Grendel & Me April 2010

GRENDEL and ME (4/10)

Bernie Moore

“…To Sleep, Perchance to Dream…”

I was talking to Grendel the other day during one of those Halcyon spring days of promise recently. We were on a sortie of the rear perimeter, the second of the morning, (it was that nice out) and like the flora around us Grendel was rejuvenating. He was tracking scent trails around, and when he came to one of particular interest he began to have a splendid wallow, squirming and writhing in the glorious wafts of what I can only guess was a gloriously available queen. This from a cat that thinks a stinky can of fish cat food smells delicious. I could only be grateful that my own senses could not pick up on his delight.

Above his head the forsythia bush was at the precipice of having its little green buds burst into bright yellow petals. In the branches of the trees squirrels were raging about the branches in a frenzied seasonal pursuit. The air was thick with the pungent aroma of earth working out of its cold hardness. I was actually not bundled up in a coat.

We stayed out a little longer that day, who wouldn’t; we might have lingered a bit more but for some young boys walking noisily home from middle school. We are in fenced community near the end of a block that if allowed to extend would tee into a fairly well traveled street. Pedestrians are about seventy yards from where we usually walk. I would think that much distance would make the little G-guy comfortable and safe, but upon seeing anyone there, except women, he scurries home in great trepidation. Yet, if those same people were to walk on our street within ten yards of him, he is not bothered.

“Boo,” I said, “They’re a mile away. Why are you so nervous?”

“Can’t be too careful, Boss. Loud young boys are not always a cat’s best friend.”

“But they’re nowhere near you,” I offered lamely.

“The way I like it. What if I have them on one side and a UPS truck barreling down at me from the other? What then? Thanks, Boss, but one problem at a time. It’s a lot easier do deal with than a bunch.”

“True, true.” How could I, a diver, quarrel with that?

A second stage reg. gets funky just as you reach the reach the deck of the 851. Use the octo, apprise your buddy, and continue the dive? I have. Grendel wouldn’t.

On a night dive one of you lights dies. Notify your buddy and abort? I wouldn’t. Grendel would.

A member of your dive team points out you have a slight bubble trail coming from your first stage. Abort and return? Or continue knowing there are plenty of octos. in the group. I aborted. So would Grendel.

You find on your last dive that your tank has only 1900cf. It’s a 70’dive to a wreck you have been wanting to see for a long time. Plan on a short dive and go for it? I wouldn’t. Neither would Grendel.

You’re diving a wreck with a known current. Not usually a problem since you’re familiar with it, but you notice a really worn fin strap. Grendel wouldn’t.

It’s not that cats have nine lives; it’s just that they are much more judicious about the one they have.

Why My Taxes Got Delayed

GRENDEL and ME (3/10)

Why My Taxes Haven’t Been Paid

I was talking to Grendel the other day, because there was a lull in my efforts to figure out my taxes. I made the mistake of telling him that his life was easy.
“All you have to do is go to your bowl and eat. You don’t even have to hunt.”
“Hunting is not work, Boss, it’s one of the great pleasures of felinity.” (Yes, that’s actually a word.) “Sort of like your scuba diving. A coral reef to you is like a pulchritudinous chipmunk to me.”
“Besides, you don’t hunt. Who fills your bowl?”
“I don’t eat out of a bowl.”
“Uh, Boss; I’m speaking metaphorically.” (Honestly, the cats of English teachers!)
“Oh, I get it; you mean where do I get my sustenance?”
“Got it, Boss.”
“Well, I just go to the bank at the end of the month and…”
“Your bowl is full, metaphorically of course?”
“I guess, if you put it that way.”
“And you don’t hunt any more?”
“You could say that.”
“So…who are you to tell me about my easy life?”
“Point taken...”
His eyes drooped shut and I knew this conversation was over. So here I am compared to a lazy cat with little argument to deny it. Except that I still have to do my taxes, and even that is not possible at the moment because of his highness’s choice of a bed. And he rolphed up his breakfast on my desk and I’ll have to do a second cleaning to get rid of the smell, and take out the trash, and go shopping, and make dinner and…I need a nap.

Grendel & Me 2/10

GRENDEL AND ME (2/10)

 

Accepting the honor of Diver of the Year Grendel uses his cheek glands to scent his trophy.  

I was talking to Grendel the other day upon presenting him with the sterling and crystal love cup for “Diverse of the Year”, and I must confess that he was as diverse as any recipient that has ever been so awarded. I knew it would be as helpless to explain why we give awards like this to each other as it would be to explain to Gulliver why Lilliputians gave each other bits of colored string for athletic prowess. However, he has never been an ingrate, so he accepted the empty bowl with grace.

By now you already know his reaction, so I might take a moment to reflect on why last month was devoid of any articles of our antics.

As you know I elected to get a gnu gnee, a decision fraught with the confidence that it was a minor gnuisance quickly dispatched without breaking stride. As you might have observed at the January meeting it was none of the above. It was, in fact still is, a lot more than expected. You’ve all heard the nurse say, “You may feel a little pinch.” Yeah, right.

Thus I thought I might recall some of the process for you, should you have to make a similar decision. At some point in the narrative drugs were introduced, but I assure you my observations are astute and as real as anything I have heretofore narrated in this Chautauqua previously.

Let’s begin this in the shower at 0400 where I scrub myself with some vile pink liquid soap that smells of unburied death, and follow it up with a drive to a hospital affiliated with a university to remain unnamed. For company there was my driver/wife who is not keen on being subjected to other living things at this hour. She was as quiet as a cobra and just as venomous. I was as quiet as a mouse for a different reason.

My next memory is of being in some kind of tent with cloth walls and women swarming around me mostly looking for places to stick needles. See, “You may feel a little pinch” above. The one that sticks in mind was trying to stuff a knitting needle sized hypodermic into a vein she suspected was just under the skin. She kept poking at it and I swear the little thing was squirming under the dermis trying to avoid being skewered like a barbecued sausage.

But, alas, she finally lanced it, and before she could do anything, it shook itself loose and started hemorrhage subcutaneously until a large spot appeared just below the skin looking a lot like the continent of Australia. Upon closer examination my eyes gaped at a perfect rendition of Mary mother of… I postponed any mention of this earlier, as I feared some overzealous Ebayer might have designs on a quick profit at my expense whereupon I could loose some skin or worse a treasured appendage.

“Gee”, sayeth the phlebotomist or hippopotamus or whatever she was, “I’ll have to find another vein.”

“Nay, quoth I, “You’ll have to find another nurse. Don’t touch me again.” A brave stand I thought at the time.

Meanwhile, another hippopotamus managed to secure another vein on my other arm and I started to feel a little woozy, a loss of blood thought or maybe I’ve been slipped a mickey and started to worry about waking on a slow freighter bound for Shanghi.

This fear of being Shanghied was reinforced by the feeling of traveling feet first, like a luge, until I struggled toward the light only to find myself in a room crowded with hitech equipment and a bunch of terrorists dressed in light green robes and masks and head gear. They stood around with their gloved hands perched up like waiting vultures. I remember being tied down with my arms straight out like I was on a cross. This isn’t going well was my final thought, as I sank rapidly into a twisting vortex.

Well, all’s well that ends well, as my next observation was of my rescuers hustling me into a hospital room, but that’s another story.

Meanwhile Grendel walked across a warm sunbeam and collapsed on the rug for an instant snooze as I might think some readers have done by now.