Back in Town!

The house smells like cat poop.

We were gone over the holidays, visiting family and friends and generally ignoring the wider world as much as possible – which one has to do these days if a good time is going to happen.  The wider world has issues, and it likes nothing more than making those issues your issues.  I have enough issues, thanks.

We got back late last night to a cold house with two inordinately fluffed up cats, one of which greeted us at the door while the other stayed up in Lauren’s room – the furthest place in the house from either of the two doors to the outside – because The Scary Catsitter couldn’t find her there.

Have I mentioned that Midgie is kind of, well, dim?  Like “how on earth did you evolve from sabre-toothed tigers” dim?  Like “one step above domestic turkeys” dim?  We love her and she’s a sweet kitty, but there are chickens that are smarter than Midgie. 

Because the catsitter is a perfectly fine person – one of Lauren’s friends who graciously agreed to toss food at these critters (and the rabbits, who seemed none the worse for the wear though admittedly it’s hard to tell with rabbits – never play poker against a rabbit, is my advice) and generally make sure the place didn’t burn down while we were away.  I’m sure she would have loved to play with the cats and she probably did for Mithra, but not Midgie. 

Oh well, Midge.  Your loss.

We drove all the way from New York City yesterday, which is a lot faster now that the speed limits have all been raised to “Go Ahead – You Want To Live Forever?” and most of the construction projects are between major snafus.  Pennsylvania is a very long state but at least it has mountains to keep the view interesting.  Ohio is long and beige and flat.  Indiana is mostly lake effect snow and service areas that provide no service.  Chicagoland is, well, exciting in a “why doesn’t Illinois have any restrictions on who it hands out drivers licenses to?” kind of way.  But we made it.

It does lead to some interesting conversations along the way.

Kim is a big Neil Diamond fan, for reasons that make no sense to any of the rest of us.  But she had control of the music, the girls were plugged into their headphones, and I can deal with Neil for short periods, so that’s what we listened to for a while.  Let’s just say that even Kim agrees that some of his songs weren’t really genius, though there were a few that were worth hearing.  And then we got to “I’m a Believer.”

Neil Diamond wrote that for the Monkees, but the Monkees are the ones who turned it into an actual hit.  As far as I am concerned that song is a Monkees song (although I do like the Smash Mouth version that appears on Shrek too).

Query: if you write a song for someone else and they turn it into a big hit such that even people who know you wrote it think of them first, not you, and then you record a version of it and release it later, is your version a cover?

I posted that question on Facebook today and got a lot of really interesting discussion but am still no closer to an answer than I was on the highway.

We pulled into our driveway, unloaded the car, turned up the heat and the hot water temperature, and realized that telling the catsitter not to worry about changing the litter boxes while we were away might not have been a very well thought out plan.

I got them cleaned out today, and I expect to sleep better tonight.

It’s a brand new year, people.  Let’s be careful out there.