Fun with Food and Pets

We have two cats right now. We used to have dogs as well, but we travel so much it is just easier to care for cats. The difference in our two cats is phenomenal since they eat side by side and one is a truly skinny, and we refer to him as our “black and white ‘unit’” (after a colloquialism for a police squad car) named Albie, and the other cat is a  twenty-three pounder (which is a huge size for a cat) grey-striped fatty named Moses.

Whatever Moses eats, Moses retains, thus his hefty profile. Moses still runs very quickly, but only when it is meal time and then he is like greased lighting, racing to the food bowl. Albie likes to eat, but he is, for lack of a better word, bulimic. When Albie eats, he eats so quickly that eight out of ten times, as soon as he is finished he will “throw up” this meal in a neat long tube which we are forever cleaning up. Albie is, therefore, a sleek, lean “little guy”.

Albie is currently being treated for a digestive irritation with steroids, with wonderful results. What got me thinking about this article is that the steroids are delivered to Albie mixed with a tasty, chicken flavored cat food. Albie has always loved chicken, therefore he is very compliant with this therapy.

This brings me around to our two collies, Cubby and Trixie. Trixie LOVED a “Milk Bone-like” doggy treat called “Bonz”. She would do anything for a “Bonz”. If you said, “Trixie, would you like a ‘Bonz’?”, she would race into the kitchen and sit like a stone statue until you took one out of the box. Even though she was already sitting you could say, “Sit”, “Now, Sit” and “Sit, girl”, and each time she would scoot her hind quarters as if trying to obey you by sitting deeper into the floor. She would obey any demand (“Speak”, “Lye down”, “Roll over”, etc.) for a ‘Bonz’. Trixie even got so desirous for this treat that we could not even spell “B-O-N-Z” without her knowing what was coming.

Cubby was the “catch it in the air King”. Whereas Trixie was somewhat near-sighted and couldn’t catch anything tossed to her (it would bounce off her nose while she has trying to grab something tossed to her in the air), Cubby could catch ANYTHING tossed to him, pieces of doggy treats, meat, bread, anything that was within a foot of his head, Cubby could catch it in his mouth.

The family still chuckles about Cubby and the piece of fish. As I said, Cubby could catch anything out of the air, and the end result was one “chomp” and he had eaten the morsel tossed to him. One time I was cooking fish, and as usual the dogs were around the kitchen. When dinner was over there was a small piece of fish on the serving platter. I said, “Cubby, come here boy!”, and tossed the piece of fish in the air. Cubby caught it, as his usual, and once he closed his mouth he tipped his head downward towards the floor, opened his mouth and dropped the piece of fish on the floor, and stared at it. And then he stared some more. Once it registered in his doggy brain that, “This ‘stuff’ is not part of my dog world, EVER!”, he looked up at me with a superior look as if to say, “You have GOT to be kidding!”

He glanced once more at the fish with doggy disgust, and once more at me as if to say, “Would you like to try again?” “Some steak, perhaps, this time?” Our children started making up Cubby statements after that (as if Cubby could speak them in; a deep low voice) like, “I don’t eat fish”, or “I don’t eat anything that lives in the water”, “I don’t like things that have fins.”

Pets are wonderful, and everyone who keeps one knows the joys (and trials, too) that pets bring to the life of a family. I can’t ever imagine being without at least one pet. They can bring humor as well as joy into your life.

Grandson Gabriel and the Video Game World

Our grandson Gabriel Paulson visiting Grandpa and Grandma Paulson for a couple of days. He is four (and one-half) years old. He likes activity. He is engaged all of the time from the moment his feet hit the floor until he falls exhausted into bed for a nap, or at nighttime.

All grandparents are, or this is true of every grandparent I have talked to thus far, familiar with this story. Gabriel simply likes to play, and he likes someone to be with him at all times, if possible. Gabriel is a people person. Some children can find time to engage in “self entertainment” for a while. And, Gabriel can do this for a short stint. But, if you leave him to, for example, change a load of laundry, or clean up the kitchen, or fix a bed or two, Gabriel begins to beckon you to “come and play with me”.

Right now Gabriel is at Vacation Bible School (VBS) enjoying the camaraderie of other children his age while they learn about the love of Jesus and how to love one another as He taught us to do in this world of pestilence, famine and other concerns the world brings to its inhabitants.

But a few hours before he went to VBS his Grandpa and he were enjoying playing the Wii video games on our home entertainment center. The Wii system allows you to make a computer animated likeness of yourself. You can pick the face contours, eyes, nose, hair color, body size (tall or short, thin or wide), and you can even add glasses if you wish.

Gabriel was playing Wii sports. He would bowl or play tennis with other Wii likenesses that had been developed by our family members. So, for example, he would bowl as his father, Michael, or his uncle Tony. Later he was playing tennis as his aunt Erin. His opponents were a true diversity of individuals that included other females and even an African American person.

At one point Gabriel switched to boxing, and as his aunt Erin or later his Grandma, they were pummeling opponents to the mat which truly delighted his Grandpa (I love boxing, as my father did before me). No sooner did I suggest to Gabriel that we develop a character that looked like him (blond hair, round face, smallish nose, and, at his own suggestion, the perfect pair of sunglasses) we were into our first round of boxing where GABRIEL was defeating these computer animated “bruisers”.

Grandma came downstairs, after hearing our chants of, “knock him down”, and then Grandma stated that Gabriel’s mother had said, “No boxing!” So Gabriel went back to tennis. This time he made all four players be a computer image of him. You saw four Gabriels playing doubles tennis. I said, “Don’t you want to try to beat someone else?” Gabriel said, “No, this way I will win all the time.”

I a way, however, Gabriel had created a perfect Wii world, he could win, but nobody else had to lose really. No one had to suffer defeat at his hand. I only wish the world could be a little more like this for everyone, everybody wins; nobody loses.

My Wife

My wife is an amazing person. I love her. The thing that amazes me, and always did from the days after we got beyond the superficial pleasantries of the initial dating phase, is that she loved me too. You cannot be married to someone for thirty-six years and not know everything about them.

One of the things that stuck with me from the book, “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten”, author Robert Fulghum talked about “the committee in your head”. He said that most people (and I am paraphrasing, because it has been years since I read the book) have a “committee” in their head that keeps you from, for example, running down the street naked. He mentioned that you may think that is something you consider doing, but the “committee in your head” says to you, “That is NOT a good idea”, so you don’t.

As I remember the description of “the committee”, the author went on to say that it is made up of respected people in your life such as parents, grandparents, and other people who you really respect, and in most cases, who know you personally.

I have never stopped to really assess my “committee”, although I am sure one exists, and if it does, my wife would have to be the chairperson of that committee. If she is not the chairperson she is certainly the chief legal counsel who brings not only her own experience and background to issues, but an intimate knowledge of everything about me to ANY discussion.

The point is, she really knows me, that is, all the really personal stuff, and still she loves me more than anyone I know, or will ever know in my lifetime. This is a forever thing; someone I WANT to spend an eternity with.

We have had what we call a “twenty-four, seven” (i.e. twenty-four hours a day; seven days a week) conversation going since we’ve known each other. Sometimes it get into little bogs about this or that, but generally speaking we have real conversation about what is going on in our life about, ourselves, family, religious beliefs, financial security, intimacy issues, and of course, that physical, wonderful love part that transcends into heaven’s realms. Have to say it, because it’s true. And, cannot ignore it regardless of what my “committee in the head” tells me.

All I know is I could write a book about her, because there are so many wonderful dynamics to her which I admire. But I will always come back to one basic, undeniable truth. “I love you, Julie!”