Sunday, November 19, 2006

I never thought I'd eat cake

...in a ballroom, but it actually happened on Thursday at the welcoming reception for Robert Currie, Saskatchewan's new Poet Laureate. I stood within feet of the cake table and I caught an occasional glimpse of the lovely trays of cake as I chatted away with people, but I never did reach the table. H loaded his plate with cake a few times, the icing of each square licked by the chandelier. He gave me a few of his squares. Very few.

The event was impressive. After the official ceremony and before the ballroom and the cake, Tracy Hamon gave H and I a quick tour of the second floor of Government House. Tracy can now be heard over at AuthorsAloud. What a great site.

On our way to Regina for the reception I saw a culvert that I just had to photograph, so there I was standing in the ditch, clad in a skirt, waving on the traffic that had slowed down to gawk. As I was shooting, a huge cat started across the ice, meowing all the way.


We took off before the cat got too close. I spent the rest of the trip shining my shoes and picking weeds out of my tights.

24 comments:

Ariel Gordon said...

Is that a lynx? Or, perhaps, a bobcat? Or is it a catamount?

Brenda Schmidt said...

Well, it answered to "here kitty kitty" by meowing loudly and running at us. It looked like it could swallow me whole, so after I recovered from cataplexy I jumped in the car and we sped away. It didn't CATch us.

Ariel Gordon said...

I would have been reduced to catatonia in your place...

Brenda Schmidt said...

That would've been catastrophic.

Tracy Hamon said...

Thanks B.

Better a small critter than a herd o' cattle.

Brenda Schmidt said...

Yep, nothing like a herd o' cattle to bring out the inner coward. Best to steer clear of them.

Brenda Schmidt said...

Mind you, not all small critters are better than a herd o' cattle. Remember, with a herd o' cattle there's all sorts of scatophagous bugs...

Ariel Gordon said...

But think! You could have fed the herd o' cattle the weeds in your tights!

(Did you really run away from a housecat?)

Anonymous said...

Ya'll sound like a bunch of fraidy-cats to me.

Brenda Schmidt said...

Ariel, I'm not suggesting that's a scatterbrained idea, BUT have you ever been licked by a cow? A cow's tongue would snag my tights and leave unsightly slobber marks.

Rhett, had you seen the cat, you wouldn't be so quick to categorize us. I was way less afraid when I was charged by a bear. It's never a good idea to stand between a house cat and its bag of treats.

GM said...

I'd just like to point out that it's not too many poets' blogs you can happen upon that reference the mechanical challenges of feeding cows from a pair of occupied tights.

I love it when this blog becomes the equivalent of an erudite poetry professor-cum-crazy-cat-lady monologue.

Anonymous said...

Smaller critters than cats can cause excitement while feeding cows !!!

Brenda Schmidt said...

Just for the record, there is only one cat in this house.

Ha! Very funny. Anonymous is referring to the time a mouse ran up my pant leg while we were feeding cows. It was the middle of winter, but, as witnessed by Anonymous, I had those pants off in world record time.

Anonymous said...

I won't try to add my own funnies - the rest of you are doing such a fine job. I just love the snap, B.

Ariel Gordon said...

Isn't it the sartorial challenges of feeding cows from a pair of occupied tights?

Anonymous said...

Are you saying that you would have rather been cruising on a catamaran in Kathmandu than carousing with the cataclysmic cat?

GM said...

Touché, Arièl.

Anonymous said...

Too much caterwauling!

That's all I got and my best try.

Ariel Gordon said...

That's Ms. Ariel-with-an-accent-grave to you, bub!

GM said...

Mlle Arièl?

Ariel Gordon said...

Isn't a thousand Ariels sort of a horrific vision?

(I know Mlle is Mademoiselle abbreviated, but it always looked like 'mille' or thousand...)

GM said...

Millennariel?

Crafty Missus said...

these comments are so funny. i was just comming to comment on the cat. i, too have eaten cake in a ballroom, and have been know to take my seat at the cake table.
and a mouse up your pant leg, oh how i wish i had been there.

Brenda Schmidt said...

Sheesh, it's already Friday. I feel like a bad host who throws a party and then goes off to bed just when it gets going. My apologies. Some unbloggables came up.