What Does This Say About Us?

This ad was removed. It was for disposable cat litter sheets.

Our house has litter all over it. The area around the litter box is loaded with those little clay gravel things, but I blame most of that on the wonderful man who cleans it out every night for me so I don't have to do it. Let's face it, litter sticks to cats and not all parts of the cat with litter on them will touch this "nano-cling" sheet. Worse: it's something else for the landfill and to be replaced continually. I'm too cheap thrifty for this.

I dunno, disposable cat dishes?

Is this not the worst idea ever? How much trouble is it to wash food and water bowls? Don't you have to wash your own dishes? Again, it's something for the landfill.

Description below. Sorry the image is gone.

Okay, this doesn't seem too bad but, boy, are we lazy! However, just look at the picture. Does this cat look happy? It looks like it was caught on film just before the ears went back. Cat runs up to the new hiding place only to discover it's an over-engineered litter tray. A better photo would have a cat leaving it - but then the text would have to be somewhere other than dead center.

Here's my two cents: make a catnip toy for your cat. They like those.

We Think They're Our Friends

Kate and Richard

Have I told this story before?
I was living in Manhattan with my hairdresser friend who worked on Broadway (on "Cats" - you know, really tiny perm rods) and we were at the Grand Union on East 86th Street picking up some staples when we glanced, as one does, at the tabloids blaring their blather at us in fully saturated color.
Richard Burton had recently passed away and tabloid headlines were all about his messy personal life, made messier by tabloids, no doubt. The latest headline had been about Liz Taylor planning to "crash" the funeral.
Something clicked in my pointy little head. "Fred," I said, "they're talking about Kate's dad."
It was a sort of epiphany.
Fred had worked on a couple of Broadway shows that Kate Burton had been in and if she wasn't personally known by me, he certainly knew her well and talked about working with her. It occurred to me for the first time that these people we see in movies and on stage are real folk. Sure, I knew that, but this time it really sank in. They enter our lives on screen and then even our homes by way of television. We think we know them. We greedily read stories about them. We are their public and we think we own them.
I would give my neighbor some privacy over the death of her father. I'd express my sympathy. Maybe I'd take a casserole. But I'd be irate if the local paper published trashy stories about the family.
Media stars and politicians are usually fair game ...
Until you are touched by them personally. Suddenly they're off limits.

The death of Robin Williams has apparently touched a major nerve, superseding other major news events. The death of Lauren Bacall barely got any attention by comparison. But we think we know these people, that they are our friends in a way that the other tragic figures are not. The pointless violent deaths of everyone else happening at this time sicken me, but I cannot relate to them the way I can relate to someone I saw on television every week who brought me joy. My sarcastic laugh is still "Arr-arr" à la Mork.
The Kate Burton Lesson has taught me, though, that this is someone's husband, someone's dad. My casserole does not fill the void made by his death. His family deserves our sympathy and respect. He may not have been my friend, but I still feel that the tabloids and pundits who receive money for belaboring his life and death are parasites - and the ghoulish people who read or listen to them are just as bad.
Pah, what can I say? We're only human.