I'm afraid of my cats

I may have to call for back-up.

They've got me square in their beady carnivorous sights and I can see the word FOOD flashing neon in the reflection of their killer-cold eyeballs and if I don't do something soon I'm going to wind up like those dead cat ladies with their tender vittles supped up with a side dish of catnip and a fine chianti.

It's the day before pay day and all through the house, every creature is meowing, except for the mouse – which, I might add, wouldn't be alive at all if the cats were truly starving to death, which they're not.

But The Bowl.

The Bowl is almost empty. It's got about (excuse me while I count) 23 cat crunchies moldering in the bottom of it. Sacré bleu! That is what constitutes Original Sin in this house. According to our cats, the bottom of The Bowl can not, under any circumstances, be visible. It must, at all times, be covered with Whiskas Hairball Control Cat Crunchies.

Ben-Ben is the Guardian of The Bowl. He lets us know immediately when there is any sign of the bottom, meowing in a tone so mournful that one might think his left nut (which has been missing for 13 years) was twisted in the lid of the kitty litter box. He doesn't shut up, either. Not even while he's walking in front of us, at a snail's pace, weaving around our legs like the waffle-chip maker at a tositoes factory. Weaving and meowing, meowing and weaving.

I knew last night that this morning would dawn with a case of the uglies. But we couldn't go buy any Whiskas Hairball Control Cat Crunchies last night because tomorrow is pay-day and we were broker than Ben's unfortunate nuts.

"Ben-Ben is not gonna like this," I said to Dave. "He's gonna drive us bonkers."

"Let him," said Dave, who threw this brave missive over his shoulder as he headed out the front door on his way to work, leaving me alone with two hungry cats and The Bowl.

I think I've faked them out. For now. I filled up the dog's dish and I filled up the water dish, and then I pretended to fill their dish, picking it up and shaking it around, spreading the cat crunchies around to make them look, um, different.

The cats may be cute, and loud, but they're dumb as a bag of rocks.

They sniffed The Bowl, ate a cat crunchie or two, and retired to the chesterfield where they will snore and stretch and groom their embarrassing parts, and wait until I return home with a new bag of Whiskas Hairball Control Cat Crunchies.

I will have to come home with one. If I don't, my life will be over. If it means stealing some blind old man's white cane and setting up in front of the pet store with a tin can, I guess I'll have to do it. Or maybe I'll sell some blood. It doesn't matter how I get it, as long as I get it.

Maybe I'll hold the pet store up at bowl-point. They'll understand my need, they will. They know what cats are capable of. Furry killers, kitties are. Deviant masters of The Bowl.

I will leave now, while they are sleeping, and some how, some way, the cat crunchies shall be mine...

37,931 words and my writing buddies

Right on the heels of telling you how hot I am, here's a photo that proves, not only otherwise, but also how little pride I actually have.

That is me deep in Nanowrimo mode, writing the Great Canadian Novel, or at least, MY Great Canadian Novel. Eight more days of writing ahead. 12,069 words. That's 1,509 words every day. Can I do it? How can I not do it after investing so much time and energy?

Am feeling confident right at this moment because I just had a good writing night. Last night, though, I was convinced I didn't have one more word in me. What I wrote was terrible. It wasn't going anywhere. It wasn't developing the plot. And it certainly wasn't well-written. Tonight I decided, to heck with it, and started writing the chapter again from scratch. This time I knew where it was headed; I had the right atmosphere and the words fairly spilled onto the page.

I asked Dave to take this picture, not to show you how chub-ugly my feet are, but to show you my undecadent writing space and my two furball writing buddies.

I've tried writing everywhere else around the house but I've done my best writing on the bed, scrunched into a back-busting ball. I goof around on my blog or facebook on the kitchen table but when I go into the bedroom and shut the door, I'm all business. Sometimes I even use ear plugs. I find it blocks everything out but the sound of my own brain thunk-thunking in overdrive.

The funny thing about this is my two cats, Dodge (the orange one) and Ben. Cats are creatures of habit and they have made a habit out of sitting at my feet while I've been NaNo-ing. As soon as the door closes they push it open and come walking in. They don't bug me. Much. Sometimes they rub their whiskers on my laptop or demand to be petted. For the most part, though, they just lie down like the slugs they are and fall asleep. Sometimes they even snore.

Is this how The Great Canadian Novels are written?

In a messy bedroom with snoring cats?