FW: Cats (fwd)

> 
> Managing senior programmers is like herding cats. 
> 	-- Dave Platt
> 
> Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will
> piss on
> your computer. 
> 	-- Bruce Graham
> 
> There is no snooze button on a cat who wants breakfast. 
> 	-- Unknown
> 
> Thousands of years ago, cats were worshipped as gods.  Cats have never
> forgotten this. 
> 	-- Anonymous
> 
> Cats are smarter than dogs.  You can't get eight cats to pull a sled
> through snow. 
> 	-- Jeff Valdez
> 
> In a cat's eye, all things belong to cats. 
> 	-- English proverb
> 
> As every cat owner knows, nobody owns a cat. 
> 	-- Ellen Perry Berkeley
> 
> One cat just leads to another. 
> 	-- Ernest Hemingway
> 
> Dogs come when they're called; cats take a message and get back to you
> later. 
> 	-- Mary Bly
> 
> Cats are rather delicate creatures and they are subject to a good many
> ailments, but I never heard of one who suffered from insomnia. 
> 	-- Joseph Wood Krutch
> 
> People that hate cats will come back as mice in their next life.
> 	-- Faith Resnick
> 
> There are many intelligent species in the universe.  They are all
> owned
> by cats. 
> 	-- Anonymous
> 
> I have studied many philosophers and many cats.  The wisdom of cats is
> infinitely superior. 
> 	-- Hippolyte Taine
> 
> No heaven will not ever Heaven be;
> Unless my cats are there to welcome me. 
> 	-- Unknown
> 
> There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and
> cats.
> 	-- Albert Schweitzer
> 
> The cat has too much spirit to have no heart. 
> 	-- Ernest Menaul
> 
> Dogs believe they are human.  Cats believe they are God.
> 
> Time spent with cats is never wasted. 
> 	-- Colette
> 
> Some people say that cats are sneaky, evil, and cruel.  True, and they
> have many other fine qualities as well. 
> 	-- Missy Dizick
> 
> You will always be lucky if you know how to make friends with strange
> cats. 
> 	-- Colonial American proverb
> 
> Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm to ask
> for
> what you want. 
> 	-- Joseph Wood Krutch
> 
> I got rid of my husband.  The cat was allergic.
> 
> My husband said it was him or the cat.  I miss him sometimes.
> 
> Cats aren't clean, they're just covered with cat spit.
> 
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
> CATS HAVE A WAY TO MAKE IT THROUGH MONSOONS
> 	-- by Bill Hall, Lewiston, Idaho Tribune, May 29, 1998
> 
> Humans are escapists after the fact, using unconsciousness to sleep
> off
> hangovers and other troubles, hoping the world will look better when
> they
> awaken.
> 
> Cats are escapists before the fact.  Perhaps they should be called
> avoidists because they use sleep to avoid damage.
> 
> Specifically, cats are champion sleepers in wet weather.  They
> virtually
> hibernate during rainy days.  During the warm weather before this
> year's
> monsoon, they virtually vanished.  We would see them only a few
> minutes
> here and there.  They were working at their cat jobs, touring the
> bushes,
> sneaking up on bugs and mice and small dogs.  (Don't blame me if a cat
> can't tell a rat from a Chihuahua.  ("Yo quiero doggy.")
> 
> If the truth be known, they were probably sleeping part of the time.
> There
> is nothing a cat enjoys more than sleeping on the cool ground in the
> shade
> of the bushes on a hot day.
> 
> But suddenly that all came to an end.  It has been raining here this
> spring
> in ways that make you do doubletakes when you see carpenters building
> something that seems at first glance to be kind of ark shaped.
> 
> The rain penetrated the bushes, drenched the normal dry ground beneath
> them
> and lowered the temperature about 20 degrees.  The cats came in out of
> the
> cold.  But they did not run and play.  They did not seek our
> companionship.
> They slept.  And slept.  And slept.  Morning, noon and night, they
> slept.
> I would get up in the middle of the night and there they were in the
> corner
> or on the couch or on the spare bed, looking quite dead.
> 
> Cats sleep in positions that are identical to expired cats -- on their
> backs with toes up, twisted into ungainly sprawls, looking like road
> kill,
> kind of tangled up in their own limbs like a stuffed animal that
> accidentally went through the washer on the hot-hot cycle.
> 
> They are like children in the way nasty weather drives them inside and
> bores them to tears.  But there is a limit on how long a kid can sleep
> --
> 10 or 12 hours and that's it.  Sooner or later a kid is going to wake
> up
> and spend the balance of the day saying, "There's nothing to do."
> 
> A cat always has something to do.  It can always sleep.  And it always
> does
> -- for however long the annoyance lasts.  If the storm persists, so
> does
> the cat -- 12, 14, 18 hours, nearly the entire 24 hours with brief
> episodes
> of porking down food.
> 
> Cats are the ultimate escapists.  When things are getting rough for
> them,
> they hide behind their eyelids and hope by the time they regain
> consciousness the trouble, or the rain, will go away.
> 
> People are more inclined to escape in conscious ways.  They drink.
> They do
> drugs.  They watch television.  They read.  I have known people going
> through a hard time who would read for most of their waking hours.
> That
> seems to be especially common among women, for some reason.  Maybe
> it's the
> lack of testosterone.  When men are unhappy, they tend to stand around
> doing brilliant things like slugging trees.  If women don't like the
> life
> they're leading, they go find another one between the covers of a
> book.
> It's more informative and it's easier on the knuckles.
> 
> But whether it is a cat sleeping or a person reading, the device
> involves
> some understanding of giving time a chance to work its magic on some
> unpleasantness.  If you have suffered a personal loss, you have to do
> some
> time before it heals.  You might as well do it with the distraction of
> a
> book.
> 
> If you are a cat driven inside by the spring flood, you can control
> how
> long that flood seems to last by avoiding consciousness.  It's like a
> person who can sleep in a car (preferably as a passenger rather than
> as the
> driver).  If you fall asleep when you leave and don't wake up until
> you get
> there, the journey takes no time at all.
> 
> Cats have the gift of instant hibernation.  Bears sleep away the
> winter,
> holing up and conserving the food stored in their bodies by achieving
> a
> semi-dead state.  Cats can do that whenever it suits them.  And it's a
> lot
> easier for them than reading.  It's hard, given their stubby little
> hands,
> for cats to hold the books.
> 
> But unconscious cats do have their uses.  They are better couch
> decorations
> than ordinary throw pillows.  And there's nothing better than a
> sleeping
> cat for polishing a hardwood floor.
> 
> Sure, a thing like that could be awful for them, but they sleep
> through it.
> 
> Lewiston Tribune <http://www.lmtribune.com>