I only have barn cats and we still have the same barn; we moved from behind the barn to in front of the barn. But one of the cats has moved.
Back at the trailer house, I could count on the cats being on one of the porches, either the front or back, when I woke up in the morning. If there was a chair available, one or both of them (or all three, back before Susie got stomped) would be on it. If I inadvertently left a jacket, towel, or rug outside, you can bet your life there would be a cat on it, obviously assuming I had deliberately placed it there for his personal comfort.
Even though they are barn cats, they still think everything is all about them, and that the world revolves around them. I really never paid that much attention to cats until Mama Kitty inserted herself into my life, so it's only in recent years I've learned that cats assume too much. Mama Kitty actually thinks the only reason I get out of bed in the morning is to feed her and her big, fat son, and back at the trailer house she told me this each day, in no uncertain terms, with her polite little mews. Jake, her only surviving offspring, was always beside her, yowling and howling like a banshee.
The first morning I woke up here at the old house after we moved, Mama Kitty was waiting at the back door with Jake. I couldn't believe that the cats had this whole move figured out that quickly. After a few mornings, though, Jake was no longer with her. I guess he doesn't like our new abode, because now he's usually waiting for his breakfast in, or near, the barn.
This morning I was lying in bed awake before 5 A.M. and heard a "plunk" somewhere nearby. The sound was like when Iris has her rubber ball in her mouth and drops it to the floor. I rolled onto my side, glanced toward the kitchen, and saw Iris curled up in her bed, sound asleep.
"Plunk."
There it was again. One of our two bedroom windows looks out onto the front porch, and I got up to see if that was where the noise came from. I turned on the porch light,and saw Mama Kitty curled up on a chair I had placed there. When she saw me looking out the door, she jumped down off the chair. "Plunk."
And then she started mewing her polite, dainty little meow. Because, you know, the only reason I get out of bed in the morning is so I can trek out to the barn and feed her. In her opinion, it's what I live for.
I'm off to the barn.
Yes. There comes a time when nobody can insult you. If you still feel insulted when someone doesn't agree with you, you aren't old enough, so just wait. When you've been through enough battles, you stop caring who agrees with you and learn to think for yourself, no matter what. I think the Internet brought me to this place. Or, to be more specific, maybe it was Facebook.
You eventually realize that there are always going to be people who think you are too religious, people who think you are not religious enough, some who think your religion is the wrong one, a few who think you shouldn't be religious at all... and those who couldn't care less.
We all come from different backgrounds, which means we don't look at life in the same way. In the old days, we would have stayed in our own little circles and never have realized how many ways there are of thinking, of living, of dealing with life.
But now we have the Internet, and we are faced with all kinds of ideas and opinions. We have the choice of turning off anything we don't agree with, but that just doesn't seem like an option to me, so I don't. I welcome the opinions of my atheist friends, my left-wing and right-wing friends, my Catholic, protestant... insert any religion here.
If you live in a mansion, I salute you. A hut in the Congo? I'm impressed! You will never see me putting anybody down for the kind of house in which they live. But if that's what makes you feel good, have at it.
The wonderful thing about the Internet (and Facebook) is that I can say what I think and pass on anything I wish to. So can you. We all have the option to ignore one another and stay in our own little circles, or we can watch, and perhaps learn something new.
I'm not sure whether it's good or bad, but that's the way it is on the Internet.
