February 23, 2015

Horse 1844 - Photo 352 "Suddenly... A Cat"

- Suddenly... A Cat

Thee is an interesting story about this photograph. I had intended to take photo of some other thing (which is not important for the purposes of this story) when suddenly... a cat.
It's a bit like that direction by Shakespeare in The Winter's Tale when Antigonus is told to "exit pursued by a bear", which does not give any indication as to how to actually perform the action. Was there supposed to be someone in a bear suit? Was there some sort of Pepper's Ghost type trick to be performed? Was someone off stage supposed to make a noise? Who knows? Nobody - at least not now.

Anyone who has lived with a cat, and I'm careful not to use the word 'owned' for one can not own a cat any more than one can own the sunlight or the warmth from a radiator, knows that 'suddenly... a cat' is par for the course. Of course if you were to try and call your cat by name, unlike a dog, whether they happen to come to you or not is governed by some hitherto indescribable set of rules called cat logic.

Various studies over the years have concluded that cat people as opposed to dog people or horse people, display a greater degree of empathy than the general public. Nominally this suggests something about the sorts of people who are likely to be cat people, they would rather let their cat do whatever it is going to do as opposed to dog people who know that they can to some degree impose their will upon their animal. I think (perhaps because of experience; this is a learned response) that trying to impose your will upon a cat is impossible. Maybe this is an example of dramatic irony, for although cat people display empathy, cats do not. Cats are almost entirely apathetic to any request that their people might have; they will ignore you as often as they feel like.

'Suddenly... a cat' describes more than just a feline phenomenon which appears in your photographs. 'Suddenly... a cat' is an apt description for a whole host of strange noises at stupid o'clock in the morning; including random thuds, what sounds like shrieks of pain, or the otherwise unexplained reason as to why some of your stuff has fallen on the floor.

It stands to reason that 'suddenly... a cat' will happen twice as likely if you have two cats. Two is the ideal number of cats to have: one is not enough because the cat will be lonely and three is the beginning of crazy cat lady territory. Three cats would also lead to a distinct problem of cleaning up 50% more poos than is allowable for a normal human, in order to maintain any semblance of sanity.

Even though two cats is an ideal number of cats to have (other than none) it's still preferable to one dog. Cats are independent to a point which sits asymptotically on a curve, aligned to the line describing arrogance. A dog will begin to whinge if its master has gone and there are tales of dogs who will remain faithfully devoted to their masters; even after their masters have died. Cats will attach themselves to people but if you decide that you want to go on holiday for a fortnight, cats are fine with that. They will amuse themselves.

I like to think that during the height of the blitz, when the bombs were raining down all over London and Winston Churchill was ordering air units to defend the sceptred isle, that demi-paradise, that fortress built by nature for herself against infection and the hand of war, that even in the War Rooms with maps sprawled out over table tops, there would have been Munich Mouser and Nelson sitting in the middle staring back at him because just like every Saturday morning if you have the newspaper open,  'suddenly... a cat' and even the DJIA becomes subservient.
For the record, current British Prime Minister David Cameron has two cats, Larry and Freya, because even he knows that two is the ideal number of cats to have. I wonder if say when Yanis Varoufakis came to Number Ten if 'suddenly... a cat' happened. I can just imagine the Cabinet or a meeting of various important people from the EU all sitting around some table looking very serious and then  'suddenly... a cat', which would result in more sensible decisions.

If you do decide to become the live-in staff of two cats, then 'suddenly... a cat' will become a way of life. Doing the laundry and put the pile of clothes somewhere to be sorted?  Suddenly... a cat. Watching television and eating anything with chicken or ham in? Suddenly... a cat. Tapping away at the keys on your keyboard when you're working on something? Suddenly... a cat. Taking a photograph? Suddenly... a cat.

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