Juliet Waldron's Blog - Posts Tagged "writing-life"
Local Advertiser
Once a week you find these in the lobby of the grocery store. I have a habit of reading through them. There are the usual advertisers, the churches, the realtors, the auctions, the used car dealers, restaurants that offer “early-bird” specials for seniors, and club listings—chess, photography, computers, knitting, quilting, and a host of support groups. There are a few obituaries, but I hope never to find the few people I do know featured. There are classified ads, too, and these are mostly the reason I read it.
Every once in a while there’s something that makes me smile. My most recent favorite said: “Found! One of those things you pick up things with in the 300 block of Mayberry Street.” This writer had good intentions, but the words to describe the object he’d found eluded him. Still, he did note where he'd found it, and perhaps that would reunite the owner with the lost object.
Sometimes, the ad reveals something about the mental state of the person who wrote it. This is unintentional, but here’s a good one, full of anxiety: “Lost blue tool box full of tools. I’m not sure where I lost it, but it’s blue, full of tools and says Erector on the lid. Reward! Thank-you.”
You can tell that losing the box was a terrible thing, but you can also tell that the writer has probably lost a lot of other important things over the years. As someone who can relate to absent-mindedness and loss, I sincerely hoped someone eventually returned his toolbox (blue).
Another ad, one I responded to, said: “Help me please! I have 31 cats who needs good homes. Bring cat food.“
I went to the place—the back of beyond behind a very small somewhere along-the-highway town and up a hill via a gullied dirt road. There I found a ramshackle house and on it's last legs barn. There were cats everywhere, running for cover. A woman, thin and tired looking, with tattoos all over her arms, came out and we sat down together on the grass. She explained that she had worked at a shelter, but couldn’t endure the weekly euthanasia, and so had ended up with all these cats. I could see straight-away that most of her cats had no use for people—probably with good reason.
I watched cats skulking under the rusting junkers and behind old engine parts that littered the yard. After a few minutes, she opened the big bag of cat food I’d brought and spread it on the ground. Skinny cats came swarming from every direction. After gulping hastily, all keeping one eye on me--the unknown--most ran away. I’d been watching an orange threesome, scrawny nine month adolescents. The kind weary woman pointed them out, calling them "my orange brothers.”
One, the skinniest and shabbiest, climbed onto my lap. As soon as I touched him he began to purr, a huge roaring purr. He drooled with joy as I began to pet him, very gently. His eyes were washed-out yellow. His fur was dry as straw and his nose ran. I could count ribs and feel his knobby spine.
I felt a strong emotional connection—and then he bit me, grabbing the skin of my forearm with his teeth and twisting like a bulldog. Just a millimeter short of drawing blood, he leapt off my lap, stood just out of reach and continued to gaze at me, trembling, drooling, and purring.
“He didn't mean that,” she said. “He just gets excited.”
Naturally, this desperate, sick, love-starved soul is the one I took home. You never know what kind of cool stuff you'll discover in the local advertiser...
~ Juliet Waldron
Every once in a while there’s something that makes me smile. My most recent favorite said: “Found! One of those things you pick up things with in the 300 block of Mayberry Street.” This writer had good intentions, but the words to describe the object he’d found eluded him. Still, he did note where he'd found it, and perhaps that would reunite the owner with the lost object.
Sometimes, the ad reveals something about the mental state of the person who wrote it. This is unintentional, but here’s a good one, full of anxiety: “Lost blue tool box full of tools. I’m not sure where I lost it, but it’s blue, full of tools and says Erector on the lid. Reward! Thank-you.”
You can tell that losing the box was a terrible thing, but you can also tell that the writer has probably lost a lot of other important things over the years. As someone who can relate to absent-mindedness and loss, I sincerely hoped someone eventually returned his toolbox (blue).
Another ad, one I responded to, said: “Help me please! I have 31 cats who needs good homes. Bring cat food.“
I went to the place—the back of beyond behind a very small somewhere along-the-highway town and up a hill via a gullied dirt road. There I found a ramshackle house and on it's last legs barn. There were cats everywhere, running for cover. A woman, thin and tired looking, with tattoos all over her arms, came out and we sat down together on the grass. She explained that she had worked at a shelter, but couldn’t endure the weekly euthanasia, and so had ended up with all these cats. I could see straight-away that most of her cats had no use for people—probably with good reason.
I watched cats skulking under the rusting junkers and behind old engine parts that littered the yard. After a few minutes, she opened the big bag of cat food I’d brought and spread it on the ground. Skinny cats came swarming from every direction. After gulping hastily, all keeping one eye on me--the unknown--most ran away. I’d been watching an orange threesome, scrawny nine month adolescents. The kind weary woman pointed them out, calling them "my orange brothers.”
One, the skinniest and shabbiest, climbed onto my lap. As soon as I touched him he began to purr, a huge roaring purr. He drooled with joy as I began to pet him, very gently. His eyes were washed-out yellow. His fur was dry as straw and his nose ran. I could count ribs and feel his knobby spine.
I felt a strong emotional connection—and then he bit me, grabbing the skin of my forearm with his teeth and twisting like a bulldog. Just a millimeter short of drawing blood, he leapt off my lap, stood just out of reach and continued to gaze at me, trembling, drooling, and purring.
“He didn't mean that,” she said. “He just gets excited.”
Naturally, this desperate, sick, love-starved soul is the one I took home. You never know what kind of cool stuff you'll discover in the local advertiser...
~ Juliet Waldron
How Writers Become Distracted
Kitty speaks and asks:
Have you finished training your person?
Have you? Really?
Well, well, so you say, but let us see! Let us run through the steps again.
Repetition is how we learn best!
***
Instructions for successful "owner" training:
Approach your person, meowing plaintively. When they glance down, as they do, you will do a sweet kitty drive-by, gently rubbing against their leg.
A good tip for beginners: When they are typing at high speed is the best time for this kind training!
Your person leans over. Yes she does! She says “What do you want, my fatty fuzzy drawers meatloaf meow-meow puddy-wuddy??” (Sometimes, it’s even dumber than that!)
This type of vocalization, inane as it may sound to you, is an excellent response. It shows that you haven’t been wasting your time. If you haven’t been training this person for long, maybe you’ve lucked out and are working with one of the smart ones.
Next, it’s time to flop down beside her chair. Stretch out really long, forepaws and backpaws extending in such a sexy way that, just for a flash, you show off the length of your claws. Bow your belly into one of those easy arcs that screams how flexible you are. Your tiger pelt catches the light with in a sublime halo of red-gold guard hairs.
Do this whole-heartedly, as if you’ll never arise again. Sometimes, for added effect, you may look over your shoulder and send one of those come hither blinks at the person before turning your head away, finally resting it, in a half disinterested manner, upon the floor again.
As soon as your person—the old ones, like the ones I have, will most certainly grunt and groan and make a huge fuss because they have to sit down cross-legged on the floor, whingeing on and on about “vertigo” “last week's surgery” “hip/knee replacements” or whatever is currently ailing their show-offy-monkey balancing-on-their-hind-legs skeleton. Do NOT ever, ever cave. They can get down onto the floor beside you--and, if you have anything to say about it--they will.
As soon as they are all the way down and are just starting to pet (or groom) you, jump up and walk away.
I know this may be tough, especially if they've presciently begun to execute the Aunt Patti Frequent Flyer Eagle Star Super Premium Top Gold level Wuffle (c) which rubs all around your spine in the very bestest way. At such times, you must exercise will power.
You want a win for this session, don't you?
Remember, consistency is the key to successful person training--even if that means also being consistently-inconsistent, and always at those times when they are relying on you to do what you did four times last week.
Leaving the scene doesn't necessarily mean distance. In fact, at first, it’s better if it isn’t, because then your person will continue attempting to interact, calling and enticing you with mousie fingers to return. But if you're going to close the deal, you must stick to the program and play hard-to-get. You might even flick your tail at them as you turn away and head out to the kitchen food bowl for a crunchy.
But don't be in a hurry. Bide your time. Be patient. Maybe have a big drink, too, or even visit the cellar cat box. While you are doing that, though, remain ever-vigilant.
As soon as their annoying self-centered typing resumes, trot upstairs and begin the process all over again.
