Fri., March 30, 42 A.B.
When I went to bed last night, I had big plans for today. BIG plans. I mean, I really felt like I'd built up some momentum over the last few days - you know? So as my head hit my pillow last night, I naturally thought, "Tomorrow - tomorrow's the day to dream BIG. Tomorrow I shall wear something purple!"
Alas, it was not to be. Instead of finding and donning something purple, or plum, or even reddish-blue, I spent much of the day trying to talk sense to my cat. As usual, it was a complete waste of time - but how was I supposed to know that before I'd given it my best shot yet again?
It all started when I went to let Jester out of his room this morning and he immediately rubbed excitedly up against my leg as if to say that Toby Wing had died. Afraid that I was somehow missing his point, he quickly jumped up on the kitchen counter and purred, "Toby Wing has died!"
Ugh. I really, really hate it when others take pleasure in the death of another creature, and I was in no mood to make an exception for Jester merely because he happened to be my cat. Even if I had wanted to make an exception, I simply didn't have time. I had a date with purple attire, after all, and I wasn't going to be the one who was late.
Ha.
"You gotta make the call! You gotta contact the lawyers and tell the world! You gotta dial now, damn it! NOW! Before someone else claims what's rightfully MINE!!"
I'd forgotten just how insistent cats can be when they want something. And incredibly enough, I'd forgotten that Jester had been wanting this particular something most of all ever since we'd gotten drunk together back in November of 1999 and he'd utterly bared his soul to me - well, save for a strategically placed fig leaf.
"YOU GOTTA CALL! NOW!!!!!!!!!"
Perhaps a bit of background is in order. Guess I may as well provide it. What the hell. It's way too late to start looking for anything purple now anyway....
Toby Wing was one of the biggest, sauciest sex symbols of the 1930s - the original Goldwyn Girl who first hit the screen in 1931 with Palmy Days, then spent much of the next decade entrancing American males of all genders with her platinum-blond hair and lithe figure. Although she never won an Oscar, that's probably only because voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences were never able to view her breath-taking performances in the countless wet dreams churned out nightly by independent producers from Maine to San Diego and around the world.
I'm not sure how Jester ever heard of her, but he too was immediately entranced by Toby when he did. Only in his case, it had nothing to do with her appearance or ability to slip between the sheets of a million beds a night and everything to do with her tag line: "The Girl With A Face Like The Morning Sun."
Jester, you see, thought that if any living creature on earth had a face like the morning sun, it was him. He swears he knew it from the moment he first saw the light of day, and then knew it for sure when he heard the phrase applied to Toby. The fact that she had managed to unfairly cop it some 60 years before he was born proved to him that there's simply no justice.
"But now that's she's dead, it's not like she's gonna miss it! No one's probably even thought it to apply it to her for the last 20 or 30 years, so maybe we can get it while it's still in its storage case! CALL! CALL!!!!"
So: Instead of spending the day as I had planned, I ended up having to convince my cat how distasteful, impractical, and quite possibly insane his request for me to call and secure the rights to a certain tag line really was.
"But look! Just LOOK at these two almost identical photos - ok? OK?? Now tell me honestly - which gorgeous hunk of flesh really has the face like the morning sun???"
So, I told him. And then I told him again. And then I told him AGAIN.
And that's pretty much how I spent my day - trying to talk sense to my very delusional cat.
And having very little success at all.
Ahhh, dear Toby - did you ever have days like this?
If so, how did you ever manage to hang on for 85 years??
*Sigh*
(© In The Moment by Zen Master DJ
with one clapping hand tied behind his back)
POSTSCRIPT: As it turns out, today has a happy ending after all. Seems I actually DID manage to wear purple, in a way - if only by accident. I'm too excited to explain it very well right now - I'm almost too excited to type at all! - but here's the best I can do. Until just a few moments ago I didn't realize that "solferino" was the name of a type of purple. And then, once I realized that, I suddenly remembered that my dentist once told me that I have a solferino-ish bicuspid. Or maybe a gridelin-tinged molar or two. The important thing to keep in mind is that both "solferino" AND "gridelin" are types of purple - and teeth might loosely be said to be "worn" (especially when one is talking about teeth as old as mine). So: In a very real sense, I did wear something purple today after all!
Gee.... No wonder I feel so beat. I was unconsciously making a long-time dream come true!
It's amazing how everything just seems to fall into place sometimes, isn't it?
