I don’t have a pet, though I am getting ever closer to admitting that I want a cat, and I think my Mom would freak out if I teased her dog Molly (my canine sister) with a laser dot–Mom’s a bit over-protective. Molly is pretty smart–she doesn’t fall for the “pretend to throw a toy, but hide it behind your back” trick. She just glances over her shoulder, sees that the toy did not land, and turns back to look at you (with a rather accusing look in her eye, I may add) and continues to wait for you to actually throw the toy. Mom, however, although also not fooled by the trick, will then chastise whoever has attempted it for “teasing Molly.” I don’t know where she was when my sisters were teasing me (yeah, right, when I teased my sisters is more like it), but poor little dustmop doggie is not to be messed with.
As for cats, I was going through a book on cat breeds the other day, killing time in a library. Lo and behold, it seems that the cats I like the most are those that have been bred to look like a minature big cat–the Bombay, which is modeled on a black panther, the Bengal, a replica of the snow leopard minus the oversized paws and massive tail, another that looks like an even smaller ocelot, etc., etc. Of course, I wouldn’t pay big bucks for a specific cat breed, not wanting to show or breed myself, but they sure were some spectacularly beautiful cats!
Okay, for the coup d’ grace, I’ll connect two of the divergent topics of this week’s MMP (you newbies, don’t try this alone, it’s strictly for the experienced).
When I was a kid, we had a dog named Peanuts that loved to play with, and eventually eat, apples. (Waits for applause and gasps of wonder subside) She would take a whole apple (she wouldn’t eat apple slices) and carry it around like a ball (and because she was a small dog, the apples were sometimes as big as her head). She’d change her grip every once in a while, or abandon it under that table for a while–but don’t try to take it away. Peanuts had a special sense that allowed her to know, wherever she was in the house, if someone was messing with her apple. She’d keep it around for two or three days, her teeth making more and more little holes in the apple skin. And then, as if sensing my Mom’s growing impatience with having an increasingly slimy apple toted around the house, Peanuts would devour it, seemingly in one big bite. A couple of days after that, she’d start begging for another one.
Ta-da!!!
