Rachel E. Watson: Search results for Cat

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Jaguar the Magnificent reposes in all of her glorious well-being and badassitude.

I admit it. I'm a crazy cat lady. I'm also not a parent. But I do love children, especially my nieces and nephews. And I love my two kitties.

So, if you clicked through this headline hoping to be offended and voice it, go back to your Newsfeed or to the search engine from whence you came. This post is not for you.

This post is for all of my fellow sillies — blessed as parents or otherwise — especially my fellow good-humored cat- or pet-owners.

(Nancy) Sinatra perches atop our record collection. It's a good thing she isn't a kid.

10 Things People Say of Children That Also Are True of Cats:

1. I don't buy him/her all those toys you see all over the floor. It's the grandparents' doing.

2. Every time I clean up vomit, excrement or urine off the floors and/or walls, I have to remind myself, "I love him/her. I am doing this because I love him/her."

3. Kids/cats today are so spoiled. When I was a kid, we didn't have all this technology. Kids/cats weren't constantly being praised, talked up and/or plastered all over the Internet like celebrities. When I was a kid, children/cats were supposed to be seen and not heard. This world's going to the dogs! (Or is it the cats?!?)

4. I can't figure out why s/he is crying/whining. All the basic necessities are in place. WHAT IS WRONG?!?! WHY CAN'T I FIX IT?!?!?

5. I worry whenever they go outside. Will they get lost? Or worse?

6. Every kid/cat has a different personality. Just when I think I have my parenting/ownership tactics down, there's something new to learn. ¡Ay, caramba!

7. You shouldn't let the kid/cat eat your poinsettia plants. In fact, you probably shouldn't buy poinsettias. (I know! Sniff, sniff!)

8. If things are getting too quiet, you might want to check to see what they're up to. Hopefully they aren't eating tape or chewing on electrical cords.

9. Kid/cat-free vacations, if you can get them, are the best. For once, I'll actually get some sleep instead of being awakened at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 a.m. — or all of the above — for feedings and/or no reason at all.

10. The best reason to be awakened in the middle of the night is to soothe an anxious heart. We cat owners/parents are so lucky we get to share our calming-the-amygdala tactics with the less fortunate, the least of these, the little ones.

Hope you have a great Friday! Enjoy your pets and/or kids today!

Read more of my cat-related or kid-related blog posts.

Dear friends and readers,

Today is my birthday; I have officially entered the last year of my 20s.

Well, depending on who you ask. Because I know people who say -- and I tend to agree with them -- that you are always technically at least a year older than your numeric age.

This is because you spend nine months gestating and a full year post-partum before you are given the numeric age of "1 year old."

So I'm either 29 or 30 and nine months. Let that simmer in your stew pot.

Anyway, I'm feeling very grateful this weekend. For all of you readers. For my husband and family. For my little cat and my big cat. For my house, neighborhood, town, state, country and world. For my dear friends, all of whom are very creative and intelligent people.

I am so blessed to "know" you all. Some of you I haven't met officially, but you're faithful readers and that matters to me a great deal.

Thank you.

Thank you for being a part of my full, rich life. I cannot tell you how pleased I am to be your writer friend.

For some of you, I might be the only person you know who is a writer.

For others, I am just one among dozens or hundreds of committed writer friends.

Either way, I want you to know I am both serious and light-hearted about my job, and I will share that with you in every blog post.

Serious: I understand that being a writer is a complex, demanding and rewarding job, full of opportunities to build others up or tear them down. I want to choose life and compassion as my default pattern rather than criticism and destruction. You may hold me accountable to that.

Light-hearted: I continually reach for laughter as my favorite practice. It helps me experience joy. It helps me heal.

I try not to take myself too seriously, and I'd be tickled if you wouldn't take me too seriously, either.

I'm a playful person. I like to have a good time. I like to make people laugh.

I am often silly when I hang out with my closest confidantes. I bwa-ha-ha and guffaw just as much as the next person.

I adore improv and comedy writing. Some of my favorite people -- famous and less-famous -- employ humor, parody and satire to convey the truth as they experience it. Jon Stewart, Steve Martin, Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, Amy Sherman-Palladino, Mindy Kaling, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Stella Gibbons, Bill Bryson, Conan O'Brien, Jimmy Fallon, Sharon Garlough Brown, Lorilee Craker, Susie Finkbeiner, Michael Karpus, Adam Forrest, Pam Elmore, Rickey Ainsworth, Matthew Jensen, Mark Lago, the list goes from outstanding, famous celebrities to local writers to incredible friends who likely would describe themselves as "regular people."

But are they just regular people? They aren't to me. You aren't to me. You are special. Creative. Endearing.

Thank you for being a blog reader o' mine. I owe ya a cold beer and a big hug.

