Just got home from my weekly cello lesson.

My teacher told me to stop moving around so much when I play.

Valentine’s Day is big at Feral Living, as you can tell. Not only do we have a Feral Limerick contest (winners to be announced later today): we have also conducted the following research for your amusement.

In short, the study tests a hypothesis put forward by Dr. Sheila in a recent AIM conversation that men respond more to visual cues while women respond more to voice and tactile cues.

Test one: male response to visual stimuli
Subject: 42 year-old male.
Location: UN entrance gate in Vienna.
Subject approaches gate in embassy vehicle. Holds identification badge to window, expecting wizened male guard who is usually at that gate to emerge from guardhouse, view badge and activate gate mechanism to admit vehicle.
Instead, The Pretty Guard emerges from guardhouse! And, whoa! She’s added blonde highlights to her black hair! Looks good!
Subject’s reaction: fumbles, drops identification badge. In process of recovering badge, stalls vehicle, greatly amusing The Pretty Guard.
Conclusion: strong male response to visual stimuli.

Test two:
Subject: Alpha
Location: Miguel’s house.
Subject given Valentine’s Day gifts of flowers, fancy sunglasses and a letter which among other things explains why the sunglasses are appropriate (thanks Michele). Tactile stimuli: flowers, letter, designer accessories. Voice: both voice of researcher going “blah blah Givenchy sunglasses blah blah” and voice in written form in the letter.
Subject’s reaction: positive, happy, and friendly.
Conclusion: inconclusive, although significant female response to tactile and voice stimuli. Further research required.

Test three:
Subject: same
Location: same
Researcher: “you’ll have to wear those next time we have sex.”
Subject: [modeling sunglasses with big smile on face] “who knows if I’ll still like them 5 years from now.”
Conclusion: inconclusive. Further research necessary.

A new study by the Institute of Applied Chaos at Feral Living University concludes that 9 out of 10 household accidents involving men named Miguel falling down the stairs in the dark on their way to the kitchen to make coffee before 6 in the morning are caused by cats.

“We decided to investigate the thought processes of cats,” says Professor Miguel Living, “And discovered some pretty astounding things.”

Using the latest technology, Prof. Living, (walking with a slight limp) was able to record the thoughts of a housecat.

“While we have so far recorded the thoughts of only one cat, we have no reason to believe that the conclusions we can draw from these transcripts shouldn’t apply to cats in general,” Prof. Living says.

The subject in question is a young, male, red, tiger-striped housecat, uncastrated although that is going to change this coming Friday. Here is a short excerpt:

Okay! Who get up first? Kid easy to wake up, shoot, door closed and I not figure out door lever yet. Must wake the big ones. Ack, woman sound asleep, no response. Feh. Let’s give the man a little acupuncture. But first a quick little detour into the closet to climb a suit or two and sharpen claws… Ahh. Yes. Okay, onto bed. Whoa, there’s the alarm, man get up whoa nellie, hang on. Where he going, not so fast, must lick toes, hey dude, he put on socks, dang. Hang on, feet. Feet! Feets feets. Cuddling feet. Man like this. Feets. Me wrap around feets. Left foot, right foot. Hey, you carrying food? That food you carrying? Maybe a small child? Don’t hog the baby, man. Give me some. Heh. This great. God. Move it, man, we’re almost to the stairs! Oooh, feet on stairs. Feet, stairs, feet, stairs. Must show deference. I can climb his suits when he’s at work, not to mention pee on his stuff. Feet, in between feet. This is it. Feet, feet, feet. Must get as close as possible…

Plain People of Ireland: “Eh, the gag started out funny, but hrm… That sounds more like the way a dog would think. A cat would be more like, ‘Heh. Haven’t made old Mig fall down the stairs in ages, and we have a pool on. Don’t want to hurt him so bad he can’t open a can of food, of course…’ or something like that…”

Melly had a cute little baby.

I see the Archdiocese of Atlanta, at #230, currently has Feral Living (in place#232) beat in a yahoo search for shoe rubbing stories. This post should fix that. Take that, Archdiocese of Atlanta.

Holiday gift-shopping primer from Michele.

Attention all poets. The First Annual Feral Living Valentine’s Day Limerick Contest has just opened. Leave your entries (original limericks) in the comments. No extra points for using the word “urologist”.

Winners to be announced on the 14th.