I had to throw this soap as far off my patio as I could this morning. It’s green and shaped like a thin hockey puck so it flew for a long time, caught the sun just for an instant and all the glycerin sparkled as it came to rest in the front lawn of a neighbor three doors down. It startled a squirrel who went over to identify the UFO, it wasn’t too impressed. I don’t usually make a habit of launching things off my patio just to amuse myself at its trajectory and sun play but I’ve had it with this stuff. I picked it up as one of the complimentary soaps at the lodge over the weekend. It’s actually not soap but a “Glycerin Completion Bar”. And damn it, every time I go to use it and see the word glycerin embedded into it I start singing a few bars of that terribly annoying song by the band Bush. I think the song is actually called Glycerin – Like Nirvana’s Lithium, but that’s another story.

So there I am, with a clean face, coffee, paper, quietly singing a Bush song for the rest of the morning. How is it that I even know the words to the song? I reach for my guitar to try and find my own melody to pry the steel grip that Bush has on my gray matter. A few chords into it the cats appear. Because of the weather all the windows and doors are kept open in the hopes of moving this stale air around. The air hasn’t moved in this town in two weeks. So now the neighbors cats think they own the place. Just waltz right in whenever they want. I don’t really mind. They’re my entire fan base for personal late night/early morning jam sessions on the six stringer. They really dig you know? The dumb big fat gray cat is called Burt. He’s a chiller. and the little skinny black one’s gota name I can never remember. I know she’s had hip surgery and had to roll around in one of those gladiator carts for kittens where their hind legs are all bunched up and they look like half animal part machine, errr, ahhh.

I was never really a cat guy. I never got them. But I think i’ve come around and now enjoy their company very much. Their Rhythm. Their Timing. It’s odd but we expect conversation from people almost all the time. It’s uncomfortable dining out with friends when sitting amongst the tofu teriyaki and spring roles a big fat uninvited pregnant pause that inflates with every passing second until you can’t squeeze it with your chop sticks and toss it onto someone else’s table. “Waiter could you please get this huge cancer of an uncomfortable silence off my table, or hell, could you just give us another topic to toss around so heads can start nodding and I can concentrate on eating again”.

But cats don’t say nothing and we don’t expect them too. Which is just fine. 98% of talking leads to some sort of trouble or worse yet boredom.

So the cats teach me to slow it down. Sit and stare at the wall. Watch the two stupid summer flies try and figure their way out of my living room and back into the still night air. Puravida.