Crazy Cat Lady

Those fucking words.

Those reductive, mean, idiotic words.

I have four cats. To my mind, four cats is a reasonable number of pets in the grand scheme of things. People have four kids pretty regularly, and kids are a helluva lot crazier to invest time in than cats. People also have multiple dogs who all bark at you the second you walk in the door, but no one calls someone with four pekinese a crazy dog man. Of those three creatures you can choose to populate your home with, cats are the quietest, cleanest, lowest maintenance of the bunch. So, before I would start casually tossing off words like "crazy," you'd have to be in the double digits of cats. And also be crazy.

Crazy is just not a word to be thrown around lightly.

I mean, you can say, "Hey, last night was crayyyyzeeee!" and that's fine. But you don't call a person crazy. Not casually, and certainly not the second they cordially let you into their home.

"Holy shit! That's a lot of cats! You're a crazy cat lady, yuk yuk yuk!!!"

Well, at least I'm not an asshole. Like you.

Seriously, this phrase has been so thoroughly accepted in our culture, it's seen as perfectly fine to make that statement the second you're being let into someone's home. Into my home. Where the floors are free of cat hair, where the litter box is cleaned regularly, where my cats are always loving, loved, and well-behaved. Where there is not a whiff of crazy. The home, need I remind you yet again, where I have just invited you over for coffee, or drinks, or a full fucking homemade meal.

And yet, about 70% of the time I let someone new into my home, despite the fact that they know I have cats, they feel the need to make very offensive note of that fact by calling me a crazy cat lady.

In the words of the great Michelle Tanner, "How rude!"

Just. Don't. It's not okay.

Beast Mastery

I've always strongly identified with Beastmaster. Sure, it's funny.

But can you talk to animals? Like, not just with your mouth, but with your brains? Cuz I can.

Or, at least, I do all the time in my dreams and sometimes in the really real world.

Like the time I met a wolf in the woods outside my grandparents' cabin. I was what, 11 or so? I gave him the 11 year old in the late 80s version of a nod and "'sup" and we just looked at one another for a while. I told him with my brains, "nah dude, we cool" and he gave me a wolf nod and turned to walk back into the woods.

That was one time in real life.

But in dream life, animals talk to me more often than humans, especially the past year, and there are definitely far more animals just running around in my dreams than humans, too.

Up until recently, I never dreamed about animals. What does it MEAAAAAAN!?!?!

After speaking with the capybera like spokesperson for the forest creatures Thursday night, last night I hung out with the feathered (?) hatchlings of a large iguana, who were sitting on the front stoop of the humble small-town Mexican home I was passing by on my way to get some sundries. The hatchlings were chillin' out with chickens and bunnies, and the folks who lived in this home could not have been more tender or proud. I obviously knew them well, and called them by name, gleefully shouting, "Oh, they've hatched!" The iguana mama and I exchanged knowing glances.

Then I wound up in my maternal grandmother's old house in Worthington, MN, a place I've found myself twice in dreams the past week (I took refuge there after being raped by a man in his 70s in full view of a gazebo full of people who ignored my cries). This time, I was watching America's Next Top Model after my family went to church (prior to that moment, the house was a huge, modern farmhouse and it was raining heavily; I was talking to my father about buying me a horse and also explained to him that I did not want to go to church and would instead prefer to worship in my own way, outside in the rain--the fact that I segued into watching America's Next Top Model is a little unsettling to that end), and a young, fat girl was there. She went outside, and when she came back in...

There was a great big farkin' OWL in the living room. I looked at her, standing in the doorway, "Did you let that owl in here?!!"

And then my cat Odin, stupid dummy that he is, walked right up to the owl and of course the owl went for him and cut him all up with his talons and flesh ripping beak, and then me in the process as I tried to separate them. My calves and ankles bleeding, I yelled at my sister in the kitchen (she was, for some reason, about 14 in the dream, she's currently 25) to grab a blanket and wrap Odin in it until I could get the owl out. Instead, she stared dumbly at me and went into the cupboards in the kitchen, rummaging for something.

I ran into the kitchen, screaming at her to do what I'd told her to do, and she stood up, holding something in her hand, looking proud. I slapped her across the face soundly and told her to do what I'd told her to, that this owl was going to kill Odin if we didn't act immediately.

And then I saw what was in her hands; potato chips.

Suddenly, in my mind's eye, what should have transpired unfolded: I'm feeding the owl potato chips, luring it away from Odin, Rachael is folding Odin up into a blanket and keeping him safe.

The world slowed, and I began to weep; "I'm sorry. I didn't know. I didn't know. Why didn't you tell me? I wouldn't have hit you if you'd told me..."

Beastmaster always made me cry.