A Placeholder Post while I Deal with Other Things

David Rochester has come up with a wonderful term, for a pride of lions of the domestic variety: a condescension of cats.

We have but one cat. She lives outside, and sleeps under bushes or atop piles of bags of potting soil, or way up on furniture stored in the garage if she can sneak in. She meows affectionately and likes rough handling when getting her pettings and scritches. But she’s an only cat and is not part of a condescension. Doesn’t seem to have much of it either. As a kitten she took a ride in the dryer that nearly killed her and was sort of weird and loopy for several years afterwards, but is now a gentle attention hound and a good mouser and birder and lizarder and in some ways treats us almost as equals. I wonder if the knowledge that she would surely die if she tried to sneak a nap in the house has something to do with it.

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The blogging I would do is far more self-revealing, far more self-examining, open about doubts, dreams, questions. Some of the most interesting people reveal their inner lives online and the world is richer for it. From the feedback and interaction they receive, I think they are richer for it too. Sometimes I very much want to use blogging as a tool for that sort of interaction. It would serve as a means to balance my relentless private journaling and my lack of a meaningful social life. Sort of a third leg to my dysfunctional little tripod. But I can't, for reasons that other circumstances prevent changing, and it’s just as well.

I mean, some of those revealing blogs enrich the world, but I don’t mean to imply they all do. Most do not and should just as well shut down and save some virtual trees. Not referring to any I link to, needless to say. But I can see mine going there.

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Airport codes are a plenty useful shorthand. My home port is SMF. For business, I go to PDX most often. I’m particularly fond of SFO. Recently I had the privilege to go in and out of MXP. When the three letters roll off the tongue in a reasonably euphonious manner it makes for a nice clear alternative (MXP in particular, since Milan has two airports and Malpensa is in fact twice as far out of Milan as the town I was working in, making any other way to explain things clumsy by comparison). But now and then, a designation is given that just SUX. (Might have to get the t-shirt.)

That last link included perchance an ad for Northwest Airlines (I don’t suppose they paid a promotional placement fee to Hitchcock for that movie). Forgive me but every time I see a big old plane with NWA on the side I start giggling and think, “They ain’t just with attitude, they got they own airline!” (The supersensitive closet racists can slam me now.)