Well, it seems there is more kitty love in the air than I thought. Granola is bringing her cats back from paradise to live with K-dog and I, and the Cult Leader seems to have found a new follower.

(For the record, there were about a thousand crude sexual humor references that I came up with in my sick little thinking engine that could have been included in this post. I mean, when writing about felines, they just pop in there like the Stay-Puft Marshmellow Man. However, the management here at the 'Wrangler seemed to think such crude humor would be detrimental to this site's high literary and commentary standards. Personally, I think management are a bunch of pussies.)

I got asked a favor today, and I am looking forward to it like summer vacation. Marrilee asked me to look out for Thomas, because she is going to be out of town for a while. I absolutely LOVE doing this.

Thomas is, quite frankly, the most Sinatra fuckin' cat that ever lived. He's so cool it hurts. He's black and white, kind of skinny, and really cocky. He used to pick fights with the neighbor's cat, even though he doesn't have any claws. He's not stupid, he knows he is weaponless in the cat world, but he tries to kick kitty ass nonetheless. He's house trained and doesn't use a litter box, which is cool for a cat, in my opinion. He likes attention, and doesn't really do that aloof, who-the-hell-needs-you-anyway thing that most cats do. He'll head but your hands if he doesn't think you're giving him his kitty props. He'll sit about two feet from the door and just stare at it until you let him go out, without meowing loudly or generally bugging anyone. Marrilee swears he can tell who has come to the door by the way their car sounds on hte street outside. But there is one unique thing about him that makes me miss him like crazy.

He drools.

The first time it happened I was totally freaked out. Tom will sit on your chest when he's feeling like he needs some love, and while you pet him, he gets so happy, he drools on you. It's hysterical! I remember telling Marrilee that first time, "Hey!, Your cat is broken, it's leaking on me!" Apparently it's because his purring mechanism doesn't work properly. When he can't make that happy little rumble in his throat, he starts dripping. He can purr sometimes, I've heard him do it, but mostly it's just the drool. It sits on his chin in perfectly clear white drops, and it drips on you , sometimes as often as one every five or ten seconds. It's the most adorable pet characteristic I have ever seen. We watched Kevin's sister's dog for about three weeks recently, and Bailey was cool and a little weird for a dog, but no pet has ever been as cool as my ex-girlfriends cat, Tom. My friend Stacy, who is a big time animal lover, says it sounds like I miss the cat more than the girl.

That's absolutely not true.

Eight more days to go. I think K-dog and I are gonna give cloudwrangler a re-design for X-mas. Be ready.

This week has been insane for me. I worked nine of the last ten nights, and a few days as well. I have been trying to X-mas shop, and to resist the urge to do so for myself. I am also trying to arrange a night off to attend a holiday party at my own home, to which all readers of cloudwrangler are cordially invited, since I am sure I know you both and you won't even need a map. In an effort to relax a little in my spare time, I decided not to spend every afternoon at the movies as I often do, and instead rent some videos and rest up at home when I can.

Big BIG MISTAKE.

The problem lies in what I decided to rent. The Sopranos Season 2. In the last few days I have seen every episode. Almost 15 hours of gangsters doing the various things they do, all in my house. Most of you who know me (again, thanks for reading, both of ya) know this is right up my alley. My spaghetti sauce recipe, adapted from my mother's own, takes four hours to prepare. The recipe requires that Mob movies be played during cooking, a tradition spawned by the scene in Godfather where Clemenza teaches Michael to make sauce since, "you never know when ya might havta cook for like tirty guys someday." The recipe makes seventy nine gallons of sauce, so I give a lot of it away, mostly to Sarah these days. In perfecting the recipe, I have seen almost every mob film known to man, good and bad. However, only once before have I ever had to process this much TV mafia at once, and I have learned something very interesting this time around.

It's not very relaxing, and it changes the way you think.

I look over my shoulder now. A LOT. I have awkward moments just before I turn the key in my car ignition. I've also noticed my speech patterns are changin'. I say tings lately that I can't believe are comin' outta my mout. Like yesterday, dis guy I work wit was walkin' past the bar, and I says, "Hey Ferris come 'ere fer a minute." and he says, "I'm off the clock," like I was gonna tell 'im ta do somethin' and he didn't wanna on account of he wadn't gettin' paid fer it, and I says, "Who fuckin' asked youse about off !?!?"

It's also affected my decision making and problem solving methods. Yesterday I couldn't decide what I wanted for lunch because there just aren't any really good Italian joints in this town. When I finally gave up trying to find one, I decided to just go to the drive thru window. Then, when the guy forgot to put pickles on my burger, I dragged him out of the window, beat the crap out of him, and ran him over with my car. I had a guy whacked for showing up to work fifteen minutes late a few days ago. I got a line on a whole rack of full length mink coats that fell of the back of a truck, swear to God. It' not even cold in Austin, fer christ sake! I guess I may need a new nickname.