A Cat Mama's Plea

An occupational hazard of being a cat mama is that people give you a lot of stuff. And it all seems to have something to do with cats.

The cat coffee mug someone picked up on vacation because they "thought of me and couldn't pass it up." I have five of them.

Cat jewelry. Got the whole set.

Cat address book. Cat night light. Cat pillows.

Check. Check. Check.

From the classy to the kooky, if it's got a kitty on it, chances are I own it, possibly in multiples.

With the Christmas season looming, I seem to be getting a lot of catalogs "for the person who has everything,". I saw some cat stuff in those that even I don't own -- and don't want to. The cat mama action figure complete with cat hair and cat vomit for instance. Seriously.

So, with all due gratitude to all who have contributed to my kitty collection over the years, and to those of you who think that action figure is my perfect next birthday gift, I think it's time to say thank you but "enough."

I think I speak for cat mamas and papas everywhere (oh, ick, I just thought about that whole John/Mackenzie Phillips sickness. I can never listen to their music ever again.)

If you want to warm the cockles of a cat mama's heart, don't gift me, gift a cat, preferably one that isn't as spoiled as mine are.

Make a donation to a spay-neuter clinic or a shelter. Foster an abandoned kitten and find a home for it.

Better yet, adopt a shelter cat and become a cat parent yourself.

You'll get all this unconditional love.

And all my surplus cat stuff.

Restaurant Review: Southbound Bagel and Coffee Shop., Hattiesburg, MS

I love to eat out. I love small businesses. And I love downtown Hattiesburg. So when a restaurant opens downtown, I try my best to give it my patronage because I really do want it to succeed. But some businesses make it hard to be supportive.

Bianchi's pizzeria is one such place (good pizza, nice atmosphere, consistently crappy service).

Southbound Bagel Shop, just down the street from the pizzeria, is another. Again, cute/funky hole-in-the-wall place with atmosphere to spare -- mismatched chairs, kitschy salt and pepper shakers, thermoses and lunchboxes lined up along ledges -- the sort of place that draws a hipster crowd in on Saturdays for bagels, omelets and sandwiches.

Now dives usually build their reputation on personality and friendly customer service as much as anything on their menu, but the vibe I get from the proprietors of Southbound Bagel is they're not terribly concerned about their patrons. I expect this in France or New York, but Hattiesburg? Whither, Southern hospitality?

The first time I tried to eat at the bagel place, the waifish, vacant-eyed barista told me they were closed -- their open door, "open" sign and still-lunching customers notwithstanding.

On my second visit, the turkey and cranberry sandwich on an "everything" bagel wasn't half bad, but the same blank-faced little counter-girl forgot to charge me and I had a hard time getting her attention afterward.

Today they were bustling with lots of too cool for school types with shaggy hair, scruffy beards and thrift shop attire. I ordered the Tuscan beef sandwich on a garlic bagel. I found a table and waited and waited and waited. Until finally the waif dropped an omelet in front of me. A Tuscan beef omelet. Not a sandwich. She seemed put out (or not, hard to tell with those perpetually vacant eyes) when I sent it back. "Well, we have a beef omelet, too" she mumbled. Silly me.

A few minutes later, she did scoot a sandwich in front of me. And it was Tuscan beef. But no garlic bagel. It was on pallid bread that had been dropped onto a griddle long enough to dry it out, but not long enough to actually toast or grill it. It looked, and tasted, like Styrofoam or that stuffing that comes out of a Naugahyde sofa. I tried to eat it, but the dried out bread kept crumbling and the beef filling (though delicious) was all minced up and I was not about to neglect my mother's teachings and pick it up with my fingers in public. There were no forks. I gave up half-way through. By this time, I had been in there trying to get fed for over an hour. My stomach was growling, and my temples were pounding from the effort of trying to communicate.

I left there hungry -- and disappointed.

Because I really did want to like it.

I'm Dreaming of a Parisian Christmas

I'm toying with the idea of going to Paris for Christmas. I've never been there in the winter, and I can only imagine how beautiful the City of Light is when it is all decked out for Noel.

Of course there are a few issues I'll have to resolve here first -- find someone to take care of the cats, buy a winter coat, learn to speak French.

Every time I go to France, as enchanted as I am by the place, people and food, I am always a little embarrassed by my inadequate grasp of the language. Oh sure, I can get by. I studied French for four years in high school and college. In fact, I would venture to say I probably speak French better than most graduates of Monsieur Hebert's French II class at Biloxi High School.

Thanks to Monsieur Hebert, I can order off a menu, ask directions, introduce myself and state my age, hometown, occupation and number of children/siblings in short order (although the French don't really go in for that type of personal chit chat with strangers).

