If James Bond Brought Me Flowers . . .

This is a concern of national importance. Forget the bailout (or lack thereof) of General Motors, forget the idea of Secretary of State Hillbilly, forget all time black Friday consumer lows, whatever. This is what you need to be concerned about:

Jeopardy!

Please explain, Penelope.

Our local television station has moved Jeopardy! to 11:37 pm.

This is a problem for two reasons:

Jeopardy! is awesome. Everyone knows this. Furthermore, we like to watch Jeopardy! in the afternoon when Karen is not at work. It's how we bond. We can't do this at 11:37 at night. Karen is, well, ASLEEP. Sadie and I are far too busy hunting. It isn't reasonable.

Furthermore, by moving Jeopardy! to 11:37, it bumps Frasier out of the late night roundup. Granted, we aren't awake at 11:37 very often, but we love Frasier. And Jeopardy! is far too difficult in the middle of the night.

Is this local programming or national? If it's local we might have to move. . .

Things that I, Penelope the Cat, am Thankful

I got this idea from Reid over at Reid All About It. Anyway, here are the things in which I am thankful:

1. Naps I love naps. I take one in the morning, one after lunch, and then another before dinner. It's awesome. And Karen just loves it that I say up all night chasing Sadie.

2. Our New House Karen cleans our box almost daily. This is awesome. She had new house syndrome so bad that most of our needs our met most of the time. The bed gets made every morning and everything. The only drawback is that since everything is clean nothing interesting gets left on the kitchen counters.

3. Tis the Season of James Bond I love that TBS and Spike run Bond movies constantly between Thanksgiving and Christmas. We here at I Don't Pretend to be an Ordinary Cat love the misogynistic Bond. He is the best.

4. 30 Rock We love 30 Rock. Last week it was a riot (with Steve Martin playing a pretend agoraphobic). Watch it.

5. Karen and the Cat Diet Karen thought that if she bought us smaller bowls we would eat less, thus I would lose the five pounds I gained while living with her parents (Karen's dad shares lunch meat with me and gives me milk, much to Karen's dismay). This is not happening. Karen is just filling the bowl more often (I wonder if she's figured this out).

6. The Bathtub Sadie and I love the bathtub in the master bathroom. We sometimes fight over who get to sit on the ledge next to the window.

7. Karen's Parents We really dig ole Babs and Johnny. They totally rock. Babs ALWAYS feeds us immediately when she notices some of the food is touching the bowl. (Karen, well, does not.) Johnny has such an aversion to wasting food that when I jump up on the counter and sample the lunch meat he ALWAYS gives me the part I sampled. It was heaven living with them. When I told Karen of these behaviors her response was "How nice for you".

8. Soft Tacos

9. My Blog Friends I love you, blog friends. Sometimes I tell Karen about you guys and refer to you as "my friends". She says, "You have no friends, Penelope. You don't leave the house, not to mention that you are mean and everyone knows it." That hurt my feelings so I sat on her face at two in the morning.

10. Flowers I like flowers. I like to jump on the table, put my front paws on the vase and sniff them. Usually at this point the vase falls over, which makes it really easy for me to lap up some water off the table before it gets on the carpet. Then I usually rub against the flowers, making a beautiful petal arrangement all over the house.

Karen no longer buys fresh flowers. She's doing this to spite me I think.

Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving. Next week we'll be on the road to Christmas and I have much in store for you then.

Go 'Stros

Rush Limbaugh at Studio 54

The news right now is very boring. I am tired of HillBilly, Barack or Barry, or whoever.

But I caught this story right out of jolly old London and I totally think it's great:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/politics/threelinewhip/june2008/borisalcoholban.htm

Evidently, up until the beginning of this month it was perfectly OK to drink in the London subway. I was not aware of this. Although I've never been to London, I can't imagine that it would be a good idea to drink openly on public transportation.

Maybe that's just my puritanical American side coming out, I don't know.

Anyway, some Londoners, celebrating the "last days of disco" and posting it on YouTube, made the public transportation a real adventure. Some of the footage is put to Abba's "Dancing Queen" and some of the footage is just raw.


In the background of some of the footage you can hear drunken Londoners shouting "Boris is a wanker". (Boris Johnson is the mayor of London).

That's classy.

I wonder what Bridget Jones would say about this?

