GRENDEL AND ME February ‘o8

Bernie Moore

Pats Fan

I was talking to Grendel the other day, frankly looking for a bit of sympathy, since my beloved Pats came to within a fingernail of touching the moon, and I was emotionally a wreck, vacillating between disappointed and betrayed. I Monday morningized a dozen scenarios where fate could have been kinder to me over and over again.

Grendel, I reasoned, who has, like most cats, a very high emotional IQ (that is to say cats are sensitive to emotions around them) would certainly comfort me. But he was totally indifferent to my whiney misery. It must be, I reasoned, due to his not understanding the game and the roll devoted fans play in the big picture. So I set about rendering a tutorial that would enlighten him.

“Imagine a bunch of cats,” I started.

“What? A bunch? We’re not talking dogs here.” he glared. “Cats lead, never follow.”

“Well…just bear with me here for a moment. Just to get the concept!

“Bear?” he shuddered.

“Not that kind, relax.”

“Where is this bunch?”

“About a hundred miles, a place called Foxboro.”

“A hole full of Foxes?”

“Not that kind.”

“No matter; they’re small and don’t bother us; not like those damned Coyotes.”

“It’s just a place where men play football.

“Is that what you spend Sunday afternoons watching while you hoard the couch and drink that terrible smelling stuff and that salty food that makes me sick?”

“I don’t hog the couch!”

“Hog?”

“Hoard, then.”

“Yeah! I know what you mean. That’s where they take something about the size of a good cat and kick it, and stomp it, and jump on it, and throw it around. Yeah! nice game,” he snarled, his eyes narrowing to demonic slits.

“Don’t get ticked!”

“Ticks?

“Now, cut that out!”

It just goes to show you that we superior beings cannot explain the glory of getting upset about what a bunch of guys do on Sunday afternoons on “…Darkling plains, where ignorant armies clash by night.”

It wasn’t that long ago while such a contest was being waged, that I was drifting along the wall of a reef, camera in hand, peeking into the windows and crannies of tenants who were both curious and wary of me. They would nervously fin out for a closer peek and bolt back the next time I released a quart of bubbles.

Or later to approach a coffee table sized coral mound, and just settle into the sand, and wait for the “all clear” to sound, and the little community would resume its business: burrows to clean, nosey neighbors to fend off, food to catch, prance about to impress a mate. Each exhalation brought about a tic, a momentary check to see if anything critical was about.

Occasionally a large visitor finned by which put everyone on edge, but this too would pass and life returned to normal as the visitor settled onto the sand and yawned waiting for a good cleaning. In one small crevice I espied a large eyeball peering back at me. I couldn’t make sense of it until I realized that only an octopus would have such eye. As my own eyes studied him I began to recognize the various parts that he had camouflaged so well. Ah, but this was a dive for which I hadn’t properly connect my flash, so no record of this splendid encounter is extant.

“Why don’t you get an aquarium?” purred Grendel, his eyes narrowing and the corners of his mouth curling up ever so slightly. “Since you like fish so much.”

“Forget it. You’d probably drown yourself in it.”

“Perhaps a small one?” this unctuously.

“No way. You’ll just have to be satisfied with expensive canned tuna.”

“Ahhh,” he sighed, “Where’s the thrill of the hunt?”

“Watch football; sublimate like me.”

As a matter of fact I’m having a tough time understanding watching sports football my self. What should I care what goes on a thousand miles away in Arizona with bunch of men I have never even met nor probably ever will.

Hereafter I resolve to do something more worthwhile with my time.

Still…

The Uconn Huskies won the last seven, and the ladies have only lost one all year.