Unemployment's a Bad Cat

If any of you know my older brother, you know he is concise, writes small notes in tiny font and has a penchant for giving one word answers. My favorite? His signature yes/no reply to an either/or question.

Me: Do you want the turkey bacon club or the cabo chicken?
Jeff: Yes.

Or better yet, the yes/no reply to a long email fraught with important questions.

Me: So Jeff, about this upcoming vacation, Mom thought we could... I was wondering what you thought about... When are you free to... Do you think we should...
Jeff: No.

Well, Jeff, like I, was laid off earlier this year and is still in pursuit of full-time work. He's living the experience I did from January to July when I was actively job searching but mostly at a loss of how to spend my new-found freedom. There was a point in time for me where I had worn the same pair of stretch pants for almost two weeks. Sometimes a shower seemed like a distant memory. And frequently, I found myself looking at the clock at 5:00pm wondering how I was still watching Food Network after having only left my bed to eat or use the bathroom. Time management issues? Mmmhmm. I remember a day back in February when I was one brown bag short of a homeless person. I hadn't showered in a couple days, was wearing an outfit that had already seen a few too many sunsets and was drinking wine by myself at 2:30 in the afternoon. What made it OK was that I was IMing with friends. So, I "technically" wasn't drinking alone, people!

Anyways, my point in all this is that unemployment can easily kill motivation and encourage a boredom that causes one to do things just for the helluvit. I doubt I will ever again spend all day watching TV or drinking alone. Wellll...

Now, back to Jeff. I'm not saying he's a quiet person at all. That's not in his nature. He's been known to make a short story long and can be quite intentionally loud. It's with the written word where he's a terse one. So when I received an epic email from him this morning titled "Cats are bad," I thought something profound had happened. Then I realized something was wrong: Jeff needs a job. Read for yourself!

Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2009 23:17:48
Subject: Cats are bad

So I had this dream this morning - we had a little pet zoo going on over here.

The Pets:

1. Sebastian (as himself), though not to be seen in the dream

2. Aeres the dog - he's one of our Terrapin Masters' friends' dogs. a Golden Retriever in real life, he was more like a very light brown chocolate lab whose coat was really cool and would change color in sunlight to a very very very dark chocolate w/ white coat. As in real life, very well trained, obedient and loyal.

3. Unnamed "Yellow Cat" - he was yellow and white, kind of the same way Gizmo is - but with the yellow/white striping throughout the way [Mollie's cat] Darbymonster is. A former Grover cat, somehow [they] knew the Plattners, neighbors down the street from us, and had given him to them. We were for some reason looking after him.

4. [Mom & Pop Grover's cat] Gizmo (as herself) - standard Grover feline

The Dream

Life was good. Sebastian got free roam of the place. The yellow cat was usually in dad's study or hiding, so no trouble. Aeres usually cooped up in mom's room upstairs - probably so he didn't contaminate "Sebastian's" house. And there was no Gizmo.

Then along came Gizmo. I guess the Grover clan was all off somewhere, cause for some reason, Gizmo ended up here. I think perhaps the Plattners were supposed to look after her, but since they were obviously not around, we got her. First the cats started going crazy. Yellow cat actually started showing his face all over the house, and Gizmo were seen side by side everywhere. Not good, as they were contaminating Sebastian's house, among other things.

Then Aeres went nuts. He started roaming all over the place, but aside from eating a hot dog, found on top of the front hall radiator, which was apparently his breakfast anyway, all he was doing was roaming.

Then the cats went really nuts. For some reason, they were either declawing back paws only; or someone lied about those cats being deknucled. First they went for some of dad's low-hanging books. The nice ones. Then records. Then furniture. And as mentioned earlier, the two cats were side by side doing all of this. I lost it when I saw them both clawing at the kitchen table.

I was in the middle of trying to secure Mollie the master cat nabber - and cat carriers - to try to get them back to the Plattners when I awoke.

The moral of the dream -- LONG LIVE SEBASTIAN!!! -- he did nothing in the dream but did come visit me an hour ago in real life (i forgot to put the gate up).

-jeff

Hey, Jeff. I hear the Humane Society's hiring.