Anyway, so if you were planning a trip abroad this summer, just remember, leave you liquor back at the hotel, as you can't consume in the tunnel.

Sex and the City . . . Not So Much???

I read somewhere that the Sex and the City Movie, which was the number one grossing movie its premiere weekend, has an audience of 85 percent women.

Why is this surprising?

What surprises me is how passionately men feel about:

a. Not seeing this movie

b. Sarah Jessica Parker being positively unattractive

Actually, I get A. It was a television show geared to women; why would the movie be any different? Karen, who saw all of two episodes during the entire run of the series, isn't planning on seeing the movie because she never identified with the characters.

"It's like the seventies came back and bought expensive shoes," Karen pointed out, regarding the promiscuity.

Operation Rush Limbaugh
OK, I'm working on the email.

Does anyone have Mr. Limbaugh's address?

When it's finished I'll be sure to let you see it.

Enough about other people who really don't matter-- I want to talk about me

Karen is almost done with the house-- finally.

This has been very uncomfortable for me, by the way. First of all, she's packed up a lot of our stuff. Second, she keeps moving the cat box around the house, so it doesn't "mess up" the part of the house she considers "finished". So basically, when I have to go, I have to hunt down the box. Since the carpet guy is coming Saturday morning, she decided that Sadie and I needed to stay at her parent's house.

I am so put out.

So here I am like a refugee in the home of Karen's parents-- indefinitely. Karen will come and visit half of the time.

"So who will feed us?" I demanded from her before we left. "Who will take care of the box? Who will clean up the Sadie vomit?"

Karen promised her mom would feed us regularly. She also promised to see me at least every day or two and promised that she would clean the box and any vomit that may occur.

On the bright side, Karen's parent's house is four times the size of our old home. They also have lots of places to sunbathe and their bed is set up in a way so that when I crawl under it, Karen can't drag me out easily.

Karen told me that she expected me to "be nice and helpful" during my time visiting. This is obsurd, obviously. First of all, I've never been "nice" at Karen's parent's house. Why should I "be nice" now? It would confuse them. Furthermore, Karen's parents don't want my help any more than I'm willing to offer it. They should be greatful that I'm honoring them with my presence. I'm sure their life will be much more enlightened now that I'm staying with them.

A Request from Karen
Several months ago, Karen read about a saint you were supposed to bury in the yard for good luck when selling the house. Which saint was it? Where can she get one?

Norwegian Terrorists

Dudes, is this not exciting or what???

The next leader of the free world might be determined by TEXANS.

That's right, Iowans. The power is back to the people.

Anyway, I am a cat and it seems I am not allowed to vote (bastard Americans, so closed minded). Regardless, I have some opinions and I feel a need to express them.

Who Do You Want to Take that Three A.M. Phone Call???

Let's start with the obvious: if you were married to Bill "depends on your definition of is" Clinton, your phone might be ringing a little more often in the middle of the night, too. Think about it. You're the new leader of the free world and a total eager beaver, ready for anything. Low and behold the red phone rings at three am.

"Hello?"

"Hi, this is Crystal from Scores. Bill left his wallet at the club. Just tell him to call my cell."

Don't get me wrong, I don't have any serious bones against the better half of HillBilly. I'm just saying that the commercial is a little dramatic and I immediately went to thoughts of former President Clinton receiving "top secret" phone calls regarding "serious security issues" pretty frequently, if you know what I mean.

Although the question is provoking: who do you want to answer that super important top secret phone call at three in the morning?

I can tell who shouldn't have this job: Karen.

Sadie and I, again, are cats. Sometimes, after a long day of sleeping, we like to let loose in the evening, or sometime after midnight. We eat, drink, socialize. Sometimes we have guests who just appear in the backyard, ready for some partying as well. Occasionally, things get a little wild and Sadie starts hissing and freaking at our backyard guests, and sometimes something like the garbage can in the kitchen gets knocked over. Karen has no patience for the commotion and starts freaking out.

That isn't particularly "presidential" behavior after all.

Now consider this: the President of France is calling to inform Karen, leader of the free world in this scenario, that his country has been invaded by a bunch of Norwegian terrorists. As we all know, Nordic terrorists are not going to invade during the middle of the afternoon. So as the French are sleeping (or taking a cigarette break) those crazy Nordes come in, bringing with them legalized drugs, but no weapons, as again, these are northern Europeans and not Texans.

And President Karen gets the call right smack dab in the middle of the night.