Don't feel sorry for them. Don't waste your time.
Sometimes, okay, they do get to type, because you're napping on the couch on the cat furniture on the other side of the table upon a special fleecy blanket or upon a Queen bed upstairs. You don't really need to be entertained, just at that moment. Besides, this person takes pretty good care of you. The cat box is effectively scooped. There is always a bowl with the aforementioned crunchies and daily fresh water--if that senile co-deity who also holds court here didn't keep standing in it.
If basic things like housekeeping aren't to your liking, you'll soon make those feelings clear. Believe me, persons--this is not a threat, it's a promise! I'll take up this weighty subject at our next "owner" training lesson.
~~Juliet Waldron
https://www.facebook.com/jwhistfic
Have you finished training your person?
Have you? Really?
Well, well, so you say, but let us see! Let us run through the steps again.
Repetition is how we learn best!
***
Instructions for successful "owner" training:
Approach your person, meowing plaintively. When they glance down, as they do, you will do a sweet kitty drive-by, gently rubbing against their leg.
A good tip for beginners: When they are typing at high speed is the best time for this kind training!
Your person leans over. Yes she does! She says “What do you want, my fatty fuzzy drawers meatloaf meow-meow puddy-wuddy??” (Sometimes, it’s even dumber than that!)
This type of vocalization, inane as it may sound to you, is an excellent response. It shows that you haven’t been wasting your time. If you haven’t been training this person for long, maybe you’ve lucked out and are working with one of the smart ones.
Next, it’s time to flop down beside her chair. Stretch out really long, forepaws and backpaws extending in such a sexy way that, just for a flash, you show off the length of your claws. Bow your belly into one of those easy arcs that screams how flexible you are. Your tiger pelt catches the light with in a sublime halo of red-gold guard hairs.
Do this whole-heartedly, as if you’ll never arise again. Sometimes, for added effect, you may look over your shoulder and send one of those come hither blinks at the person before turning your head away, finally resting it, in a half disinterested manner, upon the floor again.
As soon as your person—the old ones, like the ones I have, will most certainly grunt and groan and make a huge fuss because they have to sit down cross-legged on the floor, whingeing on and on about “vertigo” “last week's surgery” “hip/knee replacements” or whatever is currently ailing their show-offy-monkey balancing-on-their-hind-legs skeleton. Do NOT ever, ever cave. They can get down onto the floor beside you--and, if you have anything to say about it--they will.
As soon as they are all the way down and are just starting to pet (or groom) you, jump up and walk away.
I know this may be tough, especially if they've presciently begun to execute the Aunt Patti Frequent Flyer Eagle Star Super Premium Top Gold level Wuffle (c) which rubs all around your spine in the very bestest way. At such times, you must exercise will power.
You want a win for this session, don't you?
Remember, consistency is the key to successful person training--even if that means also being consistently-inconsistent, and always at those times when they are relying on you to do what you did four times last week.
Leaving the scene doesn't necessarily mean distance. In fact, at first, it’s better if it isn’t, because then your person will continue attempting to interact, calling and enticing you with mousie fingers to return. But if you're going to close the deal, you must stick to the program and play hard-to-get. You might even flick your tail at them as you turn away and head out to the kitchen food bowl for a crunchy.
But don't be in a hurry. Bide your time. Be patient. Maybe have a big drink, too, or even visit the cellar cat box. While you are doing that, though, remain ever-vigilant.
As soon as their annoying self-centered typing resumes, trot upstairs and begin the process all over again.
Don't feel sorry for them. Don't waste your time.
Sometimes, okay, they do get to type, because you're napping on the couch on the cat furniture on the other side of the table upon a special fleecy blanket or upon a Queen bed upstairs. You don't really need to be entertained, just at that moment. Besides, this person takes pretty good care of you. The cat box is effectively scooped. There is always a bowl with the aforementioned crunchies and daily fresh water--if that senile co-deity who also holds court here didn't keep standing in it.
If basic things like housekeeping aren't to your liking, you'll soon make those feelings clear. Believe me, persons--this is not a threat, it's a promise! I'll take up this weighty subject at our next "owner" training lesson.
~~Juliet Waldron
https://www.facebook.com/jwhistfic