I can exclaim "Trop cher!" with proper amount of righteous indignation when le vendeur tries to charge me 80 euros for a scratched piece of silver plate at les marches aux puces.

But I can't jump into those spirited discussions en francais that are always going on in those no-longer-smoky cafes down every atmospheric alleyway in Le Quartier Latin. I can follow along pretty well, even form an opinion about what's being said. But by the time I've formulated a response, the lights are coming on and the bar tender is wiping down that amospheric zinc counter and turning those cute wicker bistro chairs onto those tiny little cafe tables.

Quel dommage!

I've thought of taking a refresher class, but they tend to focus more on grammar and syntax than actual conversation. Since I never bother with grammar and syntax in English, I'm willing to forgo them in my second language.

For conversational French, I've turned to podcasts. You'd be amazed at the sheer number and variety of the options out there.

I approach my French podcast lessons as I would a menu prix fixe at a French cafe.

For l'entree (appetizer), I start with "Coffee Break French." These basic, beginner's level sessions are tied up in neat 15-minute increments, just enough to polish off with a coffee and a cheese danish, if such were still allowed on my low-cholesterol diet. (That's something else I'm going to have to deal with over there. The French have never heard of cholesterol). Coffee Break French's ease gives me a confidence boost, imbuing me with the sense of competency I need to advance to le plat principal -- "Learn French by Podcast."

Like the French I learned in college, Learn French By Podcast's fast-paced conversational volleys are scenario-driven. However, instead of following the misadventures of those wacky gals Jeanette et Jacqueline at le supermarche , I am thrust into supposedly real-life situations, for example flirting with the cute guy walking his Lab in the park. ("Le Lab, c'est mon race preferee!" I'm supposed to coo seductively).

Or discussing wiring problems in my St. Germain de Pres flat with l'electrician. Clearly we have entered the realm of fantasy here. Even if I could afford the rents in St. Germain, the odds of getting an electrician or any contractor to show up in Paris, even in an emergency, would be just about nil, even if I spoke excellent French.

By now I'm feeling cocky, so before ordering the dessert course of my French podcast meal, I take one of those on-line competency tests to measure my clearly improved fluency. Flushed with my progress so far, I sign on for the "intermediate" level.

These tests, sadly, were not dreamed up by the benevolent Monsieur Hebert who wrote I was une tres bonne eleve in my yearbook.

No, le professeur who emails me to say, desolee, but I have not reached the intermediate level, clearly is French. I picture Madame Bessart, the imperious director of Le Cordon Bleu from the movie "Julie and Julia." Especially when she condescendingly wishes me continued success in my beginner's lessons (in perfect English as well as French).

Merde.

Oh, well, dessert wasn't on my diet anyway.

The OTHER House Where the Black Cat Lives

There are cat people, and there are dog people.

Then there are cat people who think they're dog people. Take my hairdresser, Robert.

Robert is a total guy. A Harley-driving, rock and roll blaring, "dawg"-owning kind of guy. He doesn't like cats. He'll tell you so.

So imagine my surprise about a year ago when I walked up for an appointment to find a very skinny, very hostile tortoiseshell cat guarding a bowl of milk and kibble on the salon's front porch.

"Oh, we're just feeding her until she goes back where she came from."

Last time I counted, that porch now feeds and sleeps six cats, give or take a few, all descendants of that one little tortoiseshell.

A few months after the face-off with the hostile little tortie, I was greeted at Robert's door by the sweetest, most diminutive black kitten I had ever seen. "Pee-Wee" had recently wandered onto Robert's porch. The other cats were being mean to her, so Robert decided to take her in -- until he could find a home for her.

I guess I don't have to tell you how that turned out.

By my next appointment, Princess Pee-Wee was napping in the best seat in the house, as Robert, in paparazzi mode, snapped photos for the salon's web site.

While my color set, Robert cooed as he rubbed his nose against Pee Wee's head.

Poor Pee Wee. It's a shame your daddy doesn't like cats.

For the longest time, Pee Wee remained the world's smallest (and most spoiled) black kitten. Finally, she began to grow, mostly in her mid-section.

The next time I went to the salon, there were four more identical little Pee-Wees in residence.

Robert's dog-person credentials were now seriously being called into question.

Last Saturday, two of the kittens, now about nine weeks old, left together for their new home. After saying his goodbyes, Robert looked around the now much emptier salon and shook his head.

"Man, that was hard," he said, scooping up one of the remaining kittens and cuddling it close. "Much harder than I thought it would be."

It's always the dog people who fall the hardest.