It would not be an attractive conversation. Karen is very mean spirited when you interrupt her sleep. She'd make a nasty comment, regarding World War II and "speaking German", if you know what I mean.

And now, we have an international incident, involving the French, Norwegian terrorists, possibly some hallucinogenics, and President Karen throwing out sixty- year- old war bitterness.

What a wholly mess.

Anyway . . .

Did you know that in Texas, the infamous exit level English/ Language Arts test was delayed a day so that schools, frequent polling places, wouldn't have to deal with both the dramatics of testing and crazy freakin' voters.

Anyway, wish the children good luck tomorrow. We want them to pass their exit test, graduate from high school, go to college and get good jobs because, not surprisingly, I'm not supporting them.

Go 'Stros.

Naked Garage Ladies and Hillary Clinton

What can I say today?

Actually, I don't have much to say at all. Life has been kind of boring this week.

I noticed the other day two of our neighbors have large posters of naked ladies in their garages. I thought this was interesting, so I asked Karen to go and take some pictures for me to share with you guys. And she refused.

"I am not going to sneak into anyone's garage to take pictures of a poster of a naked woman so you can post them on the internet," she told me. "My neighbors might be redneck misogynists, but that's an invasion of their privacy.

"Besides, one in three homeowners in Texas are gun owners."

There is no way anyone on our street even knows what "misogynists" means. They just don't. Furthermore, from what I gather with the garages used as living rooms, I don't think anyone is too worried about privacy.

As far as the guns go, well, that's just a part of life. Karen should be willing to take a bullet for the blog.

Don't you think?

Chicken

So because Karen is such a freakin' girl, I can't show you the naked garage women in all of their coolness.

Anyway . . .

Both Barack and Hillary are in Texas this week. I'm excited about this because it's been a long freakin time since Texas actually mattered in the primaries. This is ridiculous, by the way. It makes absolutely no sense that stupid freakin' Iowa gets to go first. What the crap do they contribute? Besides, it's cold there.

I was thinking that I should interview both of these characters for my glorious readers. So I asked Karen if she would schedule them for interviews at the house. I was willing to offer them a lunch which Karen would prepare before she left for work.

Karen refused to help me with this as well.

"I don't personally know either Senator Obama or Senator Clinton," she told me. "Besides, I don't want Bill Clinton in my house. He creeps me out."

I didn't invite Bill Clinton. He can hang out in the neighbors' garages for all I care.

I have got to get a better staff.

Anyway, I need your help. Could you please call Senator Obama and Senator Clinton for me? Tell them to shoot me an email and I'd be more than happy to schedule them into my busy day.

I'm pooped out. Get those calls made. The Senators I'm sure will be very interested in spending an afternoon with me, as I am an incredibly relevant cat.

But not that long of an afternoon. Remember I sleep eighteen hours a day.

Cat Fights

Karen has been after me to write about Michael Vick for weeks.

Initially, I told her no. What do I care if some dude in Atlanta wants to fight dogs? Dogs are generally stupid, hence fighting for no apparent reason, other than being directed to do so. As far as I'm concerned, the whole thing reeks of Darwin.

Karen then asked me what if people started fighting cats. Would I expect to be protected then?

As we all know, that's just ridiculous. Cats don't do things because a member of human kind suggests it. Have you ever asked at cat to do anything? We pretty much just sit there and look at you with great contempt.

I thought about situations in which I could be persuaded to fight. Perhaps if Mr. Vick wanted to give me a cut in the money he made, I might consider fighting professionally. I definitely wouldn't fight for free. And he'd have to work around my schedule, too. I don't see myself fighting more than once a week, tops (I have a life, you know). I'd also expect a private dressing room with a chenille couch and lots of bottled water and tuna.

Does anybody else see the entire situation as completely absurd? Vick, in a horrifically overpaid profession, is having to moonlight as the kingpin of a dog fighting ring?

And on other issues:

I was watching Face the Nation this morning with Karen and almost came out of my skin. Hillary Clinton used the phrase "Cowboy Diplomacy". That's mine. I've used it all over the place. I think I should sue. Or she should at least hire me as a speech writer. Whatever. I could email her stuff when I felt like writing. Anyway, if you know Senator Clinton, tell her she needs to call me so we can work this out.

Geez, the absurdity of all of this is making me tired. I'm off to take a nap.