Bookmarks and the cat

Ya'll remember Gus, right? As you can see, he is almost large enough to be considered a full sized member of the household - even curled up diagonally, he is still longer than my keyboard is wide. He is a common source of humor and an occasional source of confusion. Prior to the help that he is providing here, he provided a bit of both for me. But to understand why, you need to see my favorite bookmarks.


I love these. In part because I used to always have to find a pen to underline salient points in my books. In part because I used to always lose my bookmarks. But then I found these. It's a pen! It's a bookmark! It clips on the outside of the book when I'm reading! It comes in a million colors! Only a few of them are ugly!

Unfortunately, however, unless they are carefully managed, they are also great cat toys. They fall into the "I want to play with something that you want to keep and then lose it under the refrigerator" tradition of cat toys, which is the favorite of our lovely kitten. If, for example, I happen to leave the tip of the bookmark slightly exposed, this bookmark can provide hours of entertainment just in the removal process. It then makes a fantastic sound when being swatted across the tile floor and into the walls and doors of the foyer during the famous 2 am cat hockey matches. Gus always wins those.

Needless to say, when I picked up my book this afternoon, it did not have this bookmark carefully marking my place as you see here.

I could draw at least 3 different analogies out of this story. One is about the joy found in small things - both for me and Gus. One is about how easily we get distracted from the simplest normal habits when stressed. One has to do with obliviousness to the social environment and how that decreases options (or makes you go back and find your page again instead of just picking up where you left off) when you are least prepared to deal with that.

But I don't think I will tell those today. Today, it is just a story about a cat and his favorite toy. Why that story is so interesting to me is a post for another day. In the meantime, feel free to make up your own meaning!