Blog Number 238

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Tomorrow night we all pile into the minivan and head back to Indiana for vacation.  We were originally going to head out early Thanksgiving morning but I am pretty sure we will leave tomorrow afternoon (I am leaving work a little early) and then stopping somewhere in Missouri.  We will then make the balance of the drive on Thanksgiving Day.  Hopefully splitting it up this way will be worth the extra cost of the hotel.  This splitting up of the trip is for the most part due to the uncertainty that our new travel guest brings.  Gabby (our lab/spaniel puppy) will be making her first extended car trip and who knows how this will end up.  Our cat (Tiger) will probably entertain us with his one cat play titled "Gonna Meow 'Til Missouri" that he has done for us on ever trip so far.

Speaking of the cat (or as I am learning in Spanish - our "gato"), I think he is of Latin American heritage.  Like most cats, he will not come when you call him.  Very rarely (like once every other month) he will come to me (uncalled) and want to be petted and I can count on one hand the number of times he has jumped into my lap while I was sitting down on a chair.  This morning as I was sitting down in the living room and enjoying some early morning coffee with the wife, the cat was giving me one of those "You know I wouldn't hate it if you got up, came over to where I am, and petted me" looks.  He gives these to me quite often (perhaps this is just his natural look - who knows).  Anyway, I was comfortable and was not going to get up so like an idiot I began to call to him to come to me.  He flicked his tail a bit but did not move.  I then spoke to him, "Señor Gato..." and his ears perked up.  I called to him again, "Señor Gato..." and he got up (slowly mind you) and walked over to my chair, hesitated a bit and then jumped into my lap.  I was stunned to say the least.  He stayed on my lap for about 2 minutes (which is fine since it was time for a refill anyway).  Maybe learning spanish will have benefits that I am not even aware of at this time.

I will let you know how the road trip with Señor Gato (and Señorita Perro) goes.  Until next time...

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon