Now there's something you don't see everyday

Fascinating. While conducting my morning inspection of the premises, I noted a most intriguing and uncommon drama playing out across the street: two crows attacking a cat.

The cat was unknown to me. Fluffy, brownish, mild-mannered. Not a major player. For all I know, he was simply passing through.

The crows, on the other hand, were familiar. Don Croleone's boys. Not the type to agitate without cause, or indeed, without orders. Yet they repeatedly circled and swooped down at this brown intruder, snapping and swiping and barking their challenge.

The cat, to his credit, tried to maintain his poise. But it was a ridiculous sight. He was clearly outclassed, and their incessant strafing runs eventually drove him into the bushes, shaken and definitely schooled.

The interesting thing is, I honestly have no idea who to root for in that situation.

Postscript: The plot thickens. Possibly. Later in the day, I discovered on the sidewalk (I am not kidding) a crow's beak. Just the beak. With a few feathers still attached. Now that's interesting. I swear, I have no idea what political machinations are behind all this, but I must start spending more time at the front window.

The Rodent is a rat

The dispersal of pellets in the evening has not been to my satisfaction. The Man, now inexplicably placed in charge of mess duties, is imprecise and haphazard in his portioning.

My brother continues to be placed in his private feeding chamber with his meat-sludge each day — so the Rodent and I have the kitchen area to ourselves, and keep generally to our respective corners during the munching hour. Except that the Rodent, ever the eccentric, has adopted a peculiar new habit: He takes a mouthful of pellets from his bowl and hauls them into one of the adjacent chambers, where he spits them out and nibbles at leisure before returning to secure another mouthful. Perhaps he is unable to eat with his back to me. Understandable.

Unfortunately, the Man's incompetence presents us with a dilemma. Due the Rodent's elaborate and protracted dining methodology, I am often the first to finish my meal. And, as has frequently been the case, my ration is oft unsatisfying. In these situations, it is clearly my mandate and prerogative to rectify the situation myself, to balance the scales and effect a just redistribution of sustenance.

So naturally, I achieve this by heading directly to the Rodent's bowl and taking my due. This is natural law at work, and the Rodent should recognize this. Alas, I know now that I have overestimated the canine sense of order and personal honor. It grieves me to report it, but there is a traitorous coward in my midst.

For yesterday, as I supplemented my dinner with some of the Rodent's, he returned to his bowl, and finding me there, looked much distressed and aggrieved. He assumed a plaintive and worrisome countenance, his ears drooped, brow wrinkled, tail lowered. I gave him a direct but nonthreatening look. This is how it works, thou weepy dog. You wait your turn and have my leavings. He watched morosely as I nibbled with deliberate confidence. Pecking order. Dogs are supposed to understand such concepts.

But then, the Rodent wandered pathetically from the kitchen into the main chamber, and I heard him whimpering to the Man. And oh, what a sad story he must have told! For a moment later, the Man lunged into the kitchen brandishing his dastardly squirt-ray. And bellowing my name, he opened fire.

I took four blasts point-blank to the face before I could roll away from the dish and into a defensive posture. Trigger-happy and out for blood, the Man did not let up. I wheeled and broke for the hatch, and that bastard gave chase and let me have another half-dozen zaps on my posterior before I cleared the door.

Naturally, it was pouring rain outside, and within seconds I was thoroughly soaked and humiliated. I glanced back at the hatch portal and saw the Man glaring after me. He pointed his finger and I could see his mouth still moving, but could no longer hear him over the downpour. Nor did I much care to.

I withdrew to the nearest bush and waited for the rain to let up (and the heat to dissipate) before returning to the fortress. And I reflected on this unfortunate development. So this is how we settle our grievances, Mr. Rodent? We shamelessly employ pathos to rally armed mercenaries to our cause? That is hardly an avenue of respect.

You have opened a door that cannot be easily closed, my friend. And rest assured, you are not the only one who can pull the Man's strings. Ask not for whom the Man squirts. Soon he will squirt for thee.

