guy v gun-bad-guy deal is asymmetric. This means, as any simple Houdahenian surely knows, that, e.g., the gun-bad-guy has any target, while the gun-good-guy has only one. We met the idea of "friendly fire" long, long ago, probably during the Trojan War if truth be known. Jesus, People!

But meanwhile, the cone moved to it's next resting place, out past the slider where I'm working on a space to build a free-standing deck, which I'm hoping the cone itself will one day decorate, and which now stands as a harbinger of the coming 2013, a New Year with hopefully more music and joy. And comfort.

Amen.