Rachel E. Watson

I've been waiting excitedly all week to share these poems with you, readers, and tell you just why they mean so much to me.

They were introduced to me in various literature classes in college — the place I learned to truly appreciate poetry. Before that, I'd read bits of poetry here and there, but the discussions on a higher level in college, with professors adept at literary criticism, opened a new world of words to me.

Without further ado, here are the three short poems I love:

Is there anything more melancholy and beautiful than fog? (Photo: Free images)

"Fog," by Carl Sandburg, 1916

The fog comes

on little cat feet.

It sits looking

over harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then moves on.

I love the metaphor of fog being like a cat, coming to observe. It's in the city, but not really of the city. It springs up seemingly out of nowhere. It makes no sound and can scarcely be felt. But its presence is by turns eerie, soothing, mysterious, aloof or comforting.

Cats are just like that. They steal your heart and win your cautious respect.

"So sweet and so cold." (Photo: Free images)

"This Is Just To Say," by William Carlos Williams, 1934

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

This poem is written like an apology note on the kitchen counter. It tickles my funny bone. It makes me think of how sometimes, the food being saved for a special occasion — whatever it may be — is more tempting than the food that's freely available. We're all human; we all feel the pull of forbidden fruit.

Reading this poem made you hungry for plums, didn't it? You weren't even thinking about them until I shared this, were you?

The innocence of a child. (Photo: Free images)

My Papa's Waltz, by Theodore Roethke, 1942

The whiskey on your breath

Could make a small boy dizzy;

But I hung on like death:

Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans

Slid from the kitchen shelf;

My mother’s countenance

Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist

Was battered on one knuckle;

At every step you missed

My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head

With a palm caked hard by dirt,

Then waltzed me off to bed

Still clinging to your shirt.

This poem, admittedly, is very bittersweet. I remember being disappointed and angry after I first read it — angry that the poet would celebrate drunkenness in verse. Alcoholism isn't something to laud, my college self said.

But eventually, I peeled back the layers and found beauty underneath. The more I've thought about it over the years, the more I have come to realize Roethke did what artists the world over strive to do: Make something honest and beautiful out of something broken.

The poem illustrates that troubled people show love in troubling ways. It's love that's as imperfect as love always will be this side of heaven.

I haven't read much about Roethke beyond his Wikipedia page, but I'm willing to bet the poem is autobiographical. I'm thankful he took his pain and spun a refrain. (Ha! See, I'm a poet, too. ;)

Share your favorite poem

Can you think of a poem that has affected you deeply? I'd love to hear about it. Leave me a comment here or over at my Facebook Community page.

I Am a Tree

By Rachel E. Watson

I am a cat, graceful and fluid.

I am a cow, sagging and old.

I am a dog, facing the ground,

hinged in the middle, hung by my limbs.

I am a cobra, cunning and low.

I am a gumby, dangling and free.

I am a cross, I am a prayer,

I am a swan, diving with flare.

I am a monkey, with a flat back.

I am a gumby, rinse and repeat.

I am unleashing my animal heat.

I am a warrior sparing the room

my judgment, my glance,

and my weapon of choice:

the seething sound of my voice.

I am a triangle, tinkling with sweat,

I am a pyramid, poised and pointed.

I am a half-moon dancer,

held up by toenails

pinned to the sky.

I am a tree, strong and tall,

quivering with life, passion

and not quite ready to fall.

I am a dancer, a sideways prancer.

I am a monolith, an unmovable mountain.

I am sinking to the floor,

rooted by my sit bones,

resting on the ground.

I am a pretzel,

bending and twisting,

releasing all tension.

I am a corpse.

I am asleep.

I am at peace.

While live streaming my church’s sermon in our living room this morning — yes, that’s right, we didn’t make it to church, tsk, tsk — I found myself having a hard time concentrating on the pastor’s words of wisdom. Why? I was fixated on the accumulated dust and cat hair underneath the arm chair across the room.

After the sermon was over, I got out the broom and dustpan and went to work.

This incident struck me as funny. Here I was, on my hands and knees, still wearing my bathrobe, scraping out months worth of dirt from underneath the chair. Then, suddenly it seemed very profound.

What if we are blocked from fully hearing and absorbing God’s truth if there’s accumulated “dirt” in our lives? If there’s sin we are intentionally harboring or ignoring, does that make it harder for us to hear and be changed by good teaching?

Or, on the other hand, what if hearing good teaching is what illuminates the dust under the sofa?

I think it can go both ways.

Recently, I went through a period of intense self-focus. My eyes were trained on needs that weren't being met how I thought they should be, and I was ignoring little blessings that otherwise would have jumped out at me. Like how God was providing for me. How I had so much to be grateful for. I was also ignoring truths I was hearing that could have helped me course-correct.