I demand satisfaction

This wet, slimy nastiness is wholly unacceptable. This is summer, damn you, and I expect summer to behave in a manner befitting its station. I have work to do, operations in progress that cannot tolerate a rain delay.

I am not interested in your recriminations; I hold all of you equally responsible for this outrage. Whatever is necessary to rectify this situation, you are to do. I do not want explanations; I want results.

Until I have them, the barfing and the biting will continue in general and indiscriminate fashion — and rest assured I will be targeting more valuable and tender areas each time.

That is all.

Blow that repugnance elsewhere

I believe the Man has lost his mind.

After his failed campaign against the yard last week, his behavioral patterns shifted alarmingly toward the absurd. First, he hauled startling quantities of lumber into the house, placing these materials in all manner of inconvenient locations. Then he launched into some bizarre (and quite noisy) construction project that consumed the better part of the day, and all the while he muttered many of the same oaths at the lumber which he had previously directed at the hardy external greenery.

When finished, it appeared that the Man had constructed a large and ominously elaborate coffin, which he stood on end and leaned against a wall in the fortress's main chamber. When the Woman returned that evening, she stared at this monolithic contraption with an uneasy mix of horror and admiration. The two of them spent the evening regarding this monstrosity with unnerving fascination, and Fabio repeatedly attempted to lie down inside the mystery box. Yes, he is just that stupid.

Ever since that strange day, for nigh on a week, the Man has spent his days seated before the giant coffin, staring into its recesses and letting his fingers dance upon his small silent piano, which he relocated from the glass platform onto a rolling shelf within the bowels of the monolith. Tic-tic-tic-tic-tic... for hours on end.

So obsessed is the Man with his creation that he no longer leaves the fortress during the daylight hours, as has been his custom for many ages — since before the Woman, anyway. He now lingers about the domicile throughout the day, even as the Woman continues to faithfully honor the tradition of vacating the premises during the breakfast-dinner interim. And he sits before his wooden behemoth and tic-tic-tics away, apparently now wholly in the thrall of some twisted compulsion.

And that is not even the weird part of this tale. For the Man has added an even uglier ritual to his daily mania. In the early evenings, with a nauseating air of contentment and satisfaction, he retires to the rear deck, where he sucks upon what I can only describe as a smoldering turd.

It has occurred to me this may in fact be a sad attempt to emulate my own affinity for fine cigars, except that the Man inexplicably sets his own brown-leafrolls afire, thus polluting the atmosphere with a putrid lingering haze. To make matters worse, he engages in this act of queasification during the waning hours of the day, the very time when I like to enjoy a brief pre-supper siesta in the cool grass. Now, my quiet meditation is fouled by the Man's puffs of disgusting pungence — which, no doubt, are rotting the timbers of his already-rickety psyche even further.

And just in time for summer. Oh joy.

Fascinating... yet totally pointless

The Man has begun his yearly assault on the yard, and it would appear the yard has the upper hand this time around. The foliage has flourished to such an extent that even the Man's formidable whirling blades of death seize and contort in agony. For his part, the Man has spent the greater part of his campaign doubled over, sweat pouring from his brow, drawing on his last stores of strength and will to shake his fist emphatically at the greenery and mutter meaningless, unintelligible oaths between raspy gasps — “mothra-fogger” and “sun-nerva-bits” and the like.

Yesterday, finally beaten, the Man sank to his knees, clutched clumps of grass and weeds in his torn hands, and wept. Then, in what I understand to be an ancient custom among defeated warriors, he went inside and shaved his head.

Naturally, I observe these doings with interest. It is important for me to remain fully briefed on the status of my field of operation — every swing of the Man's blade, and every stalk that refuses to yield, alters the tactical layout of the area. So in the waning hours of the day, I did a close inspection of the pulpy carnage.

