Klarinet Archive - Posting 000403.txt from 2003/01

From: LeliaLoban@-----.com
Subj: [kl] Bill's case of cat excess.
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 08:57:48 -0500

Jim Lande wrote,
> I once opened a case and didn't even get the horn out before
>one of the cats fled into the room my wife was vacuming.

Chose a vacuum cleaner over a clarinet, eh? Now that's a serious insult!
The vacuum cleaner may be the one thing Shadow Cat hates even more than she
hates the clarinet. She's known and loathed the word "vacuum" for most of
her 14 years. I give her a courtesy warning so she can leave before I open
the Broom of Doom Closet, since the mere sight of this demonic monster at
close range nearly panics her. Similarly, before I practice the clarinet, I
ask her if she would like to hear some clarinet music. Bumbledumbledumble
bop bop bop!--down the stairs she goes, as loudly as possible, while making
outraged gurgling noises all the way down, just to make sure I get the point!

Kevin (husband) uses a powerful, hand-held vacuum cleaner once or twice a
week to police up what I call his hell-hole: the area of carpet underneath
and around the table in the basement (w)rec(k) room where shreds of leather
and paper and other flakes and dusty scrap fall, as he does the parts of his
book conservation service that don't require the big tools in the workshop.
Since Kevin started binding books, Shadow has learned to recognize the words,
"hell-hole" and "police up," in time to skedaddle before he reaches for the
hand-held devil, which makes such a loud, piercing whine that he wears
hearing protection and I join Shadow in disappearing up the stairs!

Jim wrote,
>I want to invite a bagpiper friend to set up in the other end
>of the house and have a third person check the relative distances
>from the cats to the players. (We may not be able to define a
>'dark tone' but at least we could formulate a bagpipe/clarinet cat
>repellent scale.) However, my wife won't let me. I leave this
>for other investigators.

I think the cats are already making investigations of their own. We've got a
bagpiper two doors up. Sometimes, in nice weather, he practices by marching
up and down the street, while wearing bits and pieces of various historic
military uniforms that he collects to use in his hobby of battle
re-enactments. Shadow runs to the front window and checks him out. I think
she's monitoring whether he's turned into a vacuum cleaner yet.

Ears flat, she barrels up and over the sofa and aims herself precisely to
burst through the place where the curtains part and onto the the window
ledge, where she trains eyes, nose and ears at her target just as long as it
takes for her to whirl 360 degrees. Still moving at top speed, she banks off
the glass with her back paws, propelling herself safely down onto the sofa
and out of sight again, before the enemy can spot her. If he swivelled his
glassy stare at a right angle from his usual intense concentration on outer
space, he would see nothing but a momentary flicker of curtains and a gray
blur. Shadow Cat's entire reconnaissance mission takes all of about two
seconds, after which she heads for the basement, where she probably compares
notes by psychic radio with all the other feline spies in the neighborhood.

("This is Ms. Shadow Cat, calling Feline Net. Alert, alert! Target sighted,
on the move past my bunker from two o'clock to ten o'clock. Target consists
of one robotic human identified as Enemy No. RH-23,465, equipped with
assortment of bag, hoses, etc. as previously described. Target observed
emitting usual hideous screechings and bellowings. No new signs of
metamorphosis but recommend continued surveillance. Will keep you informed.
Over and out.")

I don't know what Shadow Cat would do if we were heartless enough to get out
a clarinet and a vacuum cleaner *while* the bagpiper makes his rounds.

Lelia

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