Hi. I’m Mateo the CoalBear.
This has been kind of a busy week in Mother of Cats Land. We’ve been outside most mornings checking on how things are going in the yard. The plants in the pots on the catio all look good. The bugs have been hopping around and they are SO MUCH FUN to chase. There were a couple of huge developments in the yard that I want to report to you:
The adult bunnies that used to live in our backyard are now gone. We were little worried about them, and wondered if there would be any baby bunnies this year when a single tiny bunny suddenly appeared in the garden by the deck. So cute. Hannah and I spend as much time as we can watching this little guy, and we are happy to report that he is growing like a weed and cavorting around the yard like a big boy. He isn’t even a little afraid of me and I get to get right up within inches of him,,, if it wasn’t for the chicken wire we would be having a great time.
Shut up, Hannah. I’m telling the story today! The other thing that happened this week is all the leaves popped out on the trees. The Mother of Cats says it is called budburst, and it means that it really is spring now. I think that the robins know this too, because they have been singing like crazy all day and night. Literally, all night. They go crazy at 3am for some reason. I try to get the Mother of Cats up to let me out, but for some reason she won’t get out of bed. Lazy, lazy, Mother of Cats! Be like a robin! Get up and let me outside to see my baby bunny!!! This is what the robins sound like!
All right, Hannah. Why are you being so mean to me? You should go convince the Mother of Cats to give you some tuna and then maybe you can take a nice little nap. Outside where you won’t bother me!!
Now that I’ve put Hannah in her place, let me get back to telling you about the week. The Mother of Cats totally snapped, put her La Prairie sweater into time out on Sleeve Island, parked her dragon book back on the bookshelf, started a different book, and cast on a new Emotional Support Chicken. She has been completely out of control!!!! While she has been knitting the new chicken, she has dreaming about more chickens made in different colors; she keeps dragging yarn out of the stash and winding it up into little kits for MORE CHICKENS!!!! This is so out of control. What should I do? I’m just a little cat and it looks like we are having a huge outbreak of Chickenitis. Help! Who should I report this to? Hannah is no help at all. The only phone number she knows is 1-800-SND-TUNA.
This is the chicken that she is working on now, but there is a dusty rose chicken on the way right after this one… and a sparkly blue chicken, and a rainbow striped chicken, and a chicken in fall colors…
The new chicken is kind of cute, right? Anyway, that was the week.
This is Mateo the CoalBear, signing off.
>^..^<
Notes from the Mother of Cats:
So, I spun out of control with the reading and knitting this week in response to sudden challenges. I had borrowed an e-book from the library that had to be returned in a couple of days. Oops. Emergency reading time! I have a couple of friends who are struggling with medical nightmares at the moment: obviously, they need chickens!! My cousin contacted me asking to buy a chicken to give a friend whose husband was just diagnosed with a serious illness. My phone blew up Thursday with the news that a member of my family was back in the hospital. The sweater was immediately parked (I was struggling with all the purling on the sleeves anyway…) and I launched the beginning of a flock of new chickens.
What was the book I was on fire to read before it was snatched off my Kindle device by the library?
This is a book that I kind of feel should be required reading for everyone, but on the other hand, it is so brutal and reality-altering I feel that it will be banned in as many school districts as the distraught (and completely misguided) Karens on Steroids Moms for Liberty can get to. If Charlotte’s Web, Harry Potter, and The Hunger Games are too much for these people, this book will make their heads explode. I hope that they read it anyway.
So, this is the book: Chain-Gang All-Stars really made an impact on me. Imagine a system where convicted felons facing life in prison, or who received the death penalty can “volunteer” to join a system that is a reality show where the felons are on teams that compete against other teams and engage in gladiator to-the-death matches in arenas full of viewers. The teams, and individual players, are wildly popular; lots of merch is sold. Any player who survives three years will be freed, but it goes without saying that almost everyone will die. It probably shouldn’t surprise anyone that the members of these teams are more likely to be minority citizens or people who lived in poverty: that is the current prison population.
Everything about this book is crushing in its believability. I am crushed by the possibility. I can see that this could happen in a world where incarcerated people are seen as less than full citizens and without rights. Think of the wildly popular Survivor reality shows. Think of American football, where evidence of concussive brain injury in players was covered up for years. Think of the laws that strip felons of some of their citizenship rights like voting. Think of the wildly misbehaving attendees at some of our political rallies. Think of the horrendous deaths of minority population members (sometimes in public with citizens begging the police to stop) at the hands of law enforcement. Think of for-profit prisons that work their inmates as almost-slaves. Think.
I highly recommend this book.
I’ve returned to A Day of Fallen Night again and I’m quickly finishing it. It has dragons, after all.