Through the teaching of the Word and through the counsel of wise people God sent my way, I started seeing that dirt under my sofa. He shone a brilliant light on it, and he gave me a broom to sweep it away.

I pray for the light to always shine on the dirt in my life. I pray I will stay willing to be made new. I pray to be restored like a freshly polished floor.

On Sunday, my dear husband spent a chunk of his rare weekend down time making me a CD of our favorite Beach Boys songs.

My husband made me this CD. (Photo: Rachel E. Watson)

I started reflecting on which songs of theirs we love, and my mind traveled back to one of our most special moments together as a couple.

We were invited to celebrate his grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary with the whole extended Forrest family at Bil-Mar, a beachside restaurant in Grand Haven, in December 2011. We savored each minute in the car on the drive there, watching the sunset over Lake Michigan. At the time I snapped the photo below, the song "Little Saint Nick" was playing, right before we went inside to join the family for dinner.

Sunset in Grand Haven, December 2011. (Photo: Rachel E. Watson)

Little did I know that, at the time, Adam was saving up for an engagement ring, and exactly one year later, on his grandparents' 51st anniversary, we'd be getting married.

The song "Little Saint Nick" isn't by any stretch of the imagination a love song, but it will always remind me of that special memory with Adam during Christmastime 2011.

"Little Saint Nick"

Oooooooo

Merry Christmas Saint Nick

Christmas comes this time each year

Oooooooo oooooooo

Well, way up north where the air gets cold

There's a tale about Christmas that you've all been told

And a real famous cat all dressed up in red

And he spends the whole year workin' out on his sled

It's the little Saint Nick

Ooooo, little Saint Nick

It's the little Saint Nick

Ooooo, little Saint Nick

Just a little bobsled we call it old Saint Nick

But she'll walk a toboggan with a four speed stick

She's candy-apple red with a ski for a wheel

And when Santa hits the gas, man, just watch her peel

It's the little Saint Nick

Ooooo, little Saint Nick

It's the little Saint Nick

Ooooo, little Saint Nick

Run run reindeer

Whoaa

Run run reindeer

He don't miss no one

And haulin' through the snow at a frightenin' speed

With a half a dozen deer with Rudy to lead

He's gotta wear his goggles 'cause the snow really flies

And he's cruisin' every pad with a little surprise

It's the little Saint Nick

Ooooo, little Saint Nick

It's the little Saint Nick

Ooooo, little Saint Nick

Read more posts in the Groovy Tuesday series here.

Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike star in "Gone Girl."

Last weekend, my dear husband and I went to see the box office hit "Gone Girl."

The movie is based on the bestselling novel by author Gillian Flynn, who also wrote the film's screenplay. It's directed by David Fincher — who's responsible for "Fight Club" and, more recently, "The Social Network" and "House of Cards." The cast includes Ben Affleck as Nick Dunne and Rosamund Pike as his wife, Amy Dunne.

Nick gets called home from work one day by a neighbor who says the Dunnes' cat has escaped the house and is hanging out in the driveway. When Nick goes home, he discovers signs of a struggle, and his wife is nowhere to be found. A police investigation and media frenzy ensues, and we're given a tour of the Dunnes' formerly happy five-year marriage via Amy's journal entries read in voiceover.

Before watching the movie, I read a couple of reviews for my job that described it as a psycho-satire and suburban noir.

I think both of those descriptors are apt, the former because main character Nick is no Liam Neeson straight-man/hero, and the latter because this is not your typical tidy missing-wife drama. None of the characters are truly likable, not even the ones we root for.

All of that aside, there's one thing that's been sticking with me since my husband and I discussed the movie.

He said that while he thought the story was gripping and engrossing, he didn't think it said anything about real life, and that's ultimately why he wouldn't give it five stars.

I've been thinking a lot about that. While I agree the psychotic plot twists don't come close to mirroring anything in our life, I think the film does comment on reality.

Marriage is a character in this movie, and so is the media. The protagonists are shaped and changed by both, just as we all are in reality.

Nick and Amy Dunne's relationship plays out in an extreme way, but it is an example of unchecked human dysfunction and psychoses. We can find similar examples in history or even in present-day reality.

I just hope I don't have to run into any of them. ;)

Share your perspective

If you've seen the movie — and please, no spoilers for those who haven't — I'd like to hear if it speaks to you about real life. Leave me a comment here or over at my Facebook page.

Read more posts in the Fine Art Friday series here.

Rachel E. Watson

"Fog," by Carl Sandburg, 1916

"This Is Just To Say," by William Carlos Williams, 1934

My Papa's Waltz, by Theodore Roethke, 1942

Share your favorite poem

"Little Saint Nick"

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