The Man had made a good fight of it. What might look to the untrained eye like a mad, unfocused assault was in fact quite a methodical engagement against a superior force. He had blazed several paths right through the middle of the yard, cutting well-placed swaths that divided the enemy's strength and left smaller pockets of resistance. It was while I was inspecting one of these mini-jungles that I came across one of the most baffling and intriguing sights of my many years.

Deep in the grass, I found one of the Rodent's dried-up piles, an all-too-familiar landmark. But on closer inspection, I found that the Rodent had somehow placed this particular pile directly on top of one of his fuzzy green balls. I do not mean that he had shat all over this ball — no indeed. Rather, he had managed to excrete directly upon the ball. Neatly. Symmetrically. What I was seeing was a geometrically perfect construction, a pyramid atop a sphere, aligned precisely along a vertical axis.

For a solid minute, I sat in amazement at the sheer craftsmanship of this feat. The control, the precision, the presence of mind it must have required. This is particularly impressive in the case of the Rodent, as I have observed that most of the time his front end seems blissfully unaware of what his rear end is up to.

After a moment, my awe gave way to utter bewilderment. Why? Why would he do this? What possible significance or meaning could there be in such an act? A cryptic warning? A cairn-like navigational aid? A religious totem? Or was this simply some bizarre objet d'art, akin to Fabio's leaf-and-petal murals?

Then it occurred to me: Maybe this was the Rodent's way of signaling ownership of the item. I have noted him inking neighborhood trees before, so perhaps this was just an insanely excessive means of claiming title to one of his treasures (a treasure, I should add, whose ownership has never been in dispute).

In any case, I dare say no one is going to want that ball now, Mr. Rodent. And good luck getting someone to throw it for you.

The master race

Today, for your benefit I present some highly edifying intel from the field — a video surveillance feed courtesy of the clandestine intelligence agency known cryptically as The Saloon.

This data capture should put conclusively to rest any lingering question over feline superiority (a sham debate engineered by the shameless dog lobby, who routinely politicize science and ridicule natural law in order to gain leverage in their neverending quest to usurp control of the national treat supply).

Here you will see natural feline superiority played out in clear and irrefutable terms. Witness as one cat — a lone soldier — stares down a whole platoon of dogs. The opposing force consists specifically of seven* big-nosed, fat-footed grunts and their commanding officer. The odds are stacked eight-to-one against our hero.

I suggest that you note carefully what transpires here. At no time does the young warrior raise so much as a paw. Nor does he assume any manner of menacing position. He doesn't even bother to get up on his feet. He holds off this force of overwhelming numbers in repose — using only his eyes and a few well-chosen words delivered with deliberate credibility.

Note also that this young, bold canine force is held back by nothing more than an instinctive understanding of the cat's superiority. His inherent superiority. This is natural law at work. This is the true order of things.

It is unfortunate that the scenario is not allowed to play itself out. As so often happens, human meddling once again interferes with des affaires de la jungle. The cat's protests as he is forcibly removed from the field of battle echo our own frustration over not seeing this standoff concluded in decisive fashion.** I assure you, this unwarranted invention bears the distinct paw-marks of the dog lobby's nefarious influence.

But enough preface. Let the images speak for themselves:

HEROIC WARRIOR SINGLEHANDEDLY
HOLDS OFF SLOBBERY ARMADA
(intel courtesy The Saloon)

The power of but one. Rest assured, we are running things here. Each breath you take, you take at our pleasure.

* Careful examination of the footage reveals that there are in fact at least eight dogs in play, in addition to the commanding officer. However, since no more than seven of them enter the field at any one time (one of them — presumably the smartest — remains in the background throughout the engagement), we shall only count committed forces in our analysis; potential reinforcements for either side are discounted.

** There are two possible outcomes, barring human interference: Either the commanding officer recalls her troops and concedes the field honorably; or else, the squad's bravest eventually enters the warrior's circle of death and the remaining six are treated to an all-too-visceral demonstration of their natural inferiority. The second course plays out with a disorderly, panic-striken retreat and possibly an emergency medical evac. In short: damn good TV.