Oreo - and two particularly revelant comic strips for your visual pleasure.

If I may indulge myself for a moment, a Keats poem - about cats:
Cat! Who hast past thy Grand Climacteric, How many mice and Rats hast in thy days Destroy'd - how many tit bits stolen? Gaze With those bright languid segments green and prick Those velvet ears - but pr'ythee do not stick Thy latent talons in me - and upraise Thy gentle mew - and tell me all thy frays Of Fish and Mice, and Rats and tender chick. Nay look not down, nor lick thy dainty wrists - For all the wheezy Asthma, -and for all Thy tail's tip is nicked off - and though the fists Of many a maid have given thee many a maul, Still is that fur as soft as when the lists In youth thou enter'dst on glass- bottled wall.

Granted, this poem does not go into the Keatsian canon as one of the greatest of all time and is in fact an epistolary poem, not meant for general consumption. That said, I chose it because the cat in this poem is the perfect example of the rough-n-tumble, scrappy, lovable, mysterious, capricious, creature I'm spending a moment on: Oreo.

She was J's cat for ten or eleven years, and since we have married had spent her time lazing with my in-laws. She was black ("black like a thousand midnights black," if we must have a Reno moment) and - well, not sleek, but more to love, right? She had a purr like a subwoofer, claws that kneaded everything within range, and preferred to sleep propped up against one of her peoples. She was omnipresent in the bathroom for showers, toothbrushing, and anything that involved the bathroom heater being on. (One time, I mistook her for a doorstop, and accidentally opened the door into her several times before realizing. She never complained).

Sadly, Oreo passed away today. And I wanted to take a moment and honor her on the blog as a great example of catness, and as one more reminder that a) a lot of the times animals are better than most people, and b) sometimes I think they exist to teach us the compassion, humor, and mercy we might not learn otherwise.

You were awesome, Oreo. May the Great Kitty Beyond be full of many bathroom heaters, concrete floors to roll on, and all the treats you can handle.

* * * * *

Now, on a lighter note, here is a comic strip I have discovered of late called Piled Higher and Deeper - a strip that chronicles the life of Ph.D. candidates and grad students as they claw their way to their degree. I present two for your perusal, as they represent, with no exaggeration, two experiences I have actually had:

The above strip is not even a joke. Seriously. I have vivid memories of waiting literally for hours outside office doors for one stupid signature.


The comic above is a brief summation of my entire thesis experience.


And you know what? I have more to say about school, and academics, and the Pre-Raphaelites and incest, but I'll save it for now.

Bye, kiddies.