According to the good folks at Cornell, “a one-year-old cat is physiologically similar to a 16-year-old human, and a two-year-old cat is like a person of 21,” and “For every year thereafter, each cat year is worth about four human years.” By that math, Tink and Zeugma’s three-year birthday today makes them twenty-five in cat years. Tink’s celebrating by experimenting with the eject key on my computer’s keyboard; Zeugma is chattering at the chickadees, sparrows, titmice, and nuthatches who come to the back deck’s bird feeder.
How am I celebrating the day? Well, I’ve got a few options:
- Erect a large symbolic phallus in the back yard and get the neighbors to help me plait brightly colored ribbons around it in observance of Beltane’s celebration of the amorous act.
- Light a bonfire in the back yard commemorating the 1886 Haymarket Riot and celebrating the rights and contributions of workers (including immigrant workers) everywhere.
- Revise a dissertation chapter and work on my CCCC proposal.
Sigh. Yeah, it looks like I’m going with option 3. Which is not to say, however, that Julie Andrews singing Lerner and Loewe won’t make it onto the cd player at some point.
It’s May, the lusty month of May
That darling month when everyone throws self-control away
It’s time to do a wretched thing or two
And try to make each precious day one you’ll always rueIt’s May, it’s May, the month of ‘Yes, you may’
The time for every frivolous whim — proper or im-
It’s wild, it’s gay, a blot in every way
The birds and bees with all of their vast amorous past
Gaze at the human race aghast
The lusty month of May
They grow up so quickly. . .sniff. Not. Good luck on the home stretch.