The Ominous First Post By Catherine on 3/22/2007 01:31:00 AM
I've thought about this whole blogging thing quite carefully. For years now, friends, acquaintances, and strangers alike have been willing to stop everything to gush about it-- at dinner, at work, in line at the grocery store... I just didn't get it. I mean, I had a LiveJournal once upon a time-- that's the same thing, right? Then I started seeing CNN and FOX and MSNBC start quoting these blog things, and I really thought I was losing it. Doris Kearns Goodwin shows the world her e-diary? Tucker Carlson is literate?I was baffled. And not that interested in the Internet. Law and Order is way cooler.
The end came when the 85-year old in front of me at Hannaford's looked at me with sincere (if watery) grandmotherly eyes and said,
"You don't blog? I keep one for my grandkids, and one for my cats!"
That's when I woke up.
I kid. What actually happened was much less cliché, and I'm not totally pulling it out of my ass. My blogging breakthrough occurred this evening, when the cat did something cute. And really goddamned smart, if you ask me-- and since you're reading my blog, that's pretty much the same thing as asking.
For the first time, I felt like I had something to write about, and my repressed jealousy of all the blissful bloggers on the 'net disappeared. I was going to create a blog...
Anyway. Do you want to know what the cat did? She got into the trash.
But not in the naughty way-- tonight, Dixie was sitting on my big black steamer trunk, which is right beside said wastebasket. Dixie leaned in, carefully leveraging her weight and fishing around with one paw.
"Hey!" I barked; usually that works if she's on the table or something.
She kept going. I stopped protesting, because she wasn't knocking the thing over. She's kind of stupid sometimes, so I decided to let her swat the plastic bag lining. She just continued pawing around, and I ignored her, until she jumped off the trunk and started mad-dashing around the living room, something small skittering around under her paws.
It was her milk ring. You know, the part you pull off to open a half-gallon of the stuff. I gave it to her weeks before, and she'd played with it nonstop, but I threw it out, not having seen her play with it lately. But the little fart fished it out.
Wouldn't you say that's pretty smart, too?